[Ads-l] rooted

[Barretts Mail]

"Netflix will no longer work on rooted Android devices” by Natt Garun 
(https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15640820/netflix-blocks-app-rooted-android-devices <https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15640820/netflix-blocks-app-rooted-android-devices>)

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If you have a rooted Android device, be aware that you may no longer be able to use the Netflix app going forward.
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This looks like an adjective from the past participle of “to root”.

About the transitive verb root, Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/root <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/root>) says:

• (computing, slang, transitive) To break into a computer system and obtain root access.
We rooted his box and planted a virus on it.

The online Oxford Dictionaries (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/root <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/root>) say:

Gain access to the root account of (a smartphone or computer)

• ‘we explained how to manually root almost any Android device’
• The program allows you to customize your user interface without having to root the device.’
• ‘Before you can start to do anything to your phone, you'll need to root it, which means basically to unlock the security settings put in place in the OS to prevent it from being altered.’
• ‘If I want to root my device, there's a very small chance that it's because I want to copy a movie, and a good chance that I want to take a screenshot of my widget setup, or play with a faster ROM.’
• ‘I personally cannot wait to root the phone and run custom ROMs.’
• ‘The proportion of people who want to recompile their phone OS is even smaller than the number who want to root their phone.’

I don’t think any of those quite get to the meaning in the article.

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org