Factory Resets Brick Google Wallet on Some Android Smartphones

From DailyTech: Despite tremendous promise, near field communications are starting to look like "not [ready] for consumption" in their current form. Despite NFC being successfully used throughout Japan for years now, America's try at NFC courtesy of Google Inc. (GOOG) has been met with mixed results.

Security concerns have just been the tip of the iceberg. Now users are reporting a vast ubiquitous issue in Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), which "bricks" Google Wallet if you perform a factory reset on your device.

Curiously, Google, according to a Phandroid report, is saying this is a feature, not a bug, and suggesting users warranty their devices. It explains that the "secure element" in the NFC firmware is designed to permanently lock users out of using Google Wallet, if the device is reset, damaged, or otherwise tampered with.

To be clear, this reset not only locks out your current on-phone account, it prevents you from performing some sort of information refresh in order to use the device for wireless payments.

For the tinkerers out there, you can back up your device's ROM and re-flash it post reset, and then reset Google Wallet from within the device settings in order to enjoy NFC goodness once more. Of course, this requires you to have the foresight to perform a backup and requires your backup to be in a good working state, or at least a state where you can live with the problems.

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