iPhone "Bricking" Method

[sanford]

Anyone notice how the Apple update doesn't brick iPhones, it just deactivates them and then because the baseband has been tampered with you can't reactivate them under any usual method. They don't get hit with destruction of property claims. They don't run afoul of the gray-ish DMCA -- DMCA says you can unlock a phone, but doesn't say anything in particular about actually being able to use it -- because they don't "relock" your phone. Seems to me all the unlocked iPhones are still unlocked. Not only did they not brick them, they didn't even relock them. They just returned them to the state in which the users bought them: they can't do anything but make emergency calls until you activate with AT&T. But because the basedband is whacked, you can't do that. They're just deactivated and won't reactivate due to user tampering, thereby avoiding all kinds of possibly legitimate legal claims against them.

 

[acrafton]

Anyone notice how the Apple update doesn't brick iPhones, it just deactivates them and then because the baseband has been tampered with you can't reactivate them under any usual method. They don't get hit with destruction of property claims. They don't run afoul of the gray-ish DMCA -- DMCA says you can unlock a phone, but doesn't say anything in particular about actually being able to use it -- because they don't "relock" your phone. Seems to me all the unlocked iPhones are still unlocked. Not only did they not brick them, they didn't even relock them. They just returned them to the state in which the users bought them: they can't do anything but make emergency calls until you activate with AT&T. But because the basedband is whacked, you can't do that. They're just deactivated and won't reactivate due to user tampering, thereby avoiding all kinds of possibly legitimate legal claims against them.

Interesting. . .I think that they may still have some exposure for intentionally moving your phone to a condition where you cannot do anything with it. The key is intentionally, which they obviously did. I think they would have been safer had they did what they did but then FORCE an ATT contract to get it working again. They have met the letter of the law (I imagine) but not the spirit of the law (which are often the basis of lawsuits - see the suits against the insurers for Hurricane Katrina on policies that specifically excluded hurricane damage but went to trial anyway).

I think we may see Apple come out with a 'tool' that enables geniuses to put your found back to factory specs but at 1.1.1 where you can activate with ATT. Oh, and they will blacklist your phone.

 

[sanford]

Interesting. . .I think that they may still have some exposure for intentionally moving your phone to a condition where you cannot do anything with it. The key is intentionally, which they obviously did. I think they would have been safer had they did what they did but then FORCE an ATT contract to get it working again. They have met the letter of the law (I imagine) but not the spirit of the law (which are often the basis of lawsuits - see the suits against the insurers for Hurricane Katrina on policies that specifically excluded hurricane damage but went to trial anyway).

I think we may see Apple come out with a 'tool' that enables geniuses to put your found back to factory specs but at 1.1.1 where you can activate with ATT. Oh, and they will blacklist your phone.

There's already a post on this forum about that. Geniuses enabling "bricked" 1.1.1 phones to be activated via AT&T. This would make sense, for people willing to do so: let them keep their phone, bring it in, have it fixed and then set it up on ATT. Then record your IMEI: one chance only. Making this a bit like the plan that Truman is rumored to have considered, towing a bunch of mothballed US warships and military transports out into the middle of the Pacific, inviting the Japanese military to come watch, then dropping an atomic weapon on those derelict ships first instead of Hiroshima. Basically: you have been warned.