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Motorola Hacker Rewards Program
Nuclear Elephant writes "Pen Computing Magazine recently ran an article about the Motorola v710, which has been crippled by Verizon. A hacking contest is now underway, and the pot is steadily growing. The first hacker to provide a hack (or instructions) to enable OBEX and OPP features on the handset before Jan 1 wins the pot. See the official site for more information." We mentioned this phone a few days ago.
Lawyers fees for the DMCA lawsuit from Verizon?
We long for the harvest.
$20 to enter. Whoever guesses closest to the actual date and time the DMCA is invoked to stop this, wins it all!
OK it's a nifty phone with all the features enabled, but $519 who the hell needs it?
This parrot has ceased to be!
Well, let's hope all this leads to more secure phones in the future... isn't that what's hacking all about ? Detecting flaws without abusing them, so companies can improve their product ?
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
Verizon is known for doing this type of things with thier phones. Entire communities have been created to discuss the problems and find workarounds. Just taking a look around at Howard forums and you can come up with tools such as the balpatch which was created in an attempt to take control of the Motorola T720 for loading of pics and tones. Despite a user outcry and many letters written to them in complaint of abandoning JAVA in favor of BREW (a proprietary Qualcomm language), Verizon cares not.
What do you want to bet the tech(s) who originally figured out how to cripple the phone hear about this, un-cripple it (or at least tell how), and collect the bounty?
I'd do it if it were me. Hopefully the pot grows enough to offset the lost income if Verizon finds out and fires the guilty party, though.
They win pot? Where do I enter?!
..is the DMCA basically legislation saying "the US government will kill you and your children if you should choose to attempt to learn more about the consumer electronics for which you have paid so much of your hard-earned money"? I remember a little while back they detained that Russian programmer under the DMCA. It sounds scary. :(
Somebody call my mommy!
-Matt
Could it be that the decision to cripple bluetooth was deliberate? Other companies should take note. Instead of spending money and resources on functionality, just get someone to sponsor a hack-fest. Just think of the free publicity and functionality that will ensue. Think of the increase in sales as all those code slingers seek fame and fortune. Just think of the prestige your customers will feel when they can say, "Yeah, I have the v710, but mine has been hacked."
There is a bluetooth update coming something soon (schedule is/was early this month) for the v710. At least one person has claimed to have received word via email from verizon that at least some of the functionality this "hack contest" is looking for will be provided in the update.
Sit tight until the update comes out...then assess the situation. Then, if needed, we can work ourselves up into a hissy about this.
I think Verizon released this phone before it was ready, probably due to customers leaving for lack of a bluetooth option. They probably figured the backlash may be better than lost customers, or I could be wrong and they may just be totally missing the boat.
Soccer Goal Plans
The problem with worrying about the DMCA is that it is not Verizon who can call for it. You see the hardware is create and owned by Motorola. So if anyone would complain it would be them. To be honest if I was Motorola I would be just as pissed at Verizon for castrating my product.
I suppose Motorola could go after the people, but really do they have anything to lose by people figuring out how to turn a feature on that was originally in the phone to begin with?
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Am I missing something? Why not just switch to a different network that isn't so hostile towards their customers. I mean, the fact that Verizon is actually saying that they don't offer a bluetooth phone because it doesn't fit their business model, despite the fact that many customers want it is ridiculous. Sounds like a path towards an out-of-business model to me.
I find that
a) it would be better to go with Nextel for a wireless data service.
b) it would be better to go with AT&T/Cingular for a Bluetooth feature enabled phone selection.
Verizon gets Moto to give them phones but there is no guarantee who is responsible for the software running on the phone. I get the full impact of this approach when I use my phone today. When I can actually -use- the phone that is.
Sadly, the current phone I use (Moto T720C) just reboots and has general software issues because I actually try to use the features of the phone. It all started when I did my first iSync. After that, it is very common to just have the phone reboot after reading a text message and the battery life is horrible. That said, if I just used the unit as a phone it is reliable.
Verizon has swapped out hardware numerous times since it was considered to be a case of bad hardware. Right. Sure. Then when the 5p software load is on the new hardware it still chokes the phone. I would say it is just silly but I actually use my phone for work.
Finally, I got a rep to admit that Verizon let Moto outsource the software for the T720c and if you try to get one now most reps won't even let you get the T720c if you beg for it. Too many problems.
I was looking at going to the V710 but now I am leaning towards other options like the LG phones since the Bluetooth on the V710 is not fully baked and may never be.
I guess Verizon is the choice if -all- you want to do is make phone calls.
http://fudge.org
I remember hearing people say bluetooth was dead and it was a giant failure. funny how now bluetooth is something everyone wants :) I wish my verizon phone had bluetooth, I'd love to get a jabra bluetooth headset sure would make talking on the phone easier during my commute to school and such. Ah well, maybe one day a service provider (that isn't crap) would handle a good fully featured bluetooth handset
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
The first hacker to provide a hack (or instructions) to enable OBEX and OPP features on the handset before Jan 1 wins the pot.
Correction. The first hacker's lawyers win the pot defending the first hacker in his DMCA suit.
For the last -year- I had been waiting for a chance to get a Bluetooth phone with my Verizon account. Fortunately, the same week I see that it's been released, I see posts about Verizon having totally screwed it up so I can avoid spending any cash on it.
I can understand them wanting to make more money with more feature offerings, but it's unexcusable that they don't explain things more clearly when you're shopping for a phone. The only question now, is who to switch to? My plan is up in December.
I tried to make sense of the price structures involved in AT&T Wireless' plans, as they do definitely have the best options in phones. I can't even find out anything remotely clear from the site, though. Do they charge different rates for data? Per K? Ugh.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
I have a Nokia 7250i. A very nice phone, which lets you take colour photographs, with an infrared port. I can upload my contacts to my PC via the infrared port - works out of the box, modulo a bit of man page reading, under Debian. Can I upload my photos? Can I fuck. Can I send my photos to my computer via email, at 20p a throw? Why yes, I can.
I wish someone who knew about these things could write an OBEX thingy to upload them. I know it is possible in theory - there is a closed source windows app that does it.
Dave
I guess you're new to the party. Verizon is the amalgam of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX (two of the most monopolistic RBOCS after the breakup of Ma Bell).
Perhaps you've never purchased a digital circuit from them or a POTS line. If you think their wireless service treads all over consumers, you can see where they got their "business model" from. Prices are high...some of highest in the industry, customer service is poor (hold times are legendary unless you're trying to buy something...then hold times are miniscule), and feature sets lag the industry. In short, it's exactly what you'd expect in a monopolistic environment.
The ONLY thing Verizon has going for it is their cell network. Coverage is pretty good. But then again, when you're soaking your clients like Verizon does, you can afford to build out your infrastructure.
I avoid Verizon just on general principle. Each time I've given them another chance (wireless, T1, OC3, pots, datacenter services) they've ultimately suckered me in and then made a grab for the short hairs once they thought I couldn't leave. I will never buy ANY services from them again. Run away!
Watching movies with your mom doesn't count you faggot.
" To be honest if I was Motorola I would be just as pissed at Verizon for castrating my product."
Doubtful. Motorola gets it's money, castrated product or not. Also companies making customizable products isn't anything new. Do you think Microsoft is pissed that customers like AOL can customize it's browser?
My mother is dead, you insensitive clod.
She's a *BSD developer then? Quick jizzing over her corpse and get a life you faggot fag homo.
Carrying all that pot!
Let's examine the situation.
- there's a hostile cell phone company
- you continue to use them
- you complain when they suck
- you stick with them, despite their ignorance, but you then post "rewards" to fix their problems
Umm. Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to just switch cellular carriers? (Changing cell phone companies is not that hard to do!)
"Sounds like a path towards an out-of-business model to me."
Not really. You're assuming that it's an unsound business judgement not to give customers what they want. And going with that. You assume that the customers always right, and has the knowledge of the whole business process to back it up with.
There could be physical reasons, economic reasons, legal reasons. Reasons that the customer isn't privy too.
I can see how this upsets people, and I think the best approach is to just advertise it and try to punish Verizon that way. Organize a kind of tech-geek boycott. But unfortunately, I don't think there's a legal problem with what they're doing.
Should companies be allowed to sell their products hobbled? If we decide no for Verizon, then we also must go after Microsoft, whose baseline operating system is always the more advanced flavor. For instance, in Win 2000 Pro, many of the features of Server are present but disabled. Should we apply the same standard here and say that Pro must have all such features enabled? I'm not sure...
As far as applying the DMCA to this situation of this contest...I don't see how any law can stop it. It can just force it underground, or force the perpetrators to come up with a flimsy cover story.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
If some "Operator" [http://brew.qualcomm.com/brew/en/operator/op_dire ctory.html] were to post the Operator Gudelines [https://brewx.qualcomm.com/brew/sdk/authdownload. jsp?page=dx/operatorguidelines], then there'd be a lot more items to discuss.
Dude, Verizon is a merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE.
"First they shoot themselves in the foot by selling phones for a penny that costs them several hundred dollars. "
Hmmm...let's see.
Penny, cellular pays for phone-large bills I payed for a phone=???
Well I don't know about you, but someone's making a killing.
Verizon is the amalgam of Bell Atlantic and GTE, not NYNEX. Bell Atlantic absorbed NYNEX three years before the merger with GTE.
Why do you keep giving them another chance ?
How much does your girl weigh? (give answer in metric tons, please.)
The sad thing is that as a faithful Verizon customer for three years, I can't give them enough money to get me a phone with fully functional, non-crippled Bluetooth. I travel a lot, and along with several other geeks in the company, we pay Verizon for their great network as opposed to taking the company's free Sprint phones with horrendous coverage. I preach the gospel of Verizon's great signal strength whenever a friend is thinking about dumping one of the GSM carriers, but they always turn their nose up at the crummy phones Verizon carries.
I don't get it: Verizon has rabidly faithful customers already. They do a great job with the high-speed data service. Why don't they go the last mile and carry a decent Bluetooth phone? It's not like I'm asking for it for free - I'll *give* them the money, they just won't take it....
What's your damage, Heather?
Verizon is expensive, unfriendly and the phones they ancient.
710 looks OK, but personally I'd take Nokia 6230 any day.
GSM networks allow you to use state of the art phones of your choice and cost less.
For mere 80$ I get 1000 minutes, free nights-weekends, free in-network calling, free WAP, unlimited SMS, unlimited access to Wi-Fi in almost every Starbucks, Borders, Kinko's. Beat that!
Instead,
Of getting your panties all in a wad and wasteing a lot of time, just buy another phone/service/etc.
You wallet speaks a lot more loudly than your hacking skills.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Sim/provider locked handsets. Buy a GSM phone from many carriers (from experience ATT), fulfill your obligation to the carrier and decide to change. Or, be on vacation and purchase a prepaid SIM. Install the new sim and suprize it no workie! The carrier had decided it was their, not your product.
There is now a fairly simple work arround to unlock many phones. It's still disengenious.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
4.53592 * 10^(-2) Metric Lbs.
I deal pot! You insensitive clod!
yeah you know me!
...then they should be smart enough not to waste their time and effort buying a crippled Moto V710 in the first place, or otherwise contributing to having more people buy the phones and becoming satisfied customers via a hack.
Who would a hack serve? Those who will continue to support bad business practices and companies.
For a comparable price one can find comparable "unlocked" GSM phones that have the original manufacturer's firmware, have all features enabled, and allow one to get service from any mobile company one chooses, often world-wide with the now commonplace GSM world phones.
But maybe this story explains your .signature? ;-)
Paul B.
[quote]
- there's a hostile cell phone company
- you continue to use them
- you complain when they suck
- you stick with them, despite their ignorance, but you then post "rewards" to fix their problems
[/quote]
The primary function of a cell phone is...a phone! Verizon's service works pretty much everywhere with signal penetration inside buildings that other carriers can not provide. Least dropped calls...etc. As a final note, they pick up the phone on one ring when you call customer service.
If you want a Cell Phone for Business, go with Verizon. If you want a Walkie Talkie, go with Nextel. Cingular has good rates for families.
As far as "Toy" phones: Sprint, then AT&T. Pray you don't have a billing error and don't have to get anyone on the phone. Lets not even mention T-Horrible.
It's much easier to pay someone to replace the radio in the Cadillac with a CD player then trading it in for a Yugo with a CD Player.
Former Cell Salesman.
-Electrawn
Agreed.
Lets start a real bounty to hack any of Sanyo's Sprint phones to work on Verizon's network. (If you ever had a Sanyo phone, you know what I'm talking about.)
-Electrawn
I used to be a Verizon customer and switched to Sprint when the Treo 600 came out. I was expecting a decline in service quality, and was quite surprised the actual service was about the same.
What I did get was far more bang for the buck. For around $110 US a month, I get 2000 peak minutes, unlimited nights and weekends which start at 7 p.m. (versus 9 for Verizon), unlimited picture and SMS messaging, unlimited data, including unlimited modem use (thanks PDANet!), and a host of other features.
Bottom line, I'm not sad I left Verizon.. At least with Sprint I know I won't be charged extra for something as simple as an SMS message or photo transmission.
www.lonseidman.com
...and Verizon Wireless is 50% Verizon and 50% Vodafone (European cell carrier).
-Electrawn
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And Java sucks.
The idea of putting an intepreted language on an already slow processor is one of the dumbest in recent memory.
You generally write your BREW in C++.
So where exactly are they "growing" this POT?
-- ATF Agent
...I have to say that I would rather depend on ANY other wireless carrier OTHER than Nextel if I had a choice.
I carry a Nextel for work, and the service is horrible (Chicago metro area, mainly, but it's been bad EVERYWHERE I travel).
You're lucky if you can make a voice call, and you think they'd be better for data service than Verizon? HA!
I also have a Verizon account for my personal phone, and couldn't be happier with the coverage and service. I've had no billing errors since I opened my account in 1995.
I am, however, disappointed in Verizon's decision to remove some of the BT functionality of the V710 phone. I was looking to get that phone, and a newer PDA, and use the BT capabilities. I won't upgrade my phone unless it can do what I want between the phone and the PDA.
Sim cards are nice, but there is NOTHING GSM specific about them. You can impliment something the is identical to GSM in all ways exepct it lacks a sim card and it will still work. Legally you can't call it GSM. (You might not be able to use it depending on patent laws)
Beyond that GSM version 3 is CDMA! Thats right, the next GSM standard is a form of CDMA. It has those GSM advantages like a sim card. CDMA is a better protocol than TDMA (GSM version 2 which is what most of the world uses is TDMA). No it doesn't have GPRS, it has something else with a different name that does the same thing.
GSM covers a lot more than the simple protocols. It would be nice if the CDMA providers got on board with sim cards. There are a lot of other implimentation problems with what everyone calls CDMA. However they are implimentation details, not technical.
You butt out of my work.
--DEA Agent
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
There are people out there who would like a phone with but verizon wont allow one on their network (even if you want to pay full price instead of getting it in a package)
:)
Verizon is now on the list of "companies who think its better to screw the customer than it is to build up a good business"
OTOH, how many telcos ARENT on that list...
Because they have a virtual stranglehold on telecom/datacom services in my area? Even if you buy from another provider, they're just reselling Verizon circuits.
I really appreciate the efforts of these people, because I own a v710 and I find myself putting in opcodes to fix issues, and keeping in mind what's wrong with it. Bluetooth is especially important since the handset at volume 15 is still too quiet, as I have difficulty hearing. I have to use a bluetooth headset to have a good conversation without yelling. All in all however, I bought the phone when it came out and I'm very pleased with it. I use all of the features pretty much, and it keeps up its end. Except for randomly rebooting when I try to turn on bluetooth in the middle of a conversation. >_ What I would love to see is a way to download applications to the phone without going through Verizon, so I could code my own. (e.g. AIM without their text messaging. I pay for 500 of them a month and usually come in just barely under that. I use it more than the minutes because minutes are too expensive.)
My rating? I'd still say a 6.5 out of 10.
I have spent 3500 bucks on services from Verizon over the last 2 years. They still would only give me the new Motorola v710 for 250 bucks with a new 2 year contract. Any other carrier would have given me a much better deal.
The only way we are going to get Verizon to change is to stop buying Verizon.
The reason I and other people have stuck with Verizon is that there network is the biggest and most complete BY FAR. Their customer service generally rocks too. Perhaps now with AT&T Wirless, and Cingluar combining they will be able to compete on these points.
I think i am going to give this phone to my wife and go sign up with Cingular. So I can stop giving Verizon my money.
clever, but note that it's a google cache.
hmm, it's goatse.
I think, for most people, the highest priority is still making calls, and making calls cheaply. In the US, we have the cheapest mobile phone deals in the world. Take a look at how much 400 minutes costs in the EU -- about $60-$80, compared to $40 here, with most providers giving unlimited mobile to mobile and weekends.
Verizon Wireless (by the way, not to be confused with Verizon Corporation -- Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Corp. and Vodafone) finds the best way to make money here is to make people pay a couple bucks for a rinky-dink ringtone, or picture. In the end, hopefully that means we all get a much better voice network out of it while still retaining cheaper voice services. After all, this is a phone. It's terrible at taking pictures. It's terrible at IM. It's terrible at calendaring or anything else that laptops and PDAs are good at.
So I use my phone for voice, and whether I spend a few extra bucks a year on the occasional random picture message or ringtone means little to me compared to making an excellent call. If you want data, check out specific data devices like the Treo or Hiptop/Sidekick. Or, better yet, get a PCCard for your computer, it will give you better data performance anyway.
PS - the V710 has significant problems besides its crippled bluetooth. Totally not worth the money they're asking for it. Check out LG's or Samsung's offerings if you're on Verizon Wireless.
You seem to think the hacker contest is sponsored by either motorola or verizon. Next time think before you post, clueless.
The author's problems with Verizon shouldn't be extended to complaining about Motorola. In case he's forgotten, they're in business to make money as well, which in this case means putting on Verizon's phones what Verizon wants. Locking and unlocking of features on a phone is in a software flex file that is specific to each carrier. Motorola's one customer? Um, no. You can get a Moto phone at Cingular, AT&T, T-Mobile and even Sprint now. Clearly the Bluetooth issue is no fault of Motorola's, as the BT technology on their GSM phones works just fine. And if you're talking about a monopoly, keep in mind that Nokia is still holding a larger market share than Motorola right now.
And as to 7pm off-peak, you had the wrong package if you had 9. I am on Sprint, and my off-peaks start at 9, simply because I have the wrong package.
Verizon may be expensive, but for the rest, you're way off base. The differences you speak of are just package to package veriance, not inherent to the two services. If you wanted not to pay per-SMS, all you had to do was talk to a rep and change your package.
As to the service, I used to have Verizon, now I have Sprint. The coverage is good, but not like Verizon's. I won't be going back to Verizon either, I need Bluetooth, it is the reason I went to Sprint (I have the awful T608, previously the only CDMA Bluetooth phone in the US.)
If I deserved to get 3 Funny mods just for pointing out the inconsistency between the story about saying F.U. on a job interview and .sig blaming Bush or whoever is currently in power for one being jobless, the parent definitely deserves +5 Insightful (or, Informative, for some people here)
Paul B.
I seem to remember an Apple CEO saying that the way to network Macs and PCs is with a floppy disk, much like the memory card for the phone. This was right before Apple almost went out of business. Verizon doesn't have a Jobs brand defribulator.
Stu
I don't think EV-DO's purpose is as a method to
transfer data wirelessly to/from your computer or
other device. It's more of an alternative to UMTS, right?
When do we get real pluggable hardware so I can buy a nice tri-band send/receive unit that plugs into my laptop/palmtop/handset and lets me have coverage from multiple vendors if I feel like it?
Linux already supports OBEX and much more.
Just give me a 'cell-phone modem' so I can have actual control over the hardware I purchase.
Specifically, I have a 6310i with tri-band and bluetooth, but the crappy black on white display and flaky software makes it effectively a voice-only phone.
I wish I could swap out the display and run Linux on it so I could write my own apps that use the Linux IrDA code.
Shae Erisson - ScannedInAvian.com