Finally today i had enough... I filed a formal complaint with the FTC against motorola and all other mobile device manufacturers out lining the cause and effect of these companies selling us devices that we are made to be only users of rather than owners and administrators the devices we purchased. Nothing will change until we make some one step in and set the rules, i am encouraging everyone here on xda to do the same ... here is a link to the example complaint i filed and the link to the appropriate form to be filed
http://t0dbld.blogspot.com/2011/03/m...otloaders.html
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.go...d.aspx?Lang=en
Here's some more food for though concerning smartphone security:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/03/carrier-intransigence-harms-internet-security
Perhaps we can spin our complaint with this in mind.
Basically since smartphones are essentially computers, I feel we should insist on being able to do what we want with them - Dell, HP, etc can't object when I choose to replace Windows on my PC with Linux, neither should Moto, HTC, etc be able to determine what we can and cannot run.
Also, if my phone has HDMI out, I can easily envision using it as a media player long after it's served its time as a phone.
IMO, people would be far better off signing this petition which will be presented to Motorola to try and persuade them to change their bootloader policies as they have previously promised to do.
It is a direct request to the one organisation who can change the matters for the better - Motorola themselves.
And unlike this thread, it doesn't rely upon subjective argument of entitlement.
Step666 said:
IMO, people would be far better off signing this petition which will be presented to Motorola to try and persuade them to change their bootloader policies as they have previously promised to do.
It is a direct request to the one organisation who can change the matters for the better - Motorola themselves.
And unlike this thread, it doesn't rely upon subjective argument of entitlement.
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first of all is there any harm in both ? secondly i respectfully disagree, some one needs to be put in charge of these things and so far the only thing that governs tech is law suits, as noted above HP did loose to FTC when they tried to deny people from not using windows on there machines, also petitions although the preferred method of hippies and college students do not hold there weight in most courts, i do know from personal exp. as if you really wish i can show you my supreme court case in the state of Michigan and yes years prior we started with a neighborhood petition that didn't even hold up in the local commissions and courts. either way i have signed said petition but i feel that if we get the FTC involved it will help the Petition as eyes will be upon it.... ALSO please keep in mind this is not just motorola they just happen to be better than other companies, jsut like computers we should not have to hack anything for administrator privileges, or to wipe the device and load are own software
But on what grounds would the FTC uphold your complaint?
Just because jailbreaking etc is not illegal, that doesn't give you a right to be able to install custom ROMs onto your handset, nor does it automatically make the measures that companies like Motorola take to prevent modification of their handsets illegal.
You say that the FTC ruled against HP for preventing laptop owners from installing Linux - how come when I Google 'FTC HP Linux', I find nothing relating to that?
Step666 said:
But on what grounds would the FTC uphold your complaint?
Just because jailbreaking etc is not illegal, that doesn't give you a right to be able to install custom ROMs onto your handset, nor does it automatically make the measures that companies like Motorola take to prevent modification of their handsets illegal.
You say that the FTC ruled against HP for preventing laptop owners from installing Linux - how come when I Google 'FTC HP Linux', I find nothing relating to that?
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this is not about jail breaking and if you make it about such it will not get looked at, this is about being sold a device that we are not given administrative right to or the ability to wipe and install any software we want on it.... You wouldn't stand for this on your home pc would you ?
Because the ruling was not about linux, it was about being forced to have windows and paying for the licensing, it became much bigger than just hp as well but it is there including the end results of hp having to offer it with out windows and to refund people's money that did not agree to windows terms and returned the license
t0dbld said:
this is about being sold a device that we are not given administrative right to or the ability to wipe and install any software we want on it...
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Right, ok, fine.
But that detail aside, my question still remains unanswered - why would they rule in your favour on that basis?
In what way are you entitled to be able to completely wipe your phone and install whatever you want onto it?
t0dbld said:
Because the ruling was not about linux, it was about being forced to have windows and paying for the licensing, it became much bigger than just hp as well but it is there including the end results of hp having to offer it with out windows and to refund people's money that did not agree to windows terms and returned the license
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That's different then - it's one thing for HP to force customers to pay the licence fee for a copy of Windows they don't need/want but no-one is being forced to pay for an Android licence here, Motorola et al's practices are not costing the end user money.
I'm just trying to understand why you believe the FTC would consider your complaint, let alone side against the manufacturers.
look dude your still not getting it and thats ok, do it or dont, try to help or dont, have a good day
only a matter of time b4 these guys realize locked bootloaders dont help any1..
Related
just dont buy their Vista! that should teach them something! never piss off thoses that supporting u!
netnerd said:
just dont buy their Vista! that should teach them something! never piss off thoses that supporting u!
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I never planned on it, what a rip off! XP will last another 3-5 years, then I am sure the next PC/MAC will have something better.
netnerd said:
just dont buy their Vista! that should teach them something! never piss off thoses that supporting u!
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OK....you got me....what does this have to do with upgrading your hermes.
maybe that you can not run upgrade software under vista
tco said:
OK....you got me....what does this have to do with upgrading your hermes.
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The pukes in Micro$oft's compliance and licensing department have demanded take down of all ROMs- source of the only stable, up-to-date WM versions of their piece-o-crap OS.
Palm did this to Shadowmite about a year ago after Cingular and Verizon started to complain to Palm. Basically MS is admiting that Gates is the carriers' *****- its a shame that sanctimonious prick elected to breed: conquers the computer world then surrenders it to Ma Bell, her children and their content providers.
Guess it's time to spread some pirated Office 2003 love....
I betcha what bothered them was the progress being made by the XDA Linux project- after seeing what Access released earlier this week M$ ought to be running scared.
I'm running SuSE Linux and have no problem upgrading my roms on my HTC TyTN.
and by the way.... all the little pretty pictures and how VISTA does multi windows with content.. Linux does too! XGL!!!!
This got me thinking.... can we load Linux on our phones?
This is annoying that M$ has to do this. They just cant leave anything alone.
Oh if Linux can do a ROM load then surely OSX can too then.
Yeah spread the good word on the process. In another topic of course(dont wanna de-rail)
This thread needs more LOLZOR1111!!!!
Seriously, wtf?
Don't buy Vista to show them what exactly?
Yeah, let's use a 5 year old OS with easily exploited security issues to teach them what?
The term cutting off your nose to spite your face comes to mind.
Also, they are protecting their legal intellectual property, and they are in the wrong?
What we do here has always been of dubious legal standing. We carry on as long as we are allowed, but we stop when we are told to stop, and that way nobody gets into trouble.
Get a grip on reality people.
Exactly well said. The trouble is instead of a nice comprehensive source of good ROMs made by people who know what they're doing. There'll be a proliferation of hacked-up images with random hacked version numbers scattered across the internet.
Will this result in fewer bricked phones and support calls?
AlanJC said:
Get a grip on reality people.
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I couldn't agree more.
Apparently a lot of people have problems with "reality" nowadays.
Yes, it sucks that the ROMs have to be pulled from the ftp servers.
Yes, Microsoft could do better and show a firmer stand regarding the carriers.
Yes, this online community is very valuable to Microsoft AND the carriers, if they realize it or not.
BUT: there are laws and if Microsoft demands the removal of the ROMs, it is their right to do so, like it or not. They could have used a more "aggressive" approach with their law department but they chose to use a more "soft" approach and this is a very wise decision.
However, Microsoft must realize that such unpopular decisions won't be forgotten and such actions will definetely not make their already bad reputation much better.
Calling for a boycott doesn't help much, I'm pretty sure myself that the carriers are behind the ROM removal, not necessarily Microsoft.
Maybe we should write a letter to the carriers, asking them if they're behind the pressure on Microsoft to have the ROMs removed. If the carriers are blamed instead and their decisions are out in the open, maybe they re-consider because trust me, I would NOT want to be a customer of a carrier who asked Microsoft to remove the ROMs. Definetely not.
personaly i'm not planning on getting vista untill maybe sp4
anyway
xp with 3th party software and no IE is safe enough
vista is mostly 3th party software functionality now as a std. ms thing
and fancy eye candy which linux and macos had for ages
but if ms see that vista is not selling as well as it should
and they connect the dots and form a picture that show that
their pull unoffical roms off sites
there is something wrong with their heads
Vista already not selling as well as it should - it started to show when it was released for volume (corporate) clients, and now its well clear that ordinary users dont rush to buy it despite all PR tsunami unleashed - maybe its "good, advanced, beautiful" and all the buzz, but even thick Joe User sees thats its somewhat lot of problems and complaints floating around.
The whole Vista thing was a reckless scheme - MS spent millions on development, but they lost the clear understanding of why exactly people will want it - on the latest stages it was more of make beleief.
Now they will have to transfer money from other branches, that is more profitable (namely being their Office branch, XBox being not profitable on their own). I think thats why they made it "WM6" (when it was clearly 5.2 originally and still 5.2 in matter of features and internal versioning) - for WM6 they can charge license fees from ODMs as for entirely new OS.
@All
Forget about roms, we will find alternative way to store them, so this is just empty talk. There are free filehosting sites, and other p2p distributing variants, so what's the problem? Microsoft has the rights to ask for deleting the roms, everyone know that. We will continiue what we doing but with difrend way of distributing rom images, thats all. About vista is sucks, you have to confirm every action you do about hunderd times, it works slow even with effects shutted down, and on high end configuration PC, it randomly loose settings, cookies, passwords, favorites, software and other stuff, overall it is unreliable fo usage.
I love to hate MS as much as the rest of you, but everybody needs to step back and take a breath on this one. The reason MS is doing this has nothing to do with piracy, Vista, progress, Linux, taking over the world, Bill Gates, them being money-grubbing pigs, or your grandmother.
The reasoning is simple...under US intellectual property laws, if they are made aware that someone is distributing their intellectual property (like a ROM that contains MS software) and they make no attempt to stop it, they forfeit their rights to that intellectual property. I don't think I need to explain why giving up their rights would be a bad idea for them.
In my experience, companies try to ignore sites like this for as long as they possibly can, because nobody wants to attract the kind of bad press a takedown notice causes. Inevitably, however, things get too big...a site gets a mention in the news, or it becomes the defacto source for ROMs, or it gets frequent mentions in other forums like cingular.com, and the attorneys finally have to face the fact that they can't possibly claim in court that they weren't aware that their IP was being distributed.
All companies do things like this every day to a lot of great sites and forums, not because they are jerks, but because the US legal system requires them to.
In the meantime, we just have to move on and do what everyone else does--find somewhere else to keep the bits
The reasoning is simple...under US intellectual property laws, if they are made aware that someone is distributing their intellectual property (like a ROM that contains MS software) and they make no attempt to stop it, they forfeit their rights to that intellectual property. I don't think I need to explain why giving up their rights would be a bad idea for them.
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Actually that's completely untrue. I think you're thinking of trademarks which do behave in that way. That was the reason for the necessary recent legal cases by Linus over the Linux trademark. There's no such requirement for copyrights or patents.
Not being on the inside it's hard to know the reason for the action: Whether it's the OEM's complaining. I think their logic is that if they only provide updates with new hardware then you'll have no choice but to buy their new hardware. and that people making updates for their older devices are harming their sales figures. they really are that dumb.
The alternative is that MS are annoyed/worried about all the information leaking about WM6 before launch and they simply want to control the release situation.
ivorh said:
Actually that's completely untrue. I think you're thinking of trademarks which do behave in that way. That was the reason for the necessary recent legal cases by Linus over the Linux trademark. There's no such requirement for copyrights or patents.
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Not quite...the nature in which you forfeit rights is different between copyrights and trademarks, but due diligence is required for both. If a known copyright infringement is not pursued within the statute of limitations, implied license is granted, meaning the infringer can essentially distribute at will.
ivorh said:
Actually that's completely untrue. I think you're thinking of trademarks which do behave in that way. That was the reason for the necessary recent legal cases by Linus over the Linux trademark. There's no such requirement for copyrights or patents.
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Not quite...the nature in which you forfeit rights is different between copyrights and trademarks, but due diligence is required for both. If a known copyright infringement is not pursued within the statute of limitations, implied license is granted.
No offence guys but Microsoft or the Vendors wouldn't have given crap about the roms here if it wasn't for the idiots (yes you know who you are) pestering the vendors and Microsoft about support for yet to be released roms. Either bugging them with questions on why something doesn't work anymore, how to use something in the new rom (GPS....), or warrenty repair for f'ing up one's device. Not to mention how pissed they must be for the even bigger idiots who contact Vender A and tell them they installed Vendor A rom on Vender B device
Really what it comes down to is if it costs them money they are going to make a stink and handling service calls for hacked/unsupported roms costs them money. Not to mention how much it would piss off Vendor A to spend money enhancing their rom only to have news sites promoting the rom to other Vendor B devices and have people installing it on Vendor B's device.
That's really what this is all about so if there is anyone to blame in all this, don't blame Microsoft or the Vendors, blame those people because if it wasn't for them, the vendors and Microsoft would have given a sh*t and probably just let things be the way they should be.
Maybe an appropriate response would be to overwhelm MS and the Carriers support systems with complaints about slow, non functioning, unstable software and devices.
The Carriers who actually sell most of us our phones should be ashamed of offering such substandard products. The diference between an "XDA-Developers sourced ROM" and the stock ROM on my device at least is enormous. Yet it was achieved by unpaid amateurs, I mean no disrespect to ROM chefs with this statement.
With the Windows update features built in to WM6 maybe there is a mechanism for MS to offer timely updates/fixes direct to the user. These updates could have incorporated "XDA-Developers" inspired enhancements and bug fixes. Sadly I feel this will not now be the case.
Yes, I can understand the global motives of MS in protecting its intelectual property but I cannot perceive any benefit to MS by exerting its right/might in this case.
</RANT>
Just read another post where it was mentioned that technically the different ROM versions floating around on the site are illegal.
And WM6 for free? I'd say that's piracy. You do pay for at least to upgrade from Windows XP to Vista?
When you buy a new computer that comes with an OS, you can't assume that you are entitled for a free upgrade
to OS when ever one is released.
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In some sense I can see that this might be true! after all, its well known that this site won't tolerate warez... but its fine for beta/non-beta ROMS to be cooked and made freely available to anyone with compatible devices...
Don't get me wrong... I'm all for it and envy all of our cooks - if I could understand how to do it I would!!! I'm just wondering what the true legalities are?
Please don't shoot me
lots of views on the matter here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=294142&highlight=legal
"And WM6 for free? I'd say that's piracy. You do pay for at least to upgrade from Windows XP to Vista?"
this statement is not really true because ms sell vista and vista upgrades
nor ms or htc or any of the OEM's of the htc devices have ever sold upgrades ms stay out of it 100% htc (pre them selling themselfs) always just made basis roms and given them to the operators to customize and give users free
If it is being sold and we used it without buying, that's illegal, just like the computer situation.
In PPC situation, how can it be legal or illegal when it is not sold in the first place?
"True" legalities are simple: M$ has copyright on this material so though I am not a legal expert of any kind I am sure they will have no trouble proving in court that even simple redistribution of ROMs without any alteration by a non authorized party such as this site is illegal.
Then again, since neither M$ nor the OEMs (not jut HTC) don't bother with updates unless a given device is really unstable so they need to fix some bugs and you can never by a newer OS even if your device supports it I thinks this is basically "fare use".
After all it is a dirty commercial trick to force people to by new hardware at ridiculous prices just to keep the software up to date.
CWKJ said:
In PPC situation, how can it be legal or illegal when it is not sold in the first place?
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Violating patents is illegal,while they are not sold. Violating GPL is illegal, while the product covered by GPL is free. So "not sold" means nothing.
You might know that in modern world nobody sells software itself. They sell or give away licenses on its use. When you buy such a software, it is written on the envelope: "By opening blah-blah-blah" and you accept the license this way. It is not a case with my TyTN! I didn't have to accept a license before starting to use the software. Same with firmware of several devices on the market.
If there are no any contractual relationships between me and the owner of the rights on this software, I violate nothing by using it on a way of my choice.
Well, stolen betas is of different kind: the person who first started to distributed it violated NDA or something like. It is known. So I can't disagree it's illegal.
When you download a firmware update from the vendor, you amy have to accept a license. If you have done, then cooking from it may be illegal.
But I see nothing illegal when no an agreement was accepted.
I think the answer is not quite as simple. Is it legal? Well, technically it is not.
A lot of copyright law could and would defend this point.
However in this world of ours, not everything is about the law. Especially when money is involved.
Having MS and HTC simply say that if you want to taste WM6 that you have to buy a new gadget is not illegal. In fact as the owners and the licenser this is completely their right to do. Sh!tty? Sure! But why not? It is their right, and for us to use WM6 because we don't want to pay does NOT make it right.
The fact of the matter is the number of users who will be upgrading to WM6 through cooked ROMs is rather small and honestly not worth their trouble.
They know most people will buy the software legally. They know that most of their serious buyers will be corporations who will buy it legally. AND ultimately, they WANT people to work and spread their software as much as possible.
Sure they are loosing money doing that --very little in the large scheme of things-- but ultimately, they win because they (US) spread knowledge and we create future customers. Since eventually most of us will upgrade hardware and if when we do, we will most likely stick with WM rather than lets say go to Nokia's Symbian.
They are not stupid and this is why they have not tried to shut down XDA Developers outright for even hosting ROM cookers who are obviously working on leaked versions of their software.
the only skin of htc and ms's nose is that people may not replace their phones as fast
but then same would be true for pc's if they too were made not to have os upgraded
operators like orange and tmobile and the likes could not care less
sim unlocking a phone harm them much much more since that imply that you will stop using the service that they make money on
An interesting historical fact: back when home computer was a new concept and Apple and IBM just began their competition Apple made a tactical mistake: They prevented others from duplicating the BIOS of their machines (I don't remember if this was a legal or technical issue, it's been a while since I saw the documentary). They still do it afaik.
The result: "IBM compatible" clones popped up all over the place at a much cheaper prices then the original (in fact who owns "real" IBM today anyway?) which caused the PC architecture to spread and made MACs an endangered species.
It is the same with (desktop) windows: because there are so many cracked versions floating around ever since 3.11 (maybe even before) it gained so much popularity it became almost standard.
So basically M$ owns their success to piracy. After all some people will not by their crap - if they can't get it for free they will use something else, while the major customers (namely corporations, public facilities etc.) would still purchase it legally even if there were no protection measures.
P.S.
agovinoveritas: if you check the 'About' icon in your control panel you will find a nice fat copyright statement. And as copyrights are something you agree to automatically by using a software product (no need to sing / click or even have a warning on the box) MS still has a way of telling you what you can and can not do with the ROM of your device.
MS don't even need that copyright statement. Copyright isn't something that needs to be asserted, it exists regardless.
levenum said:
agovinoveritas: if you check the 'About' icon in your control panel you will find a nice fat copyright statement. And as copyrights are something you agree to automatically by using a software product (no need to sing / click or even have a warning on the box) MS still has a way of telling you what you can and can not do with the ROM of your device.
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Yes, old news. Everybody who is a tech-head in here knows this. But how is that relevant to my statements?
For those savvy people, you know that by the mere fact that you created something, technically you are protected by intellectual copyright law.
However we are drifting from the main point.
Well, I might have recommended a Droid X for big-phone-lovin’ fandroids out there… but now that I’ve read about Motorola’s insane eFuse tampering-countermeasure system, I’m going to have to give this one a big fat DON’T BUY on principle. I won’t restate all my reasons for supporting the modding, hacking, jailbreaking, and so on of your legally-owned products here — if you’re interested in a user’s manifesto, read this — but suffice it to say that deliberately bricking a phone if the user fiddles with it does not fall under the “reasonable” category of precautions taken by manufacturers.
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Read more
.............
Not trying to stop the hate train here but read this:
(This was the response they gave to Engadget.)
"Motorola's primary focus is the security of our end users and protection of their data, while also meeting carrier, partner and legal requirements. The Droid X and a majority of Android consumer devices on the market today have a secured bootloader. In reference specifically to eFuse, the technology is not loaded with the purpose of preventing a consumer device from functioning, but rather ensuring for the user that the device only runs on updated and tested versions of software. If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed. Checking for a valid software configuration is a common practice within the industry to protect the user against potential malicious software threats. Motorola has been a long time advocate of open platforms and provides a number of resources to developers to foster the ecosystem including tools and access to devices via MOTODEV "
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It will still be hard to crack, but the phone will not be rendered useless by those evil people at Motorola
I think a much better question is: SHOULD it be cracked? Should our community spend money on a phone specifically designed to screw with us? By Motorola's own words, they suggest going with another manufacturer if you want to do modding, flashing, etc. So now I should spend my money and time engaging in the very fight we laugh at iPhone users over?
No. I love my MotoDroid, but given the B.S. coming out of Motorola's camp, my original Droid will be my last Motorola phone.
Screw you Moto, fall back into the irrelevance that *WE* saved you from.
And they say its to stop users running the wrong code? So? Surley any that are sent back should be diagnosable to Motorola that they have been hit with unofficial code and just sent back to the user as "broken by user".
I don't understand the argument they give .....
I also am going to be boycotting Motorola for this flagrant act of defiance towards its customer base. This does not just fall on Motorolas shoulders. We all know this has a hidden stench of Verizon behind it. No, we can not prove it. But old dogs play old tricks. So, to any company that thinks they can control its consumer base with this crap you will not win this.
This is the kind of stuff that the government likes to see. It gives them a study point on how many people will actually lie down and die on such a small matter. Because, if you can't fight aginst the small stuff. Then the government will know that it will most likely get away with the bigger things. This may seem like a streach to some. But if you look at the correlation between government and business entities. That also government also is. They try to play the same tricks. Fact of the matter is. The government works for us. We vote for them and then pay them to do that job and we let them know we want something and if they do not deliver we vote them out. Well, corporations are a little like this. We vote with our wallets and the forums. And this whole thing that the Droid X sold out the first day. Well that is actually speculation. They may have sold out of the 45 phones sent to each Verizon store. Yet some still have them. This is nothing more than a ploy to discourage those of us who fight. Again it may be me making a streach on this. And maybe not. But look at it as a moral builder to the Modding and hacking community. It was built it was programed. It all can and will be reversed. We purchase food. A restaurant has no right to tell us how to eat it. It belongs to us. Same with consumer electronics. And Open source software. Actually even with closed source software also. If we want to mode it then we may do so. We give money for it. If these company's actually made something that worked to its full potential then we would have nothing to complain about. If they want to short us then we have the right to extend the ussage of our stuff. As long as it does not harm another human being. Have at it people.
Shamma Lamma Do From My Moto DROID To You.
goldenu said:
I think a much better question is: SHOULD it be cracked? Should our community spend money on a phone specifically designed to screw with us?
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Yes it should, out of mere principle at this point.
Breakthecycle2 said:
Yes it should, out of mere principle at this point.
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You'll just encourage them. Just boycot. Job done.
lol - sorry just noticed, you own one so of course, you want it cracked heheheh
No i-moto droid for me, Oh well makes my toss up between Galaxy S and Desire all the easier.
Check out this link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100726/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_digital_copyright
I know this gives the example of Apple but will help all phones as well.
Post if you have some comments:
Not trying to be a conspirist nor am I a fan of Apple by ANY standard.. I do however feel that if Club Fed starts dicatating what private enterprise can do (assuming private enterprise is being legal and whatnot) it may be the beginning of the usually referenced slippery slope...
@mostyle
What so corporate freedom is more important than individual freedom now? Like if I buy an iPhone or a Captivate... I shouldn't have the right to mod it because it hurts businesses?
That's whack. This entire community is built around the right to do whatever you want to the products you own. That's how it should be.
I am glad the government stepped in.
If you buy a piece of hardware you should be able to do anything to it you want - you own it. Until now it was possible that you could be arrested for unlocking your phone (at least charged under the DMCA).
Now we have the legal authority to unlock, root, etc. No one is forcing the phone service providers or manufacturers to help us - but we can do what we want with our hardware.
I still think it should go a step farther - if you fulfill your contract, or buy the hardware for full price, then they should give you or maybe sell you the unlock codes, but I don't see that happening.
mostyle said:
Not trying to be a conspirist nor am I a fan of Apple by ANY standard.. I do however feel that if Club Fed starts dicatating what private enterprise can do (assuming private enterprise is being legal and whatnot) it may be the beginning of the usually referenced slippery slope...
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So let me get this straight: A private entity dictating what you can do with your property is good but a government entity affirming your right to do what you want with your own property is bad? Am I missing something?
@alphadog00
AT&T and T-Mobile already have policies allowing just what you mentioned. Most of the restrictions seem to be about needing to have a certain amount of the contract (on a subsidised phone) under your belt and of course the iPhone is exempt... The LoC specifically mentioned phone SIM locks in the ruling. To be clear, this doesn't mean phone providers can't lock phones to their network. It simply means that they can't use the DMCA as justification for trying to stop you from breaking the lock. With this new LoC ruling, it means that breaking the SIM lock is "fair use" and the DMCA law against cracking protective encryption does not apply.
@Drachen
yes, I know that the carriers will unlock - but they don't have to. T-Mo is reasonable where AT&T is usually less helpful. It should be easier though.
I think the biggest problem, is that they have no way to balance things for legit customers. They need a way to let good customers out of contracts for legit reasons, while at the same time preventing the scammers from just buying a phone under contract, then paying the early term fee to get out of it and keeping the phone. They raised the term fee, but that just pisses off good customers.
I think I see some of the rational behind keeping the locks on. but if you do 1 year or 2 with them it should be an automatic unlock if you want it.
But at least now it is legal for me to find my own unlock method for travel.
I hate big government telling corps and people how to live their lives. But in this case I think they got it right. If I buy a phone why shouldnt I be able to run any software on it that I want. Dell or HP dont dictate to me what OS I must run on my computer or what programs I can or cant install on it. So rooting and jailbreaking should be legal. And this crap that Moto did with their Droid X with the e-fuse should be illegal as hell.
When you buy a phone you should be able to uninstall android fully, and if you want to run symbian or iOS you should be allowed to install those on your hardware, as long as you purchase a legal copy of the alternate OS, why should Samsung or AT&T get to tell me what OS I absolutely have to use?
Wow, what a retarded country we live in. This is just becoming legal now? I always just chalked it up as common sense. The ownership of the product is legally transferred to you when you purchase the hardware.
This was analogous to getting busted for logging in as administrator on your new Dell desktop, if Dell was stupid enough to ship computers with only a locked down guest account.
I know that Dan found an exploit, I have a feeling this is part of why nobody seems to be complaining to AT&T about the locked bootloader, but the problem is that it isn't a permanent fix, granted we have the ability to disable automated updates, etc. My problem is that AT&T is going to lock all devices from here on out, simply because we allowed them too.
So what can we do?
AnthomX said:
So what can we do?
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Don't give AT&T your business? I know the locked bootloader issue incenses the Android modding community, but the vast majority of consumers don't know and don't care. AT&T is practically the government, and they don't care either. It's frustrating, but if you don't like it please vote with your dollars.
burhanistan said:
Don't give AT&T your business? I know the locked bootloader issue incenses the Android modding community, but the vast majority of consumers don't know and don't care. AT&T is practically the government, and they don't care either. It's frustrating, but if you don't like it please vote with your dollars.
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I can agree with that, my only complaint is the small majority of us that notice the lock. Speaking with our money in this case isn't going to make much of a point. There simply isn't enough of us to make them take a hit in their margins. So my guess is that in this instance, it is, what it is, for us? I know AT&T provides us (me and family) the best service in terms of voice/data.
That is just disappointing, because other carriers will follow behind it.
AnthomX said:
I know that Dan found an exploit, I have a feeling this is part of why nobody seems to be complaining to AT&T about the locked bootloader, but the problem is that it isn't a permanent fix, granted we have the ability to disable automated updates, etc. My problem is that AT&T is going to lock all devices from here on out, simply because we allowed them too.
So what can we do?
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Right now there isn't many legal avenues in favor of the consumer concerning the access to unlocked devices. Congress has given the carriers most of the deciding power over what extent the end-user may manipulate the software on the device. After a petition gained enough friction and reached the White House, the executive branch has agreed consumers deserve the right to invoke their will over devices sold to them without criminal liability, there has yet been any legislative change regarding the matter.
Ultimately, what we can do is multi-faceted to get the attention of carriers [AT&T] to cave to our demands:
1: We can vote with our money by refusing to purchase devices distributed by them, citing their abuse of power over devices sold to consumers -- leaving us no freedom to do as we please with merchandise we contractually own.
2: We can appeal to authority by raising the issue to a federal level to be examined by either higher courts, consumer affairs, Better Business Bureau, or writing your congressman.
3: Start an online petition and hope it gains enough traction to put AT&T and other carriers in a negative light publically on the national stage.
These options work well with numbers and have a better chance of success when done in conjunction with one another. The armchair approach has very little chance of success and often doesn't even merit a reply by way of spokesperson.
AnthomX said:
I can agree with that, my only complaint is the small majority of us that notice the lock. Speaking with our money in this case isn't going to make much of a point. There simply isn't enough of us to make them take a hit in their margins. So my guess is that in this instance, it is, what it is, for us? I know AT&T provides us (me and family) the best service in terms of voice/data.
That is just disappointing, because other carriers will follow behind it.
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I agree, but to play devil's advocate, I can see why AT&T would want to lock down devices. I imagine since they've been selling Android devices they've had to process tons of RMAs on devices that were bricked by amateurs installing the wrong ROMs. That may well amount to a minuscule hit in their bloated profit margin, but a corporation tends to do whatever it can to prevent dollars from leaking out. If the locked bootloader prevents the casual ROM flasher from bricking a new S4, then they view that as success. I don't know if that's why they did it, though.
The other side to that, of course, that an unlocked bootloader makes it easy to restore a bricked device back to stock. I'd like to see AT&T and other carriers reach out to the dev community more and have some provisions for installing alternate ROMs and OSes on the devices. I'd also like them to just sell me bandwidth and not interfere with content or operating systems, but I won't hold my breath!
antde201 said:
Right now there isn't many legal avenues in favor of the consumer concerning the access to unlocked devices.
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burhanistan said:
I agree, but to play devil's advocate,
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AGREED very much Burhanistan, I know that is a hit for AT&T, but you know, they could offer repair services at a decent rate that could fix these bad flashes, as most of the time only a JTAG is needed. Which leads into support and encouragement for the Android communities. But, one can dream. They are more about that profit margin than a profit margin AND great customer service.
Antde, I am looking at starting a petition, maybe gain some traction there? Who knows, but I think you are right, in the end, AT&T doesn't want our business, and I am ok with that. Unfortunately it will be a headache similar to swapping from Apple after using them for so many years. Time to bust out the aspirin I guess. We will see.
Becasue carriers dont care about what we think about locked bootloaders.At the end of the day this device is making millions for them think about it to them it doesnt make a difference.I myself work for a carrier in the U.S and trust me to them what ever rants and complaints we post mean squat....
Anyways its going to be unlocked soon when the VZW releases so whatever I dont even get why we should make such a big deal locked bootloaders always get hacked ...
burhanistan said:
I agree, but to play devil's advocate, I can see why AT&T would want to lock down devices. I imagine since they've been selling Android devices they've had to process tons of RMAs on devices that were bricked by amateurs installing the wrong ROMs. That may well amount to a minuscule hit in their bloated profit margin, but a corporation tends to do whatever it can to prevent dollars from leaking out. If the locked bootloader prevents the casual ROM flasher from bricking a new S4, then they view that as success. I don't know if that's why they did it, though.
The other side to that, of course, that an unlocked bootloader makes it easy to restore a bricked device back to stock. I'd like to see AT&T and other carriers reach out to the dev community more and have some provisions for installing alternate ROMs and OSes on the devices. I'd also like them to just sell me bandwidth and not interfere with content or operating systems, but I won't hold my breath!
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There's more to a carrier's decision to lock down a device's bootloader than just pure spite and asserting their control. Carriers are also charged with mobile security, protection of their assets (bandwidth), and again security.
An unlocked bootloader theoretically opens the floodgates to a plethora of security threats to both the device and information stored and/or shared therein. Google and their partners are pushing mobile security to both stay relevant in the mobile OS market and to appeal to other markets where they may have been previously overlooked, such as defense and business.
You also have to consider the possibility of unregulated mobile tethering which falls under the umbrella of loss prevention to any business.
Lastly, as you and others have mentioned, the possibility of insurance claims due to bricked devices. Though I'd argue that this area doesn't pose much risk to the carrier directly as you void your warranty as soon as you flash a custom ROM.
So with all of these facets together, you'd see how it would be a no brainer to a corporation to purchase the secure version of an OEM device. Especially if you've chosen to adopt a subsidized device. The contract you sign is subject to whatever terms they produce and if you do not agree, you're free to stay with your current device and leave when your contract expires. I don't care for this sentiment, but it's the reality they have procured.
I think they did it to fight back against tethering.
ATT getting phone manufacturers to lock their phones started a while back. IIRC the first big uproar was for the HTC Vivid. IMHO it's for security and ATT keeping their big accounts. BB ruled for so long because of security. iPhones are the same way. Companies want a secure device. Moto (one of the main ones that market to business use) has always had the stingiest bootloaders regardless of carrier.
poofyhairguy said:
I think they did it to fight back against tethering.
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Ya because that really stopped us from tethering... Oh wait..