In the most recent T-Mobile G1 update that has been pushed out, we know that Google is sending out a patch that will prevent us from gaining root access. Another bug that Google has fixed in the RC30 update has been discovered. Many G1 owners have yet to run into this bug because it is a bit of a rarity.

After setting up a telnet server on the G1 to allow root access, anyone who knows your IP address can log into your phone without a password.  This hole in the security of the phone also has a very odd bug, after your phone starts up a command shell as root, every keystroke you type is then sent to that shell.  Now every keystroke that is typed in any application is secretly sent to the shell with Admin user privileges.

In the bug report (issue 1207) jdhorvat writes:

Funny story behind finding this:

I was in the middle of a text conversation with my girl when she asked why I hadn’t responded. I had just rebooted my phone and the first thing I typed was a response to her text, which simply stated “Reboot” – which, to my surprise, rebooted my phone.

Without the bug users can still see what was happening by typing <return>-r-e-b-o-o-t-<return>. The return parts send it to the shell as a command, the bug on the other hand already did this with all the keystrokes you make, making it impossible to type some words. For those of you experiencing this problem who do not wish to upgrade to RC30, just type <return>-c-a-t-<return> to disable it. This should work for everyone, at least till the phone is rebooted.

[Via ZDNet]