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In terms of using android.os.build serial as a unique identifier

  1. How/when is it generated
  2. When does it change
  3. Is it possible to manually change the value back to something that I had before
  4. Is it something that can be expected to be available across devices and operating systems
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1 Answer

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most of these properties are in /system/build.prop (or a file like that). But i believe the android.os.build.serial is actually set when the device first boots. The system gets the device serial number and adds it to the properties.

I actually found a commit in some cyanogenmod code that you can see how exactly it is set: (now this does say it is somewhat of a hack, but it is set when the device boots).

From Git:

57| sprintf(buf, "ro.serialno=%s", serial);
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So can this value be easily changed (also considering that some users may be root)? – arcyqwerty Jul 28 '12 at 1:57
no, but i guess it could be changed with a custom ROM. if the custom ROM defines how the serial is retrieved from the device differently then how it is now. – Ryan Conrad Jul 28 '12 at 12:55
I mean, given root privileges, can a user modify build.props or some other file (possibly modifying the sqlite database) to alter this value? – arcyqwerty Jul 28 '12 at 15:29
no, it comes from the hardware. – Ryan Conrad Jul 28 '12 at 16:37
Ok thanks :)... – arcyqwerty Jul 28 '12 at 19:32
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