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What You Can Do About the Phone Unlocking Fiasco
itwbennett writes "Now that the ridiculous phone unlocking law is a done deal, and we all understand exactly what that means (i.e., 'fines of up to $500,000 and imprisonment of up to five years'), you might be left wondering what can you do about it. Well, you could start by lending your John Hancock to this petition at the White House's 'We The People' platform. It's already over halfway to the number of signatures required to get a response from the executive branch."
...seriously - even if it got 500,000 signatures, I doubt the White house will do a damned thing about it. The law would have to be reversed by Congress, and right now, even if Obama wanted to, he's going to save his political capital for those fights which advance his own goals
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
So we have this situation where let's say I get an iPhone 5, the iPhone 5 (16GB) runs at about $650, I sign up on a contract and pay approx $200 for a 3 year term. If I break the contract I have to pay around $400 to cancel my contract. So if I unlock my phone and goto another carrier how does that deprive the carrier of their 'investment' ?
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Notwithstanding that this could violate a cell phone provider's terms of service agreement, and one could still be accountable to their cell provider for violating that.
However, in Canada, the unlocking of cell phones is *expressly* legal.
And, if people who are, for instance, residents of California, are allowed to travel to Nevada and gamble and then return without consequence, I see no reason why a person from the USA could not also go into Canada and unlock their phone there without legal repercussions.
I smell a potentially profitable business opportunity for people who live in border towns.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
While the "We the People" petition is a nice symbolic measure, it's not likely to result in any real action even if it reaches the signature limit.
It'd be far better if everyone wrote letters to their congressional representatives. There are lots of guides on the internet for doing so, here's one:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/letterscongress.htm
... another reason to be so very glad that I am not American. It seems that unlocking a phone is more serious that assault.
Let's first recognize that the "cell phone" is in fact a radio. Now imagine if the radio in your car was locked to one station and you had to buy a new radio in order to listen to a different radio station. Imagine if you had to buy a new TV when switching cable providers. It's absurd. I've always thought that people should be able to buy hardware of their choosing and use it wherever it is compatible. These smartphones are little computers. I should be able to buy any hardware platform and load any OS on it. Then I should be able to go to any cellular ISP and install their radio/modem/SIM. (Note there are only 2 types of radio and 4 companies to chose from). It would be more expensive but there is no reason to make preposterous legislation around it.
CTIA [Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association] explained that the practice of locking cell phones is an essential part of the wireless industry's predominant business model, which involves subsidizing the cost of wireless handsets in exchange for a commitment from the customer that the phone will be used on that carrier's service so that the subsidy can eventually be recouped by the carrier. CTIA alleged that the industry has been plagued by âoelarge scale phone trafficking operationsâ that buy large quantities of pre-paid phones, unlock them, and resell them in foreign markets where carriers do not subsidize handsets.
1. The industry business model is selling subsidized phones in exchange for a multi-year contract.
Most carriers have early termination fees that are prorated the longer you stick to your contract,
which directly reflects the cost of the subsidized phone they sold you.
The carrier could care less what happens to that phone, as long as I hold to my contract or pay the ETF.
2. If there is a big problem with pre-paid phones, then craft the unlocking exemption to exclude prepaid phones.
The CTIA must have gotten their guidance from the copyright industry, where singular counts of infringement are treated the same as large scale criminal enterprises.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The petitions are worthless. Opium for the masses. No petition has ever had any useful effect.
No petition will ever have a useful effect, unless you count the placebo effect as useful: "I did something for my cause, now I can go back to sleep".
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The ones that actually matter, anyway. Still, good luck with your petition guys.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
My plan was to just ignore the law and unlock my phone anyway and -- oh wait, I buy my phones used on eBay to start with and don't even get involved in the whole carrier-subsidy treadmill.
It's pretty simple what you can do about it: Don't buy subsidized phones. Not only do you end up paying more for a subsidized phone, you lose your rights to do whatever you want with it.
I really don't understand why people are so up in arms about this. I'm a card carrying member of the EFF and ACLU and, apart from the fact that this is a criminal offense instead of a civil issue, I'm not really that concerned because the "loophole" is so simple: Buy your fucking phone instead of renting it.
Since old phones are grandfathered, don't buy a new phone as long as you can't use it the way you want to use it.
My phone is good enough and shows no sign of wear.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Is there some explicit "no unlocking whatsoever" clause in the DMCA? As far as I'm aware, the only thing that's happened is that the explicit exemption for unlocking has expired. While I'm not volunteering to be the test case, it seems like there's a good case to be made that the generic DMCA language doesn't forbid unlocking.
In most cases, I'm not altering the software on the phone by unlocking it. I'm merely entering a code, and the phone already has software onboard specifically for the purpose of unlocking that phone when I enter said code.
To an Alpha, the Law is seen in the same light as a mugger. Both are potential threats, but neither are to be respected.
Organization has been around for ages - No matter how big one man gets, unless he joins a system, 10 men will be bigger than him.
That's kind of the point of the law - we have the entire country backing up the little man.... or at least that is how it is supposed to work
It doesn't work right in lots of cases - but it's better than everyone for himself.
If you buy phones off ebay and craigslist that somebody got for $99 on contract, then defaulted on the contract and sold it, you're basically buying stolen goods. So good luck with that.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a stupid and unnecessary law too, but if you're going to be pissed, be pissed for the right reasons. The problem isn't the new law, the problem is so many people not understanding the difference between lease-purchasing something on contract, and buying it.
Do Americans even bother READING their contracts, because I'd be prepared to bet there's absolutely nothing ambiguous about who "owns" the phone you pay "$99 + $nn x 36 months" for, up to month 37.
Is it just me, or is capitalism in USA becoming even scarier than socialism in USSR was? I mean, I understand ending up in a mental institution (or a gulag in earlier times) for criticising the party. That's harsh and ruthless and unfair and evil, but at least understandable. But life-ruining fines and jail time for downloading an mp3 or using a device you own to the fullest? That's just insane. Well, not insane. It's exactly the same thing. It's a punishment for resistance against the Powers that Be. In USSR this was the government and the party, so you were punished for speaking up against government. In USA government does not matter. In USA it's the corporations, so you'll get punished for doing anything at all that annoys them.
Compared to being ruled by these corporations, politburo looks like a good idea...
--Coder
Imagine the fun if they did something similar with operating systems. You bought your laptop with Windows on it. $500,000 and a 5 year prison sentence for switching it to Linux next. After all, Microsoft expects the revenue from their new app store and you are depriving them off that by changing to an open platform!
It's no more ridiculous than this idea.
even if Obama wanted to, he's going to save his political capital for those fights which advance his own goals
Obama got twice as much money as Romney in the last election from Verizon. And that was just one cellular carrier.
You all think the law as it stands was not very much supported and driven by Democrats? Well enjoy laying in the bed you all voted for. I'm not going to sign the petition because I figure America should get what it asked for, full bore. Enjoy the next four years rubes! That should give you just enough time to truly understand the term Liberal Fascism.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not only do you end up paying more for a subsidized phone, you lose your rights to do whatever you want with it.
That is not true from many angles.
For one thing a data plan for an iPhone on the major carriers is the same, subsidized or no. So you'd pay more for an unlocked phone, and then pay as much as the guy who bought a phone with a plan for service over two years. Yes you could bail earlier but most people keep the same carrier a few years.
You could pay less going to a company like T-Mobile but there is very real service degradation. To me even though in the long run that could save money the loss of wider coverage and aggravation makes it a bad tradeoff.
Secondly, ALL of the major carriers now will unlock the iPhone for you on request - but for international use only. So it's not quite right to say you can't do pretty much anything you want with it - you can, just not in the country you bought the phone in (which to most people is what really matters).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To me the whole aspect of unlocking in the U.S. is nearly moot because most phones cannot move between AT&T and Verizon, because the technologies used are so different. Verizon and Sprint both use CDMA which was never designed with the SIM approach in mind.
About all you can do is go from one of the others to T-Mobile. Now I don't hate T-Mobile, but it's a hard and fast truth you are not going to get the same coverage nor network speed there as you would one one of the major carriers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Technological limitations on unlocking your phone aren't the only questionable business practices of cellular providers. I think we need both legalized unlocking, better billing practices, and limitations on the contracts. That is why I put together http://wh.gov/y6kK. Please take a moment to sign it. Body text follows:
Customers of cellular phone plans in the US are treated poorly. We would like to see regulations that require things like:
1) A bill that reflects the advertised price, and separate line items that show the cost of the phone plan and the phone.
2) A bill that shows the cost of the phone purchased and how much of the phone has been paid off
3) Upon completion of a contract the customer has the right to have any technological restrictions removed that prevent its use on other carriers networks.
4) The right to buy out the phone and terminate the contract at any time.
5) A limit to the terms of contracts allowed.
6) The right to buy a 3rd party phone and join a carriers network with no contractual obligations.
Fact 1: There is the DMCA law, and it won't go away.
Fact 2: Unlocking your phone yourself requires a violation of the DMCA law.
Fact 3: It is entirely reasonable to want an unlocked phone. And it is entirely reasonable that anyone should be able to get an unlocked phone without breaking any criminal laws.
Three years ago, it was recognized that most people could only fulfil their wish to have an unlocked phone by unlocking it themselves, so an exemption was made that the DMCA violation of unlocking the phone yourself was not considered a crime. Now it is assumed that people can indeed get unlocked phones, so there is no need to unlock yourself, so there is no need for an exemption.
Now here is the conclusion: Since you are not allowed to unlock a phone yourself, surely your service provider _must_ unlock it when you ask for it and cannot refuse. So instead of asking for permission to violate the DMCA law, people should ask their service provider to unlock the phone and take them to court if they refuse.
Yes, that phone unlocking law is totally ridiculous.
That law suits North Korea much better than it does in America.
But the fact that this has happened in the United States of America says a lot about how the Americans themselves have changed.
It used to be that the congress critters were afraid of their constituents.
It used to be that those living inside (and the surrounding area) of Washington D.C. have to listen to the people living outside of that area.
No more.
Nowadays we have ridiculous laws being passed, without even a single objection from the public.
Nowadays the Americans are so complacent, that the congress (and the White House) get to do anything that they want to do, because they are not afraid of their constituents anymore.
The death of Mr. Aaron Swartz should not have happened in America.
America supposed to be a country where abusive officials do not get any foothole.
In fact, the birth of the United States of America was because the British government got too abusive, so much so that the people rose up and chased out the Brits.
I used to live in America in the 1960's till early 2000's, and I've witnessed the change myself.
Americans no longer care for freedom.
Americans no longer willing to fight for liberty.
In other words, America has withered.
Can someone please change the wording of the American national anthem ?
The one about "Land of the Free", "Home of the Brave", in more ways than one, no longer apply.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Then you pay full price. We're talking about phones that carriers subsidize the price for with the idea of making that money and more back in your contract. Now after that contract is over, then unlocking should be possible. I'm not that patient so I pay full price up front and do get a never locked phone. But no everyone can afford that. And not everyone can afford being ripped off by carriers, either.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you buy phones off ebay and craigslist that somebody got for $99 on contract, then defaulted on the contract and sold it, you're basically buying stolen goods. So good luck with that.
Not even close. Clearly you have never lived hand to mouth, where debt is only an illness; downsizing; unexpected emergency...or simply living. I feel pity for your lack of empathy.
Your credit rating is going to take a massive hit which affect all aspects of Life; You have to move to alternative and more expensive solutions (PAYG). Here is the exciting part...you now cannot use your number, but you still have to pay for it. The debt is *sold* to thugs who are *guarded* by the police, who take items of equal selling value from your property.
Ironically in context of this discussion that $99 might have have helped keep the wolves from the door.
The petition didn't have 57,000 signatures, it needed 57,000 more signatures. As of right now it needs 54,629 more signatures.
That was my plan long before this anyway.
The push by the carriers to make this happen is late it coming and might have helped, but the cat is out of the bag already.
When it comes to hand-held computing devices with telephone capability, I care that the device is up-to-date with software and in my control so that I can do what I want and what I need and that it doesn't act against me. Carrier controlled, locked devices suffer from a lack of those things.
Initially, I was going to get a Samsung phone, but then Nexus 4 came out. Got that. I'll be buying my way out of my expensive contract soon and will go pre-paid. Suddenly, I will be in control of my phone and my phone service and spending less money on top of that.
Even if the law was reversed, it wouldn't make much difference. Phones are not easily supported by the community and carrier-devices aren't well supported by carriers. So anything other than a manufacturer supported device will not do.
I plan to just disobey it.
The death star was after a couple of years, I believe the first petition was to legalize various recreational drugs.
Isn't it possible to buy an unlocked phone to begin with, if that is what you want?
The fight should be to make any and all contract violations noncriminal.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
What you need is a requirement to list the phone bill separately from the phone.
February Service Plan XXL - $80
Phone payment - $20
Total: - $100
Amount of time remaining on contract - 5 months
Payoff amount for phone - $100
After the phone is paid off the monthly bill would then drop to $80 and no contract. The phone itself should then be unlocked at the completion of the payment plan.
How the carriers could've just, oh I dunno, raised their early termination fees. But instead, they get their pet lawmakers to effectively make contract violation a Federal felony. Something tells me this isn't about loss of contract profits.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
The petitions are *insidious*. They divert people away from doing what really matters and helps -- writing your elected representatives (and for that matter, staying on top of legislation enough to know what your representatives are getting up to) -- and refocus it onto something that will have no practical policy effect whatsoever. So what if the White House responds -- what do you think "they" are going to say, "oh yeah, you're totally right, Mr. Obama is going to single-handedly kill this new law right now"? It's going to be some cookie-cutter response about how important the voice of the American people is, blah blah blah, and then right back to business as usual. Fuck me, posting a rant on Facebook has more potential to effect political change than those petitions.
The problem is that people either don't care about what our lawmakers are doing in Washington, or they do care but are too busy working two jobs to try to make ends meet, or are too distracted by the infotainment industry telling them about everything *except* what matters. The only time people really mobilize is when something they really, really hold dear is threatened (a la SOPA, when people thought the government was going to take away their Internets) and there is actually enough media coverage that a critical mass of people know about it.
Unlock your phone... then destroy it.
I'm so clever I amuse even myself.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I don't have a contract and buy my phones at full price. I can unlock them whenever I wish. And, because I am with T-Mobile, I can simply call and they will send me the unlock code and instructions.via email.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
So, keeping your phone locked for the duration of the contract is not worth the discount? And, you are not willing to pay full price? Oh, and guess what, after that contract is over, then unlocking is possible. Perhaps you should actually read about the subject.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
When are you morons going to realize that these online petitions are worse than meaningless?
Why do you think your signature means anything. You aren't going to vote differently, its obvious from the last couple of elections that people bitch about politicians and then do nothing to effect change. There is no reason for anyone to give a flying fuck what signature your petition is on. Worse still is you're not bright enough to realize how easy it is to fake said petitions, making them even less useful.
There is no effort in collecting online petitions, you just put a form up one SOMEONE ELSES website. Starting a petition this way, and 'running it' requires zero effort and thats exactly the kind of response you'll get.
Signing a petition ... ESPECIALLY AN ONLINE PETITION FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR CHAIR just shows exactly how little you care about the issue.
You aren't going to get more back out of it than you put in, thats not the way the universe works.
If you want to effect change, its going to take a whole hell of a lot more than clicking 'I agree' on some retarded website.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
1) I understand your argument, but I sure wouldn't want to be the one rolling the dice in a US court to see if a court would find it legal or not. Lots of developed countries have the idea that their laws apply everywhere in the world. .... JUST ... DON'T ... CARE. Most Americans don't travel outside of North America, so there's just not a lot of interest in unlocked phones. Some Americans do care a lot, but most don't. In fact, my unlocked phone is powered off and in storage. My main mobile phone (or "cell phone" as we Americans say) is an iPhone and my work requires it to be unjailbroken, so I can't unlock it. They pay the bills for it, so I have to live by their rules. The next time I travel overseas, I'll just take my unlocked phone with me. I doubt that putting unlocking businesses right across the border would be very lucrative. I'm not sure about this, but I'm under the impression that the Canadian market is pretty much just like the American one and subsidized locked phones are the way everybody goes.
2) I have an unlocked phone (I bought it unlocked some years ago) but the fact is that most Americans
it has taken how long for 50k signatures? closing in on 3 weeks to get 50k signatures for aaron schwartz https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck
I hate the USA.
Then you are, frankly, an idiot. Whay to you hate? The people? All 300 million (way to generalise there)? Or, the widlife? The landscape? The internet? The tv and films? Or is it the government you hate (like many Americans)? Is your government much or indeed any better?
One of the first things idiotic Americans petition is to build a death star.
I love it when ignorant haters shoot themselves in the foot. The first thing that happened is a bunch of sensible petitions on serious subjects went up, like drugs, the TSA and so on. Like so many things involved with politicians, it put itself in disrepute as the petitions were ignored or whitewahsed.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Nearly everybody needs at least some degree of both luck and hard work to succeed. It's easy to point to folks who show little evidence of hard work, but there are certainly counterexamples -- I'd say Ping Fu is one.
Better yet: why not organize a good, old-fashioned act of civil disobedience? I'm thinking along the lines of several thousand people meeting up outside the Lincoln Memorial and simultaneously unlocking their phones.
Distract the masses with things like immigration reform, gay rights, abortion, things that get people excited. Then while everyone is screaming about those things, pass laws that screw over the common person.
Does the geek ever listen to what he is saying?
Each of the issues mentioned here have a profound intimacy and significance, They represent the driving - primal - forces currently at work in American law and politics.
His pet political causes sink to the bottom of the Mariana Trench because, quite frankly, my dear, no one gives a damn.
The White House doesn't make law, and does not control the Library of Congress.
Petition Congress, not the White House.
Thank your brain dead Star Wars fans.
Well, the Star Trek fans tried to start one to build a real USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E spec), but JJ Abrams jumped ship to Star Wars before we could organize a petition drive.
That is all.
"Yeah, we need some way of milking our customers, so if you could write a law for us to do so, that would be great..:"
I have never signed a cell phone contract, so I need some help understanding this. Is there a provision in the contract that says that the carrier can repossess the phone for defaulting on the contract? If not, I don't see how a phone that was resold under contract is stolen goods.
The phones are fine out of the box. What critical benefits do people get from unlocking them except to steal from the app store?
If you unlock your phone that gives you freedom to use another network.
But it doesn't magically remove you from the contract you agreed to, so you still have to pay, and would be chased by whatever debt collection system they use.
You obviously would still have to pay for using the new carrier also if you swapped SIM.
Skipping the early termination fee may save you a big one off payment but doesn't negate the above.
This issues should solely be if you fail to pay your contracted fee's, and I fail to see why that should have anything other than normal contract law cover it.
The carriers are arguing they need to lock the phones to their network to get a commitment from a customer. Don't they have fixed term contracts with early termination fees for that?
Douchebag motherfuckers like you would rather see the country burn than doing anything to help just because you were wrong.
I'd really rather not see the country burn at all, what with me living here at all. But since the country as a whole voted for fire, what more can I do than attempt to shield myself and watch people get the very burning they so longed for? I mean, what are YOU going to do - sign a petition?? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Children don't really learn a thing sometimes unless they are hurt by it. So I guess it goes with the electorate. I have no desire to stop a lesson in progress as we'll all be better off in the future for it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley