These days people do remote unlocking, which means you buy the cable and plug your phone in, then you run some little program which lets them reprogram your phone over the 'net
That's not how remote unlocking works, or at least not these days.
First off, a mobile can have various types of locks. The three main types of locks are SIM Card, Network, and Service Provider.
SIM Card: The mobile phone will only work with the card that came with it.
Network: The mobile phone will only work on a single physical network. I believe this precludes roaming.
Service Provider: The mobile phone will work on the network owned by your Service Provider, and on other networks which have agreements with your Service Provider.
These aren't independent, nor are they birelational. If you have a SIM Card lock, you can only use that SIM card and therefore have a Service Provider lock. If you have a Service Provider lock, however, you can use other SIM cards from that service provider, given that you don't have a SIM Lock.
But back to your remote unlocking point. These days, many places (Google is your friend) do remote unlocking. All you have to do is send them your phone's serial number, or more accurately, IMEI number which stands for International Mobile Equipment Identifier. Needing only the IMEI number and a nominal fee, they send you a master code which you can use to remove the Service Provider lock (commonly the only lock set).
How they figure out this code I don't know, and it's probably a well kept trade secret cause I can't find anything online. I'm pretty sure they brute force the thing, considering the plethora of hardware you can buy to do this yourself.
As for the politics and ethics of the whole thing, well that's up to you. The providers lock these phones to make up for the reduced prices they offer you, and to protect their investment. On the other hand, the nice people at T-Mobile usually unlock your phone if you ask them to, especially if you're on contract or have been with them for a while. The bastards at AT&T Wireless won't do it at all, and they only sell locked phones. In which case, it's usually worth the $20 just to spite them (Seinfeld episode comes to mind).
One more thing to consider. Besides saving a ton of money on roaming if you go abroad for an extended period of time (pay as you go is much more mature abroad), unlocking also increases the resale value of your phone.
where Bernie is the affectionate name given to pigeon 37.
Think about it. A local news agency opens up a dozen or so little offices distributed around your city. It then trains pigeons to go to and from a couple of the offices, and attaches a small video camera with a decent transmitter to Bernie's leg. Since the pigeons follow roads, you'll have a live feed (no pun intended) of the road every pigeon is flying over.
Better yet, it seems likely that a greater number of pigeons will follow major roads, and fewer follow minor roads. That's more coverage of the main arteries, exactly what we need. And if you attach a GPS unit, you can localize which PigeonFeed (TM) you want to look at.
Sure beats millions of dollars for helicopters and thousands more for fuel... not to mention that we could maybe train them to poop on slow drivers.:)
It's all about expectations. Right now, people expect Best Buy, etc. to have great deals on Black Friday. People are waiting in anticipation, people will line up, and Best Buy will sell hordes of crap from people thinking they're gonna get good deals.
But then FatWallet (thanks FatWallet) comes along, and lists what these deals are. After people see what's really on sale, a lot of people will lose interest because the sales aren't great (as you said, "the only remotely great deal is"). Consumers have time to see whether something is really a deal or not by comparing prices in advance. This results in a lot less people expecting good deals, and a lot less people going to Best Buy on Black Friday. And a lot less money for Best Buy. Hence, the takedown notices. They know they'll lose money if people see the hype for what it really is... hype.
Sir Clippy of Twokay was swearin'
Through the forests of Washingtonhood
Cause none of these lusers
could friggin spell "users"
And disabled his dumb ass for good.
As much as I respect the Trillian and Gaim developers for adapting their clients on such short notice, I think they've got the wrong approach to the whole IM thing. For now, the two groups (or group and company I guess) are integrating IM clients into a single program with a clean interface. Many of us love the idea, and use their two clients, but this isn't fixing the underlying problems which allow MS and Yahoo to cause havoc by modifying their proprietary protocols. What Gaim and Trillian need to do is integrate users.
The main instant messaging protocols are already supported, namely Yahoo, AIM, MSN and ICQ. The problem, which has been addressed a ton of times on/., is that users go to the IM network that their friends are on, and so all four networks (with ICQ trailing) have significant user bases. But this can change if Gaim and Trillian get a bit creative. Simply put, add an open source protocol to the mix of supported protocols (Jabber) and let the rest work itself out.
What I think would happen is that Gaim and Trillian users would use Jabber to talk to each other, and use the commercial protocols to talk to the rest of their friends. As time goes on, these other friends could be migrated to Trillian or Gaim, maintaining contact with their MSN/AIM/etc buddies while now speaking Jabber to their Trillian and Gaim friends. This could be repeated indefinitely, and as Gaim and Trillian's user bases grow over time, there would be no reason to use commercial protocols because most people would already speak Jabber, courtesy of Gaim and Trillian supporting it.
In short, I believe Gaim and Trillian could serve as middlemen in switching users over to open source protocols like Jabber. The clients' ability to speak a multitude of protocols can bridge the gap between those pushing forward to open source protocols and those retaining backwards compatibility to their commercial protocol speaking friends.
I did plenty of research, thank you very much, so stop twisting my words. I wasn't aware that Cingular was GSM (second time I said this) and whether AT&T or T-Mobile are all or part GSM is irrespective, as long as they support GSM in some areas and therefore their tri-band handsets (were they to be unlocked) would be compatible with service abroad.
I also wasn't speaking about only T-Mobile in particular during my rant, just a general overview of the state of US mobile telco. As for purchasing a new phone leading to an extension of contract, of course I was referring to getting it for advertised rates from the provider. Otherwise I could just buy an unlocked triband online, which I did, same as yourself.
As for the new contract thing on T-Mobile, I recently changed my plan from an old one to the 600 min one I mentioned. Yes, they would let me change my plan to the new one without a contract, but whereas new customers would get free nights for life, I would have to pay some $3-$5 a month for them (recurring as long as I was with them). In addition, the free 500 SMSs a month I had on my old plan would be lost. The only way for me to get what a new customer was being offered was to sign the same contract the new customers had to sign, otherwise I'd be ripped off month after month. I didn't have to sign a new contract, no, but I would have paid for it had I not done so. Repeatedly.
Since I'm sure most of/. is more interested in coding a 1 square inch sensor than protecting a 300 foot tree, here's some programming background on the little bastards (which I work with on a daily basis, as part of a sensor network research group in a VA university).
- the architecture
The motes run 4MHz or 8MHz processors, with built in memory. The amount of memory varies across mote models (currently Rene, Rene2, Mica, Mica2, Mica2Dot, and SmartDust) but we're talking 16KB to 128KB of program memory, 4KB to 16KB of data memory, and 4Kb to 8KB EEPROM for permanent storage. They have a short range radio capable of I believe 10kbps, and use an active message model to provide what we know as "ports", so that you can direct a message to a specific handler based on its message type. The packet sizes top out at 36 bytes. The motes are powered by two AA batteries, which can last a surprisingly long time if the radio is put to sleep. Your main means for debugging: 3 LEDs... you can begin to imagine the headaches I face on a daily basis.
- the bridge
When deployed, most motes are programmed with routing protocols to autonomously establish networks, which are used for data aggregation and getting sensor readings around. The network is rooted at a basestation, a "powerful" PC without the restricted computation, communication and power limitations of a mote. This way any complex processing is offloaded to the PC, and the motes don't waste battery power doing stuff the PC can do instead. So what bridges this mote network to a PC? Well, it's a programming board. You plug a mote directly into the thing, and you hook up a db-25 to your parallel port, and a db-9 to your serial port. The parallel port is used to program the mote's instruction memory, and the serial port is used to receive messages sent by the mote to the PC. The mote that's hooked up to the programming board is loaded with code to translate RF packets to UART, and vice versa.
- sensing
Motes are equipped with 10-bit resolution ADC sensors which can read light and temperature. Other sensor boards can be hooked up to motes to read vibration, acceleration, and a bunch of other stuff. The motes commonly read their sensors, stuff the data in a packet, and send it along to the basestation for processing. That's the generic application model, at least.
- security
The main part of our research deals directly with implementing security in the sensor networks. This is far from easy, since you can't even store a public/private key in the mote's limited memory, let alone do anything with it. The protocols used are complex, involving securely distributing keys, efficient authentication protocols, and all this in 16KB of program memory (on Rene2s) INCLUDING the operating system! Just remember that the point isn't to stop a mote from being compromised, it's to realize it's compromised and drop it from the network. There are supposed to be thousands of motes in the network after all, so dropping a bunch won't hurt.
---
Here's hoping that background will help avoid the mass privacy paranoia that we/. readers love so much. At the time of this writing, motes aren't small enough or cheap ($250) enough to produce en masse, nor are they tiny enough to go unnoticed (remember the 2 AA batteries?). Yes, there are exceptions, but 1 square inch are the smallest production versions I know of (Mica2dots). And until they stop running on batteries, their biggest hindrance is their short lifetime, so they currently can't be constantly monitoring anything for months on end.
Aside: Take a look at the Spec. It could change that whole last paragraph.:)
As for the military surveillance stuff, that's what motes are ultimately designed for, to be dropped on
I didn't know about Cingular GSM. Good to know though. Both AT&T and T-Mobile (the two I've had most experience with) generally require contract resigning for plan or minute changes.
*grin* I respect your incoming minutes opinion, but there's a second flipside. Does your ISP charge you everytime you receive an email? It's not fair for the caller to have to pay more to call a mobile than a landline, but isn't it less fair for the recipient to have to pay for a call he may not have even wanted? I hope that "Do Not Call" list works...
But to back you up, mobiles have a distinct prefix abroad, vs the US where the same area code-exchange-4digit format is used. Abroad you know you're calling a mobile, not so in the US. Damn dilemmas.
I'm amused by our friends across the pond feeling bad for Americans because they don't have number portability? But do our friends with the silly accents realise the sorry state the US is in when it comes to mobile telecom in general?
Let's begin. The carriers here have no concept of a SIM card. Most phones are CDMA and are firmware locked to the provider. There are only two GSM networks I know of, T-Mobile and AT&T. Tri-band phones from these places cost as much as a Yugo. In addition, AT&T "provider locks" their expensive tri-band phones to only work on AT&T, and will not unlock them, not even for a fee (AT&T, if you're reading this, there are places online that unlock your phones for $20 or less, so screw you). T-Mobile unlocks your phone within 72 hours of being on contract, which is decent, however. Oh but should you wish to get a newer mobile from them, you have to resign a 1-2 year contract...
Oh yes, the contracts! Wait til you hear about these! Everyone's on contract here, because it's too expensive not to be. So here's how it works. You have this allotted quantity of minutes you pay a fixed monthly fee for, then you pay exorbitant rates (40c+ a minute) if you use them up. These quantities are decent, for example, T-Mobile offers 600 minutes, free nights, free weekends, and 500 SMS for $43 (27 quid) without tax. Nice eh? Umm, no, little do you realize how backwards the billing schemes are here. For one thing, minutes from that "600" get deducted for every incoming call. Even SMS get deducted for every incoming SMS sometimes. And 1 second rounding? Try 1 minute rounding. And if you don't use all your minutes in a month? *poof*, gone. Cingular's trying rollover, but since they're not GSM, they don't count. Oh, and should you wish to add or remove the number of allotted minutes to your plan, you have to resign a 1-2 year contract, with a termination fee in the $100 or $200s.
So in short, who gives a crap about number portability? How about we get reasonable plans and GSM phones which take SIM cards, before we worry about switching providers and keeping our numbers? What would you rather do, keep your phone when you switch carrier, or keep your number when you switch carrier? Especially since a decent triband costs hundreds of dollars?
Worth a shot... maybe they'll go bankrupt paying their broadband fees. Anyway, here's my submission to their contact page:
---
To whom it may concern (which is probably everyone working in your soon to be a Chapter 11 footnote),
Could you do the world a favour and inform us why on earth you're pursuing licensing fees in the alleged copied code in the Linux 2.4 kernel? Being an ex-Linux shop no less? I realize that you failed miserably in the Linux market, but instead of reevaluating your business model, you chose to pursue the UNIX market. As UNIX loses ground daily to Linux and the BSDs, do you honestly think Linux royalties will increase the demand for UNIX? Which part of how Open Source works don't you understand?
For one thing, the suits are frivolous. Should your claims be found to be valid, how long do you think it will take for the SMP code in the 2.4 kernel to be rewritten and rereleased? This is how the Open Source community works. Having a corporate background, it makes sense that Linux kernel development turnaround times are beyond your comprehension, but rest assured, any offensive code will be removed from 2.4 before you make your first dollar. Users will then simply upgrade to the new kernel, and nobody will owe you anything. The only thing you'll have gained is a bad reputation, and given your current earnings reports, a bad reputation will be the trailing period on that Chapter 11 footnote I mentioned.
The damage to your reputation may already be done, but don't make it worse. Your executives selling their stock isn't helping any either. Either start afresh while you have some semblance of a company left, or you might as well file for bankruptcy now. Don't think you have nothing to lose. You have a name that used to be respected, and you do still have a company. And as such you have leverage. This is not the time to start lawsuits and alienate any friends you may have left in the business.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not how remote unlocking works, or at least not these days.
First off, a mobile can have various types of locks. The three main types of locks are SIM Card, Network, and Service Provider.
These aren't independent, nor are they birelational. If you have a SIM Card lock, you can only use that SIM card and therefore have a Service Provider lock. If you have a Service Provider lock, however, you can use other SIM cards from that service provider, given that you don't have a SIM Lock.
But back to your remote unlocking point. These days, many places (Google is your friend) do remote unlocking. All you have to do is send them your phone's serial number, or more accurately, IMEI number which stands for International Mobile Equipment Identifier. Needing only the IMEI number and a nominal fee, they send you a master code which you can use to remove the Service Provider lock (commonly the only lock set).
How they figure out this code I don't know, and it's probably a well kept trade secret cause I can't find anything online. I'm pretty sure they brute force the thing, considering the plethora of hardware you can buy to do this yourself.
As for the politics and ethics of the whole thing, well that's up to you. The providers lock these phones to make up for the reduced prices they offer you, and to protect their investment. On the other hand, the nice people at T-Mobile usually unlock your phone if you ask them to, especially if you're on contract or have been with them for a while. The bastards at AT&T Wireless won't do it at all, and they only sell locked phones. In which case, it's usually worth the $20 just to spite them (Seinfeld episode comes to mind).
One more thing to consider. Besides saving a ton of money on roaming if you go abroad for an extended period of time (pay as you go is much more mature abroad), unlocking also increases the resale value of your phone.
where Bernie is the affectionate name given to pigeon 37.
... not to mention that we could maybe train them to poop on slow drivers. :)
Think about it. A local news agency opens up a dozen or so little offices distributed around your city. It then trains pigeons to go to and from a couple of the offices, and attaches a small video camera with a decent transmitter to Bernie's leg. Since the pigeons follow roads, you'll have a live feed (no pun intended) of the road every pigeon is flying over.
Better yet, it seems likely that a greater number of pigeons will follow major roads, and fewer follow minor roads. That's more coverage of the main arteries, exactly what we need. And if you attach a GPS unit, you can localize which PigeonFeed (TM) you want to look at.
Sure beats millions of dollars for helicopters and thousands more for fuel
It's all about expectations. Right now, people expect Best Buy, etc. to have great deals on Black Friday. People are waiting in anticipation, people will line up, and Best Buy will sell hordes of crap from people thinking they're gonna get good deals.
But then FatWallet (thanks FatWallet) comes along, and lists what these deals are. After people see what's really on sale, a lot of people will lose interest because the sales aren't great (as you said, "the only remotely great deal is"). Consumers have time to see whether something is really a deal or not by comparing prices in advance. This results in a lot less people expecting good deals, and a lot less people going to Best Buy on Black Friday. And a lot less money for Best Buy. Hence, the takedown notices. They know they'll lose money if people see the hype for what it really is ... hype.
Sir Clippy of Twokay was swearin'
Through the forests of Washingtonhood
Cause none of these lusers
could friggin spell "users"
And disabled his dumb ass for good.
Damn I need more coffee...
As much as I respect the Trillian and Gaim developers for adapting their clients on such short notice, I think they've got the wrong approach to the whole IM thing. For now, the two groups (or group and company I guess) are integrating IM clients into a single program with a clean interface. Many of us love the idea, and use their two clients, but this isn't fixing the underlying problems which allow MS and Yahoo to cause havoc by modifying their proprietary protocols. What Gaim and Trillian need to do is integrate users.
The main instant messaging protocols are already supported, namely Yahoo, AIM, MSN and ICQ. The problem, which has been addressed a ton of times on /., is that users go to the IM network that their friends are on, and so all four networks (with ICQ trailing) have significant user bases. But this can change if Gaim and Trillian get a bit creative. Simply put, add an open source protocol to the mix of supported protocols (Jabber) and let the rest work itself out.
What I think would happen is that Gaim and Trillian users would use Jabber to talk to each other, and use the commercial protocols to talk to the rest of their friends. As time goes on, these other friends could be migrated to Trillian or Gaim, maintaining contact with their MSN/AIM/etc buddies while now speaking Jabber to their Trillian and Gaim friends. This could be repeated indefinitely, and as Gaim and Trillian's user bases grow over time, there would be no reason to use commercial protocols because most people would already speak Jabber, courtesy of Gaim and Trillian supporting it.
In short, I believe Gaim and Trillian could serve as middlemen in switching users over to open source protocols like Jabber. The clients' ability to speak a multitude of protocols can bridge the gap between those pushing forward to open source protocols and those retaining backwards compatibility to their commercial protocol speaking friends.
I did plenty of research, thank you very much, so stop twisting my words. I wasn't aware that Cingular was GSM (second time I said this) and whether AT&T or T-Mobile are all or part GSM is irrespective, as long as they support GSM in some areas and therefore their tri-band handsets (were they to be unlocked) would be compatible with service abroad.
I also wasn't speaking about only T-Mobile in particular during my rant, just a general overview of the state of US mobile telco. As for purchasing a new phone leading to an extension of contract, of course I was referring to getting it for advertised rates from the provider. Otherwise I could just buy an unlocked triband online, which I did, same as yourself.
As for the new contract thing on T-Mobile, I recently changed my plan from an old one to the 600 min one I mentioned. Yes, they would let me change my plan to the new one without a contract, but whereas new customers would get free nights for life, I would have to pay some $3-$5 a month for them (recurring as long as I was with them). In addition, the free 500 SMSs a month I had on my old plan would be lost. The only way for me to get what a new customer was being offered was to sign the same contract the new customers had to sign, otherwise I'd be ripped off month after month. I didn't have to sign a new contract, no, but I would have paid for it had I not done so. Repeatedly.
Since I'm sure most of /. is more interested in coding a 1 square inch sensor than protecting a 300 foot tree, here's some programming background on the little bastards (which I work with on a daily basis, as part of a sensor network research group in a VA university).
- the architecture
The motes run 4MHz or 8MHz processors, with built in memory. The amount of memory varies across mote models (currently Rene, Rene2, Mica, Mica2, Mica2Dot, and SmartDust) but we're talking 16KB to 128KB of program memory, 4KB to 16KB of data memory, and 4Kb to 8KB EEPROM for permanent storage. They have a short range radio capable of I believe 10kbps, and use an active message model to provide what we know as "ports", so that you can direct a message to a specific handler based on its message type. The packet sizes top out at 36 bytes. The motes are powered by two AA batteries, which can last a surprisingly long time if the radio is put to sleep. Your main means for debugging: 3 LEDs ... you can begin to imagine the headaches I face on a daily basis.
- the bridge
When deployed, most motes are programmed with routing protocols to autonomously establish networks, which are used for data aggregation and getting sensor readings around. The network is rooted at a basestation, a "powerful" PC without the restricted computation, communication and power limitations of a mote. This way any complex processing is offloaded to the PC, and the motes don't waste battery power doing stuff the PC can do instead. So what bridges this mote network to a PC? Well, it's a programming board. You plug a mote directly into the thing, and you hook up a db-25 to your parallel port, and a db-9 to your serial port. The parallel port is used to program the mote's instruction memory, and the serial port is used to receive messages sent by the mote to the PC. The mote that's hooked up to the programming board is loaded with code to translate RF packets to UART, and vice versa.
- sensing
Motes are equipped with 10-bit resolution ADC sensors which can read light and temperature. Other sensor boards can be hooked up to motes to read vibration, acceleration, and a bunch of other stuff. The motes commonly read their sensors, stuff the data in a packet, and send it along to the basestation for processing. That's the generic application model, at least.
- security
The main part of our research deals directly with implementing security in the sensor networks. This is far from easy, since you can't even store a public/private key in the mote's limited memory, let alone do anything with it. The protocols used are complex, involving securely distributing keys, efficient authentication protocols, and all this in 16KB of program memory (on Rene2s) INCLUDING the operating system! Just remember that the point isn't to stop a mote from being compromised, it's to realize it's compromised and drop it from the network. There are supposed to be thousands of motes in the network after all, so dropping a bunch won't hurt.
---
Here's hoping that background will help avoid the mass privacy paranoia that we /. readers love so much. At the time of this writing, motes aren't small enough or cheap ($250) enough to produce en masse, nor are they tiny enough to go unnoticed (remember the 2 AA batteries?). Yes, there are exceptions, but 1 square inch are the smallest production versions I know of (Mica2dots). And until they stop running on batteries, their biggest hindrance is their short lifetime, so they currently can't be constantly monitoring anything for months on end.
Aside: Take a look at the Spec. It could change that whole last paragraph. :)
As for the military surveillance stuff, that's what motes are ultimately designed for, to be dropped on
I didn't know about Cingular GSM. Good to know though. Both AT&T and T-Mobile (the two I've had most experience with) generally require contract resigning for plan or minute changes.
...
*grin* I respect your incoming minutes opinion, but there's a second flipside. Does your ISP charge you everytime you receive an email? It's not fair for the caller to have to pay more to call a mobile than a landline, but isn't it less fair for the recipient to have to pay for a call he may not have even wanted? I hope that "Do Not Call" list works
But to back you up, mobiles have a distinct prefix abroad, vs the US where the same area code-exchange-4digit format is used. Abroad you know you're calling a mobile, not so in the US. Damn dilemmas.
I'm amused by our friends across the pond feeling bad for Americans because they don't have number portability? But do our friends with the silly accents realise the sorry state the US is in when it comes to mobile telecom in general?
Let's begin. The carriers here have no concept of a SIM card. Most phones are CDMA and are firmware locked to the provider. There are only two GSM networks I know of, T-Mobile and AT&T. Tri-band phones from these places cost as much as a Yugo. In addition, AT&T "provider locks" their expensive tri-band phones to only work on AT&T, and will not unlock them, not even for a fee (AT&T, if you're reading this, there are places online that unlock your phones for $20 or less, so screw you). T-Mobile unlocks your phone within 72 hours of being on contract, which is decent, however. Oh but should you wish to get a newer mobile from them, you have to resign a 1-2 year contract...
Oh yes, the contracts! Wait til you hear about these! Everyone's on contract here, because it's too expensive not to be. So here's how it works. You have this allotted quantity of minutes you pay a fixed monthly fee for, then you pay exorbitant rates (40c+ a minute) if you use them up. These quantities are decent, for example, T-Mobile offers 600 minutes, free nights, free weekends, and 500 SMS for $43 (27 quid) without tax. Nice eh? Umm, no, little do you realize how backwards the billing schemes are here. For one thing, minutes from that "600" get deducted for every incoming call. Even SMS get deducted for every incoming SMS sometimes. And 1 second rounding? Try 1 minute rounding. And if you don't use all your minutes in a month? *poof*, gone. Cingular's trying rollover, but since they're not GSM, they don't count. Oh, and should you wish to add or remove the number of allotted minutes to your plan, you have to resign a 1-2 year contract, with a termination fee in the $100 or $200s.
So in short, who gives a crap about number portability? How about we get reasonable plans and GSM phones which take SIM cards, before we worry about switching providers and keeping our numbers? What would you rather do, keep your phone when you switch carrier, or keep your number when you switch carrier? Especially since a decent triband costs hundreds of dollars?
Worth a shot ... maybe they'll go bankrupt paying their broadband fees. Anyway, here's my submission to their contact page:
---
To whom it may concern (which is probably everyone working in your soon to be a Chapter 11 footnote),
Could you do the world a favour and inform us why on earth you're pursuing licensing fees in the alleged copied code in the Linux 2.4 kernel? Being an ex-Linux shop no less? I realize that you failed miserably in the Linux market, but instead of reevaluating your business model, you chose to pursue the UNIX market. As UNIX loses ground daily to Linux and the BSDs, do you honestly think Linux royalties will increase the demand for UNIX? Which part of how Open Source works don't you understand?
For one thing, the suits are frivolous. Should your claims be found to be valid, how long do you think it will take for the SMP code in the 2.4 kernel to be rewritten and rereleased? This is how the Open Source community works. Having a corporate background, it makes sense that Linux kernel development turnaround times are beyond your comprehension, but rest assured, any offensive code will be removed from 2.4 before you make your first dollar. Users will then simply upgrade to the new kernel, and nobody will owe you anything. The only thing you'll have gained is a bad reputation, and given your current earnings reports, a bad reputation will be the trailing period on that Chapter 11 footnote I mentioned.
The damage to your reputation may already be done, but don't make it worse. Your executives selling their stock isn't helping any either. Either start afresh while you have some semblance of a company left, or you might as well file for bankruptcy now. Don't think you have nothing to lose. You have a name that used to be respected, and you do still have a company. And as such you have leverage. This is not the time to start lawsuits and alienate any friends you may have left in the business.
Sincerely,
the Clue Bat
---