The phone only sends it's IMEI if there's no SIM (and therefore can only make emergency calls), and at power on so the IMEI can be checked against the EIR in case it's listed as stolen or non-compliant (i.e. broken so bad it fubars the network.)
It would also be a good idea for networks to see if the TAC & FAC are valid both together and in combination. Also if the manufactures will co-operate that the serial number matches with the TAC & FAC combination and exists. The EIR should also list scrapped handsets.
and they'd block the handset too (the IMEI is sent as part of the sign-on process), but people are getting away with hacking the IMEIs
In order to do this they'd need to set the IMEI to one which is not already in use. Or are you claiming that networks will quite happily accept the same IMEI from multiple handsets.(Hence the possibility of denial of service to a third party). Also not all possible TACs and FACs are assigned. Being able to have a network accept a hacked IMEI should be not trivial. Especially in an environment where the majority of handsets are locked to a specific network. Or is this locking enforced in the phone, rather than the network?
(In the UNLIKELY event the chip with the serial number was damaged I expect it could be replaced and have the old number from the phone encoded.)
Which would probably require the same kind of equiptment as changing the IMEI. Also only part of the IMEI is a serial number. The last digit is called "additional number".
It's already also illegal to traffic in stolen goods, misrepresent stolen goods as legitimate, defraud telephone companies, DOS legitimate mobile users.
Does this law actually do anything more to deter thieves,
The bill states that it is expected to have litte effect of policing, prosecutors and courts.
this law ultimately serves no purpose that couldn't be served by enforcing stiffer penalties on thieves.
It's apparent purpose is to present the impression of a government "doing something". With passing redundant laws being a prefered option to something like more police...
That wouldn't help since these are stolen phones, and people who steal phones rarely go to the phone company and sign a contract.
Stealing things is against the law. Handling stolen goods is against the law. Passing off stolen goods as not stolen is against the law. There looks to be plenty of applicable criminal law here. Indeed the text of the bill specifically states "There will be minimal resource implications for the criminal justice agencies - the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts and the Prison Service - to investigate, enforce, prosecute and process the cases through the courts and to accommodate convicted offenders given a custodial sentence. The number of cases prosecuted under this new offence are likely to be relatively small in number," In which case the whole thing starts to look like a waste of time.
Under current laws, sicne reprogramming phones is not illegal,
Reprogramming the phones might not be. Switching them on after they have been reprogrammed could well be. Since that creates the possibility of a denial of service to legitimate users.
its pretty hard to prove that people who do this are doing anything wrong (they would have to know that the phopnes were stolen).
That's a problem for law enforcment. Will such a law make things any easier for the average DC? Handling stolen goods is already against the law.
So what are the legitimate reasons for a manufacturer to do this, and why can't they apply to a private citizen? BRNotably to an independent service engineer... We have independent car mechanics, who may at times need to replace a car part carrying a recorded serial number.
There is a difference between this law and what you are talking about. You can modify your car completely but can you change your VIN number or license plate number with out notifying the proper authorities? No. This law isn?t any different.
It is, since the registration of VINs and other vehicle identifying numbers is handled by a government agency. If the bill set up something like the DVLA then the car analogy would hold. Instead the bill hands specific power to the manufactures, private (and foreign owned) businesses. It would be as if car makers were in charge of car registrations...
While I generally don't agree with restrictions on the use of hardware I buy, this is a special case.
Is a special law really needed. It is already illegal to steal things, traffic in stolen goods, misidentify stolen goods as not stolen, etc.
The law is intended to reduce the amount of phone-thefts in the UK (the phones are then reprogrammed and re-sold).
Over specific laws tend to be bad laws, especially if they require constant tinkering to keep updated. Since the bill specifically mentions GSM and IMEI, which is an indicator of the legislation being too specific.
I understand your issue however consider this. Had this been a Microsoft program for Windows I doubt we would have heard about it this quickly. Perhaps in 6 months but not in a day or two.
Don't think it would have taken 6 months. Might have taken about a week. Something which "phones home" would always tend to draw attention to itself. There are tools for identifying which process is opening which socket, even for Windows.
1. Businesses can choose to trust software developed by random volunteers whose 'peer group' contains people of all sorts, with all sorts of political ideologies. or 2. Businesses can choose to trust software developed by managed teams of developers.
What makes you think proprietary developers are any less political or any better "managed" than those working on open source?
John Q. Public isn't going to read through the source code. He isn't capable of reading through the source code.
They can't carry out their own examination of proprietary software. Nor can they rely on third party reviews, because of EULA conditions. At least it is possible for anyone to learn a computer language. There isn't (yet) a law against that.
Back in the day when the shopping cart was invented (were talking 1937 - not amazon.com) the first stores to offer these contraptions noticed that they were not catching on at all.. so what did they do? They resorted to hiring models to shop with grocery carts as to "model" the behavior desired for customers.
That certainly wasn't the first. London Underground hired a one legged man to prove their new fangled "moving stairways" were safe.
You will buy a $99 (maybe even less) box that sits on top of your TV and decodes the digital signal so that your old TV can display it. Every other form of digital TV does this currently, and in fact I have yet to see TVs with integrated digital cable or satellite decoders.
They do exist, just very uncommon. Since the norm for cable and satellite is to use a box, it's simply a case of changing one box for another.
In the UK the government is considering giving them away to the stragglers if digital terrestrial TV hasn't taken off enough by the time the analogue signals are shut off.
Something similar was done in the 1980's when the 405 line transmitters were finally switched off.
New legislation is always a bit vague and it usually takes a few test cases to set the legal bounds.
Only if the legislators have failed to do their job properly. When they do this new laws will be clear, non redundant and only passed when actually necessary.
It doesn't matter whether the claim has merit, only how much money the litigants have. Hell, I'd be freaked out if a big company threatened to sue me for $1,000,000 for not mowing my lawn.
The difference is that lawyers and judges would probably require a lot more convincing that 1 million dollers was a sensible figure when it came to lawn mowing than anything involving computers.
DCMA is bad but at least at the core of our legal system we have a 1st amendment which prevents attempts at prior restraint,
The US Constitution is only as good as it's enforcement.
and so over the long term HP couldn't win this sort of thing.
Unless something were to happen quickly HP would win. Since they could afford to drag the case out. When it wants to the US government is capable of acting quickly. However they havn't done so in this case.
Or rather the applicable law or meta-law, in this case the US Constitution actually applied. When did the first ammendment become "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof (except where the president likes said religion); or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press (except when the matter involves electronic computer systems or the profits of large corporations); or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The GPL makes a poor EULA because it is NOT an EULA in the first place. It's a licence for the distribution of copyright works. It specifically does not restrict how you use the software.
If you don't agree to the terms then you should be able to print the EULA! The question is whether or not you can copyright a legal document such as the EULA.
Any document is automatically copyrighted when it is written. A more reasonable question would be to ask if creating such a database comes under "fair use". Since copyright laws typically protect copying for review and critique.
If Little Jimmy learns how to use Star Office or AbiWord in school, how is that going to help him when he goes to work for a company that requires him to use MS Office?
This argument applies equally if Little Jimmy's employer uses a newer (even an older) version of MS Office compared with the school's version. Fundermentally schools are ment to be about education i.e. "how to use a word processor"; rather than training i.e. "how to user this specific version of that specific word processor with these options installed."
They serve the same purpose, but the differences are very important conceptually.
No-one makes this kind of fuss about driving cars, even though car controls differ between models. Nor does any0one make this kind of fuss about telephone systems. Even though the user interface to the clever features of PBXen varies widely between systems.
So, if you live in US you do not need to break the DMCA, since you get your DVDs before others and cheaper,
It's not quite so simple. The US tends to get movies on DVD before the rest of the world. But TV series, especially US/Canadian produced ones, can easily appear on DVD in Europe and Australia on DVD long before they do so in the US.
There are plenty of Windows-only things one would want to run on a server. GE's Pathspeed system, for example, for running a PACS (x-rays stored as digital images instead of on film). Not every server is a web server, ya know.
You seriously claiming that that is the only method of storing digitised photographic film? X-rays are a good example of data where proprietary formats are an utterly daft idea. Is someone even going to know what "Pathspeed" was in 2032, when they what to compare a patient's current X-rays with those taken 30 years ago?
Why would you assume that they would notice? Most computer users have learned to push a few buttons to get the results they want, and that's the extent of their knowlege. Switching from MSWord to Openoffice will cause heartburn ONLY if the buttons change.
Nothing much stops Microsoft from changing the buttons between different versions of MS Office anyway.
For most users, retraining will take ten minutes, scattered through the first day.
Most people will cope perfectly well with changing between different domestic appliances or cars. If a business changes their telephone system do they put up with people moaning for months?
End-user hapiness (like it or not) is also a driving force in the decision making process. How many salespeople/marketing/data entry/etc. do you know that would appreciate moving to another OS? None that I know of. People tend to stick with what they know, and learn as little about it as they possibly can.
Thus they'd be just as upset changing from Windows X to Windows Y as from Windows to Linux.... Assuming they are actually doing much to touch the OS in the first place. It's quite possible that they will be using a bespoke application. Port that to a different OS and they won't notice much, except possibly the login box looking different.
Slashdot Mirror
The phone only sends it's IMEI if there's no SIM (and therefore can only make emergency calls), and at power on so the IMEI can be checked against the EIR in case it's listed as stolen or non-compliant (i.e. broken so bad it fubars the network.)
It would also be a good idea for networks to see if the TAC & FAC are valid both together and in combination. Also if the manufactures will co-operate that the serial number matches with the TAC & FAC combination and exists. The EIR should also list scrapped handsets.
and they'd block the handset too (the IMEI is sent as part of the sign-on process), but people are getting away with hacking the IMEIs
In order to do this they'd need to set the IMEI to one which is not already in use. Or are you claiming that networks will quite happily accept the same IMEI from multiple handsets.(Hence the possibility of denial of service to a third party).
Also not all possible TACs and FACs are assigned. Being able to have a network accept a hacked IMEI should be not trivial. Especially in an environment where the majority of handsets are locked to a specific network. Or is this locking enforced in the phone, rather than the network?
(In the UNLIKELY event the chip with the serial number was damaged I expect it could be replaced and have the old number from the phone encoded.)
Which would probably require the same kind of equiptment as changing the IMEI. Also only part of the IMEI is a serial number. The last digit is called "additional number".
Yeah, but how could you tell the phone was stolen if it's data was reset and it's IMEI changed?
It's obvious if the IMEI clashes with another phone. Also if the IMEI is impossible, never assigned.
But it's already illegal to steal.
It's already also illegal to traffic in stolen goods, misrepresent stolen goods as legitimate, defraud telephone companies, DOS legitimate mobile users.
Does this law actually do anything more to deter thieves,
The bill states that it is expected to have litte effect of policing, prosecutors and courts.
this law ultimately serves no purpose that couldn't be served by enforcing stiffer penalties on thieves.
It's apparent purpose is to present the impression of a government "doing something". With passing redundant laws being a prefered option to something like more police...
That wouldn't help since these are stolen phones, and people who steal phones rarely go to the phone company and sign a contract.
Stealing things is against the law. Handling stolen goods is against the law. Passing off stolen goods as not stolen is against the law. There looks to be plenty of applicable criminal law here.
Indeed the text of the bill specifically states "There will be minimal resource implications for the criminal justice agencies - the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts and the Prison Service - to investigate, enforce, prosecute and process the cases through the courts and to accommodate convicted offenders given a custodial sentence. The number of cases prosecuted under this new offence are likely to be relatively small in number," In which case the whole thing starts to look like a waste of time.
Under current laws, sicne reprogramming phones is not illegal,
Reprogramming the phones might not be. Switching them on after they have been reprogrammed could well be. Since that creates the possibility of a denial of service to legitimate users.
its pretty hard to prove that people who do this are doing anything wrong (they would have to know that the phopnes were stolen).
That's a problem for law enforcment. Will such a law make things any easier for the average DC? Handling stolen goods is already against the law.
So what are the legitimate reasons for a manufacturer to do this, and why can't they apply to a private citizen?
BRNotably to an independent service engineer... We have independent car mechanics, who may at times need to replace a car part carrying a recorded serial number.
There is a difference between this law and what you are talking about. You can modify your car completely but can you change your VIN number or license plate number with out notifying the proper authorities? No. This law isn?t any different.
It is, since the registration of VINs and other vehicle identifying numbers is handled by a government agency. If the bill set up something like the DVLA then the car analogy would hold. Instead the bill hands specific power to the manufactures, private (and foreign owned) businesses. It would be as if car makers were in charge of car registrations...
While I generally don't agree with restrictions on the use of hardware I buy, this is a special case.
Is a special law really needed. It is already illegal to steal things, traffic in stolen goods, misidentify stolen goods as not stolen, etc.
The law is intended to reduce the amount of phone-thefts in the UK (the phones are then reprogrammed and re-sold).
Over specific laws tend to be bad laws, especially if they require constant tinkering to keep updated. Since the bill specifically mentions GSM and IMEI, which is an indicator of the legislation being too specific.
I understand your issue however consider this. Had this been a Microsoft program for Windows I doubt we would have heard about it this quickly. Perhaps in 6 months but not in a day or two.
Don't think it would have taken 6 months. Might have taken about a week. Something which "phones home" would always tend to draw attention to itself. There are tools for identifying which process is opening which socket, even for Windows.
1. Businesses can choose to trust software developed by random volunteers whose 'peer group' contains people of all sorts, with all sorts of political ideologies.
or
2. Businesses can choose to trust software developed by managed teams of developers.
What makes you think proprietary developers are any less political or any better "managed" than those working on open source?
John Q. Public isn't going to read through the source code. He isn't capable of reading through the source code.
They can't carry out their own examination of proprietary software. Nor can they rely on third party reviews, because of EULA conditions. At least it is possible for anyone to learn a computer language. There isn't (yet) a law against that.
Back in the day when the shopping cart was invented (were talking 1937 - not amazon.com) the first stores to offer these contraptions noticed that they were not catching on at all .. so what did they do?
They resorted to hiring models to shop with grocery carts as to "model" the behavior desired for customers.
That certainly wasn't the first. London Underground hired a one legged man to prove their new fangled "moving stairways" were safe.
You will buy a $99 (maybe even less) box that sits on top of your TV and decodes the digital signal so that your old TV can display it. Every other form of digital TV does this currently, and in fact I have yet to see TVs with integrated digital cable or satellite decoders.
They do exist, just very uncommon. Since the norm for cable and satellite is to use a box, it's simply a case of changing one box for another.
In the UK the government is considering giving them away to the stragglers if digital terrestrial TV hasn't taken off enough by the time the analogue signals are shut off.
Something similar was done in the 1980's when the 405 line transmitters were finally switched off.
New legislation is always a bit vague and it usually takes a few test cases to set the legal bounds.
Only if the legislators have failed to do their job properly. When they do this new laws will be clear, non redundant and only passed when actually necessary.
It doesn't matter whether the claim has merit, only how much money the litigants have. Hell, I'd be freaked out if a big company threatened to sue me for $1,000,000 for not mowing my lawn.
The difference is that lawyers and judges would probably require a lot more convincing that 1 million dollers was a sensible figure when it came to lawn mowing than anything involving computers.
DCMA is bad but at least at the core of our legal system we have a 1st amendment which prevents attempts at prior restraint,
The US Constitution is only as good as it's enforcement.
and so over the long term HP couldn't win this sort of thing.
Unless something were to happen quickly HP would win. Since they could afford to drag the case out. When it wants to the US government is capable of acting quickly. However they havn't done so in this case.
Please .. what we need is a change in the law.
Or rather the applicable law or meta-law, in this case the US Constitution actually applied.
When did the first ammendment become "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (except where the president likes said religion); or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press (except when the matter involves electronic computer systems or the profits of large corporations); or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
The GPL makes a poor EULA because it is NOT an EULA in the first place. It's a licence for the distribution of copyright works. It specifically does not restrict how you use the software.
The legality of certain portions of the eula are dubious at best.
Such a database might expose which bits of which EULAs are bogus.
If you don't agree to the terms then you should be able to print the EULA! The question is whether or not you can copyright a legal document such as the EULA.
Any document is automatically copyrighted when it is written. A more reasonable question would be to ask if creating such a database comes under "fair use". Since copyright laws typically protect copying for review and critique.
If Little Jimmy learns how to use Star Office or AbiWord in school, how is that going to help him when he goes to work for a company that requires him to use MS Office?
This argument applies equally if Little Jimmy's employer uses a newer (even an older) version of MS Office compared with the school's version.
Fundermentally schools are ment to be about education i.e. "how to use a word processor"; rather than training i.e. "how to user this specific version of that specific word processor with these options installed."
They serve the same purpose, but the differences are very important conceptually.
No-one makes this kind of fuss about driving cars, even though car controls differ between models. Nor does any0one make this kind of fuss about telephone systems. Even though the user interface to the clever features of PBXen varies widely between systems.
So, if you live in US you do not need to break the DMCA, since you get your DVDs before others and cheaper,
It's not quite so simple. The US tends to get movies on DVD before the rest of the world. But TV series, especially US/Canadian produced ones, can easily appear on DVD in Europe and Australia on DVD long before they do so in the US.
There are plenty of Windows-only things one would want to run on a server. GE's Pathspeed system, for example, for running a PACS (x-rays stored as digital images instead of on film). Not every server is a web server, ya know.
You seriously claiming that that is the only method of storing digitised photographic film? X-rays are a good example of data where proprietary formats are an utterly daft idea. Is someone even going to know what "Pathspeed" was in 2032, when they what to compare a patient's current X-rays with those taken 30 years ago?
Why would you assume that they would notice? Most computer users have learned to push a few buttons to get the results they want, and that's the extent of their knowlege. Switching from MSWord to Openoffice will cause heartburn ONLY if the buttons change.
Nothing much stops Microsoft from changing the buttons between different versions of MS Office anyway.
For most users, retraining will take ten minutes, scattered through the first day.
Most people will cope perfectly well with changing between different domestic appliances or cars. If a business changes their telephone system do they put up with people moaning for months?
End-user hapiness (like it or not) is also a driving force in the decision making process. How many salespeople/marketing/data entry/etc. do you know that would appreciate moving to another OS? None that I know of. People tend to stick with what they know, and learn as little about it as they possibly can.
Thus they'd be just as upset changing from Windows X to Windows Y as from Windows to Linux.... Assuming they are actually doing much to touch the OS in the first place. It's quite possible that they will be using a bespoke application. Port that to a different OS and they won't notice much, except possibly the login box looking different.