

It Is Now a Crime to Unlock Your Smartphone - bphogan
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/the-most-ridiculous-law-of-2013-so-far-it-is-now-a-crime-to-unlock-your-smartphone/272552/

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tokenadult
There was much earlier discussion of this (not all very aware of the legal
background in the United States) three days ago.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5109847>

The earlier discussion got off to a bad start, in part because of bad
reporting in the submitted source, an annoying problem here on Hacker News.

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DanBC
i) How is unlocking a phone circumventing copyright protection measures?

ii) Most people do not unlock their own phones, but take their phones to a
service to be unlocked. Thus, they are breaking a law, but the service is more
likely to be breaking the "commercial advantage or private financial gain"
clause.

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bphogan
I'd love to see some more information on this but can't seem to find much.
This feels pretty wrong.

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derpmaster
It's also a huge prison sentence to change the IMEI on phones, or be in
possession of IMEI changing software in most countries.

Only phones I use are unlocked samsung phones like Nexus S and Galaxy so I can
custom build android source I refuse to buy a locked phone anymore

