People agreed to the 2 year contract with AT&T. Along comes White-Hats who unlocked the iPhone. Apple even agreed that people dont mind people using Apps on the iPhone. Its legal to unlock any cell phone owned by you. Apple later warned that this could be damaging to the iPhone and said they would not support users. The iPhone 1.1.1 Update bricks the iPhone. It makes it unusable. You have a $400 paperweight.
Its possible that technically there was no other way, but its highly unlikely that it was the case.
When you put protection on something. Music, Cell Phones, PDAs
etc. When users buy something, its their property. They should be allowed to do whatever they want with it.
I understand from his Web site that this LaPorte fellow is a technology journalist; he has neither, from what I read of his biography, earned a JD nor is he an expert in common or statutory law (most law these days is statutory). But it does behoove him to do enough focused research in the area upon which he is reporting to write something sensible.
He doesn't understand the law. His opinion may be that people with "their property", they "should" be allowed to do with it as they wish. Statutory law in the United States doesn't uniformly support his opinion. You can't drive an automobile you own under the influence of drugs or alcohol -- in many states, not even on most private property; you can't discharge a firearm you own within city limits; you can't alter an FCC-approved device so that it operates in a manner not approved by the FCC or intended by the manufacturer (that last one has some relevance here). Of course most of these sorts of laws have to do with public safety, or if not public safety the safety of the individual who owns the property -- so-called "babysitter" or "mommy" laws, like seat belt laws for adults.
But within our law there are also statutes that restrict what we may do with our property although these restrictions have little or nothing to do with safety. Some of them make good sense -- for example, the laws that forbid my neighbor from messily overpowering and altering his *personally owned* shortwave radio so that he can broadcast a signal on reserved frequencies powerful enough for him to have conversations with space shuttle astronauts in orbit. Which also happens to knock out any legitimate short-range radio signal devices I use in my home. Other laws have been virtually written by corporate executives, passed over to well-paid lobbyists and been wiggled into our federal law, perhaps to the good of no one other than a single corporation or industry. But that doesn't mean the laws don't exist. They can be struck down, their scope can be narrowed by judicial interpretation, but they must first be challenged.
In the case of the iPhone, the right to unlock mobile phones, we're talking about part of DMCA. DMCA is a mushy gray mess, but for the sake of argument here, let's assume it's not. Let's assume it's an eminently valid, rock-solid piece of law to which no challenge will stand. You may unlock your cell phone. Moreover, you have the *right* to unlock your cell phone. But nowhere in DMCA is it expressed or implied that by downloading an *optional* software update and *willingly* loading it onto that mobile phone, and that piece of software does *intentionally* relock the phone, that your right to unlock has been violated. You have the right to unlock. You unlocked. You installed at your option software that relocked. Unlock again if you can, feel free; it is after all your right. But that right does not extend to compelling the manufacturer to support the phone if you alter it in a manner neither intended nor allowed by warranty terms. You can make a case that *intentionally* relocking phones with entirely *optional* software updates does not violate the letter of the law but its spirit. The spirit of the law is important. Problem in this case, there's no evidence -- in fact, from what I've read of so-called "bricking" of iPhonea, which is not "bricking" but just making them unusable on any network, therefore unable to be activated, therefore no other features work, yet the phone and its features are just fine -- the evidence is that unlocked iPhones to which people have applied the 1.1.1 firmware update *remain* unlocked. Apple didn't relock the iPhone. They just deactivated it, put some software in there to verify the baseband data complied with the intended, approved baseband data, checked for a valid AT&T SIM card, all criteria met in the positive: they then, perhaps, overwrote the baseband data with something more difficult to unlock in future, then definitely reactivated the iPhone. If that is the case, the iPhone relocking via firmware update is majestic in its serving its masters while complying with general property law and laws specific to mobile phones.
The law guarantees you the right to unlock a cell phone. Neither the spirit nor the letter of the law states they have to make it easy to do so or that you then have the right to use that unlocked phone on any network carrier you wish. Merely, you can unlock it. A wise person wishing to unlock against the manufacturer's and partner carrier's wishes would have unlocked and then declined to install the purely *optional* software update. But those who unlocked and then installed 1.1.1 are not only expecting a lawful right to unlock the iPhone, but they are expecting Apple be compelled by the same law establishing that right to *give you enhanced features for free* even though you performed an alteration to the device they *expressly* do not support.
I can't stop laughing. You want your rights to unlock your iPhone, the right not to be compelled to have a locked iPhone, yet you wish Apple, a lawful incorporated entity with its own rights, be compelled to support at their expense whatever the hell you wish to do with your iPhone. (Hold on, I need to catch my breath, I'm laughing so much.) That is the very summit of the highest peak in the looming range of hypocrisy.
As for native applications, originally Apple did specifically state their policy regarding third-party native applications was not to support them, not to promise warranty service for any damage caused by them, but to do nothing to intentionally break those applications -- basically, use at your own risk, which is about the same for any third-party applications installed on your computer. That has changed. Surely changed due to the fact that allowing direct manipulation of the iPhone and the installation of third-party native applications was the entree to the widespread -- over-reported by the developers of the unlocks, but still of more broad accessibility to the general pubic -- unlocking of iPhones. If you're upset you can't use third-party applications anymore, point your ire straight at the people who released the unlocking tools to the public.
LaPorte refers to those who devised the iPhone unlock as "White-Hats". I'm pleased to have learned something from him. Contrary to what I've always thought, "White-Hats" means morons who devised a very, very simple method to unlock an iPhone, a device that posed little challenge in unlocking, and like the foolhardy, reckless, self-centered egoists they are, they distributed that software and/or process to a somewhat or wholly unsuspecting public, interfering with lawful trade and a legitimate contract between to corporations.
Finally, I hate all these exclusive contract arrangements, too. Everything from mobile phones, to digital music and movies, to HD home video formats, to "bonus" compact disc material, down to even some brands of food for God's sake. Hate it, hate it, hate it. But our laws don't forbid it. It's trite, of course, but if you don't like the law, change it: vote people into state and federal legislatures who will write and enact consumer rights laws that will stop these things. Or, perhaps more readily and easily accomplished, stop buying from people who play the exclusivity game. Believe me, had years ago mobile phone carriers tried the, We'll sell you a $1,200 retail price phone for $29 if only you'll accept that phone is locked to our service and sign a contract with us, had we the consumer said, No thanks, I'll pay cash for the phone, try out your service without a contract, then move my unlocked phone to a competitor if you don't serve me well, today we would not have locked phones and contracts. (The matter of the iPhone being "unsubsidized" is irrelevant; Apple sells the iPhone at a particular price based on R&D, hard unit cost, overhead and whatever revenue arrangements they have with AT&T, how much they'd like to on it in profit, and examining the intestines of a gutted sheep. We can't speculate for how much they'd sell the iPhone without the AT&T contract. The hidden subsidy may be nothing, it may be $1,500, as they can price their products as they wish.)
I'm sure this LaPorte is a lovely guy, flag-bearer for the people and all that racket, but he has not a clue about what he speaks.
