http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21200566 Is this true; do you people actually have locked phones? I have to be honest, there are a few very cheap networks out here that engage in this naughtiness but the vast majority of phones are unlocked from new so you buy a phone and insert any SIM card you like. Do you guys know there are other ways to buy phones so you can stick your middle finger up to greedy operators?
Hi! Any phone you buy from a service provider is "locked". There are two meanings to this. One is that your phone has a code which ties it to a specific network. So if you buy a 600 dollar phone... you cannot switch from, say, verizon to sprint... because they are "locked" to the specific network. MOST cell providers will not allow you to attach an "unlocked" phone to their network... without significant argumentative phone skills at least. The other version of locked has to do with your ability to control the OS itself. "Jailbreaking" or "rooting" ones phone is against the terms of service, and if you do it wrong... it is called "bricking" the phone... as it is no longer usable as a tech device, and because you had the audacity to try and have more access than your provider... it is a violation of the terms of service. You are meant to be owned... you do not own your hardware. It is a violation of the DMCA, the government now says, to do with your equipment what you will. It doesn't belong to you... you just paid for it.
I have a locked phone. I got it for a discount price because of that. (saved about $400 on it). I wouldn't have saved that much going to a different company. I can unlock it after my contract is over.
I was under the impression that the library of congress shot down apples DMCA argument. They ruled that the DMCA cannot extend to ownership of hardware it only exists to protect copyright and cannot be used to monopolize networks.
Not exactly... they put into effect a 3 year exemption for jailbreaking/rooting (for the purposes of this thread I will just call everything rooting) under certain circumstances, which has to be re-approved (as an exemption)... and was not. http://www.iclarified.com/25365/lib...aking-ipads-and-unlocking-new-iphones-illegal It was about as clear as (*)(*)(*)(*)ing mud to begin with. And while that provision provided you could not be sued or held criminally responsible for the act of rooting itself... transferring apple data in a "non-apple approved" way was/is still criminal. It is a violation of the terms of service, which can be suspended... it is also still very illegal to make software that roots the things to begin with... so they can sue the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of the devs... http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201
Our IP/copyright laws are so messed up, no one truly understands them. Then they have to make more laws to define what the first laws stand for and then more laws to protect what the second secedes in the first law until we get to this never ending ball of crap that no ever truly understands. At which point, we just become robots to society and just do what we're told by our government. For me, I see nothing wrong with jailbreaking/rooting/flashing a device. It only becomes an issue when you illegally download apps onto the device itself (That is, without paying for it, unless its free, different story then). In yet, they limit this but then if you buy a computer from HP/Compaq, Dell, Alienware, or any other computer manufacture, they don't prohibit you from doing the same thing to your computer. I can completely have admin access to it and I can refresh the computer so I have an entirely different OS on it. That's perfectly legal, but you can't do the same on a device? How utterly insane. Just goes to show how technologically stupid our politicians are. In yet, we allow them to write these laws that continually infringe on our rights.
