Spyke
mildlyinfuriating·Mildly Infuriatingbyu/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)

Pain of unlocking a bootloader on Xiaomi device (Redmi Note 4)

(Images are hosted on catbox.moe with a total size of 1.9MiB - your data plan will be fine)

Following Android docs, unlocking a bootloader should be as simple as enabling that option in developer settings, and issuing fastboot flashing unlock command in the bootloader.

But not all manufacturers like that.
So, here's the fuckery I went through.

Obtaining Mi Unlock tool

That one comes from here: https://en.miui.com/unlock/download_en.html
Which also links to these steps: https://new.c.mi.com/global/post/101245

First run


And we need an account.

Account creation

Since I'll need it on the phone as well, I decided to create the account from there.

I've used e-mail + password for sign-up.
There was also a confirmation e-mail sent to me, nothing special so far.

Logging into Mi Unlock - First roadblock

After entering e-mail + password, it fucks up with a blank verification page.

This was also reported by someone on XDA, with a solution to update.

Mi Unlock updaten't


I've tried both with and without a VPN, no luck. Some people reported the same issue when I searched around.

Workaround - QR code login from phone app


Of course, this needs more private data - a phone number, because why not?
And of course, it also does not fucking work.

Entering phone number in browser

This worked. But the phone app still didn't like me.

Do notice the "attempts remaining", this will be important later.

Workaround - QR code: Electric Boogaloo

The QR code actually contains a URL, so let's open it in a browser.

Well, fuck. Let's do that again.

And we are in.

Binding phone to Mi Account - More data collection

I thought the problem above (gray unlock button) was the phone not yet being "binded" to the account, so I skipped to this step.

So I inserted a SIM card, but they didn't lie. It really requires mobile data. I even tried Bluetooth network as someone else suggested.

This was a bit of a problem as I used a burner SIM with no data.
Random data eSIM on removable eUICC (9esim V3) was able to help with this.

Back to Mi Unlock - SMS rate limit


It seems there's a limit of 3 SMS codes per 24 hours outside of China.

Back the next day - Episode: Windows drivers

The Mi Unlock tool should include the USB drivers, but something's fucked up there.

Someone on XDA mentioned one of the 2 driver files can be renamed to the required filename, because let's ship a broken tool.

So I did that:
This now shown Windows installation prompt.

But why yes, it did not work.

So, I downloaded the drivers from Google, and tried following their instructions.
So that did it, right? Nah. Windows wouldn't find the driver.

The solution was following someone's Reddit comment.

Choose the option that says 'Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer', then browse to and select the file named android_winusb.inf. From there, you'll be able to choose 'Android Bootloader Interface' to install.

For comparison, on something like Arch Linux, this is a matter of extremely hard and time-consuming sudo pacman -Sy android-tools. /s

Reaching the fruit

The device is finally recognized.

And there we go.

And the final step:

View original on lemmy.sdf.org
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Comments6
mildlyinfuriating·Mildly Infuriatingbysanitation

AI Job interview warns against using AI yourself

Screenshot of a web-based AI job interview interface.

A pop-up titled "Quick note about AI usage" appears over the interview. It states that every response is checked for AI-generated content, that answers should be written from the applicant's own experience and in the applicant's own words, and that reviewers look at what a candidate did and how they did it rather than how polished the writing is. It adds that candidates who move to the next stage may be asked more about the examples given, so examples worth discussing should be chosen. A checkbox labeled "I'll answer in my own words." sits next to an OK button before the interview can continue.

Behind the dialog, the interview prompt asks for a specific example of working with others on a goal or project: what the person did to help and how everything was kept on plan, with the note that the example could come from home, work, school, a sporting team, or a community group. A tip at the bottom mentions that speech-to-text can be used to respond.

The juxtaposition of an AI-conducted interview warning against AI-generated answers is what the post highlights.

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327
Comments39
mildlyinfuriating·Mildly Infuriatingbyunmagical

Ambrook using applicants to add to their mailing list which doesn't properly link to their unsubscribe landing pages.

I applied to Ambrook several months ago. They recently decided to start a newsletter and tapped into their applicant pool for emails to add to their list without consent.

Furthermore their large "Unsubscribe" button is set to link to () while the small "Email Preferences" link is prepended with " /http" so it doesn't resolve properly.

After those 3 strikes it's hard to give them any benefit of the doubt, but at least the small "Unsubscribe" link was properly formatted.

View original on lemmy.ml
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Comments3
mildlyinfuriating·Mildly InfuriatingbyMrKaplan

'Coyote vs. Acme' rightsholders are sending illegitimate DMCA notices to cancel their own free advertising

The apparent rightsholders of the "motion picture recording of 'Coyote vs. Acme'" believe that it is in their best interest to send DMCA takedown notices to Google for free advertising of their movie.

The company "CTW Anti-Piracy 2", acting on behalf of "Altitude Film Sales" or "Altitude Film Sales 2", believe that people should not be allowed to share trailers or news articles related to the movie 'Coyote vs. Acme' and have therefore decided to send a DMCA notice to Google to remove 19 post URLs on Lemmy.World from Google search results, as this is clearly "unauthorized distribution".

I'm mostly mildly infuriated by them only sending this to Google, not to us, as I'd gladly take down any free advertising for them should they desire this, instead replacing it with posts about their malicious abuse of DMCA.

I'm obviously not going to appeal this to Google, as I neither care about Google nor am I willing to spend any time on restoring their free advertising in Google results.

Listed URLs:

Lumen notice: https://lumendatabase.org/notices/95982857

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Comments13