Ethics of hacktivating an iPhone

On Oct 2, 2007, at 12:11 PM, tzeho57 wrote:

> Another thing to note is that this idea of a locked phone exclusive
> to one service provider is pretty much unique to the US. For much
> of the rest of the world (i.e. GSM and now 3G), you simply buy a
> phone like you buy a ADSL modem and sign up with whichever telco
> you choose (again like signing up for broadband).

That's incorrect. Here in France, phones can be locked for up to 6
months. In other European countries, subsidized phones can be locked
as well (though I don't know the durations). You _can_ buy phones
that aren't locked, but you pay more.

The difference with the iPhone - and one that, I predict, will lead
to legal issues here in France - is that you don't have the two
options (subsidized or not).


Kirk
             Author of: Take Control of Customizing Microsoft Office
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BTW, I dropped my iPhone, and Apple gave me a new one, no questions asked. You don't get that with an unlocked phone.

In the UK, providers provide substantial discounts with contracts. There is a large national chain called Carphone Warehouse (currently featuring the iPhone - <http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/commerce/servlet/gben-Home>) that sells service from most or all providers, and they will sell you locked and unlocked phones with contracts for one provider or another. Unlocked phones cost £5 to £10 more. You can also go to many neighborhood markets and get your phone unlocked for £10 or so.

What's missing from this discussion is the fact that the Apple and AT&T have given services for the iPhone that will not come from other carriers, ranging from Visual Voicemail to the automated bill services. If it's possible in the future for me to put an Orange SIM in my US iPhone and thereby get local service for a week or two without those features, I'll be happy. I'd be happier being able to buy an 02 SIM with Visual Voicemail. Failing that, I might opt to use my Orange SIM in an old phone and keep my iPhone for keeping track of US calls and voicemail, along with use on UK WiFi. But when I go back to the US, I'll want the full AT&T service, not a lesser service from T-Mobile.

John

This is a fallacious argument. Just because you didn't sign an agreement to use AT&T does not give you carte blanche to hack your phone to use a different service AND expect full warranty support from Apple or expect future firmware upgrades to work as expected. Warranties always have exceptions, as I explained would you expect a replacement phone if you dropped yours off a balcony? Would you expect it if you ground it to bits in a blender?

In order to use a different SIM card you need to alter the firmware of at least one of three different systems in the iPhone. All of these systems need to be able to work together in order for the iPhone to function properly. A craked iPhone may function perfectly since, through trial and error, those creating the cracking program altered values that the other systems don't depend on being in a certain state or having a particular value. Then the firmware update comes along. Did the anyone creating the cracking programs test what goes on during a firmware update? Can you guarantee to me or anyone else that none of the changes would not affect the actual firmware upgrade process? Would you swear on your life that the alterations made will not be used by other systems in the iPhone after the update? Like I said before you can hack or crack the iPhone to your hearts content, if you get another cell service to work on it, great for you. But at that point you have gone into uncharted territory. To expect any new firmware update after that to magically work is wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Legally Apple is very in the clear here.

Speaking of firmware I need to rebut Glenn Fleishman about the following statement in the round table, "For 20 years, I've said to anyone worried about installing software on a computer, 'It's just software. It can't actually hurt your computer. The hardware will be fine. If you have a problem, make sure you have a backup. You won't break your computer by installing that.'" In point of fact this is not just a software update, but a software AND firmware update. To greatly simplify firmware is what the underlying hardware uses as it's OS. Because of this, firmware updates that are interrupted quite often "brick" the machine since that the failed update puts the firmware in an invalid and unknowable state. In the case of a computer this will often require a complete motherboard replacement. An acquaintance of mine bricked her rev b (I think) iMac because she wasn't sure what was happening during the update, got scared and pulled the plug. This was, what, eight years ago? I also remember a big to-do about people installing the wrong firmware due to confusion about which version of iMac they had causing display problems and, yes, "bricking." So this is by no means a new thing. To imply that Apple is making a sudden paradigm change and saying that software updates will not be dangerous is just not true.


--
Michael
----------------------------------------------------------------
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

cuz I find it funny

On Tuesday Oct 2, 2007, at 3:09 AM, David Weintraub wrote:

> * What happened when you opened the box? Was there a licensing
> agreement that acted as a seal, and breaking the seal was suppose to
> be an acknowledgment that you agreed to the license? This is much
> harder to support. My father, who is one of the preeminent experts on
> contract law believes that such agreements are invalid because if you
> disagree, you have to go back to the store, and get a refund. To him,
> that action puts an unreasonable onus on one of the parties. Others
> claim that this is legal. Most courts hold that such agreements can
> only support REASONABLE terms, and may only restate and clarify
> already agreed upon terms.

The issue of "shrinkwrap licensing" was very controversial as
recently as five or ten years ago. The last time that I did a survey
of the area (which was a couple of years ago), it was pretty much
settled. You have the choice of returning the product after reading
the license, or abiding by the terms of the license. It is a valid
contract. Companies are now very careful about providing the terms
of the EULA on their Web site so that you can review it prior to sale
and/or opening the package, and they have also been careful about
requiring that you "click-through" a copy of the EULA that requires
that you agree to the terms. (I'm not sure how it is handled on the
iPhone, but I'm sure that Apple knew what they were doing when they
presented the EULA for the iPhone. They are very experienced with
this by now.)

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iphone.pdf

There may still be some local jurisdictions that can be swayed
otherwise, but at this point I don't believe that such a decision
would hold up on appeal given published precedent from across the
country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EULA

http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2004/12/20/8257/4850

Generally, the only issue that I see where Apple is on shaky ground
is that Apple released an update that didn't just happen to break
existing iPhone hacks (which would be fine), they apparently released
an update that *purposely* broke existing hacks. I'm not sure that
they are entitled to do that. On the other hand, they have done this
before and they got away with it.

When RealNetworks released a program called Harmony that allowed
their music to play on iPods, Apple put out an update that apparently
purposely made it so that RealNetworks' music could no longer be
played on some iPods. One would assume that RealNetworks looked very
carefully at the option of suing Apple for unfair competition for
having done that. (However, sometimes an entity fails to bring a
lawsuit for reasons other than the merits of their cause of action.)

There has been a recent controversy over the right of software
vendors to "self-help," that is, the right to completely disable
software (e.g. over the Internet) if the user does not comply with
the EULA. (For example, Microsoft Office for the Mac checks one's
network to see if you are running the same license for Office on more
than one computer, and it disables unauthorized additional copies.)
Assuming that this is legally acceptable, by inference, it would seem
that it would be okay for Apple to turn your iPhone in to an iBrick
if you don't follow the terms of the EULA.

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Attorney at Law
___________________________________________

At 12:32 PM -0700 9/20/07, David Clark wrote:
>Now, if I could hack the iPhone and use it on Verizon's data/voice
>network (maybe one for voice, another for data), that would be a
>triumph!!! Alas, from what I read here and elsewhere, that's just not
>possible because the phone part doesn't work that way. It's
>deliberately rigged to only work on a certain radio spectrum and
>won't work on other parts of the spectrum.

I think maybe you're not familiar with the technology of cellular
phones. In the initial implementations of Cellular technology, the
signal was analog, and you could actually listen and potentially
broadcast on the frequencies with a regular radio tuned to the right
frequencies. However, this was not very efficient use of spectrum,
as only one conversation could be held on a specific frequency. Thus
Digital cellular was born. There were initially 3 competing digital
standards (at least in the US) TDMA, CDMA, and GSM. These standards
were not dictated by the government, but developed by individual
companies (or by groups of companies that worked together). Each of
these standards process signals in different fashions, and can not
communicate directly with each other. This is analogous to TCP/IP,
AppleTalk, and SNA. If you put a device that only speaks TCP/IP on a
network where all other devices only speak AppleTalk, you aren't
going to get any real communication done.

TDMA has pretty much gone the way of the dinosaur, so really there
are only two current competing standards for Cellular communications,
CDMA (Sprint, Verizon, MetroPCS, and I think CDMA is also in use in
Japan), and GSM (AT&T/Cingular, TMobile, and pretty much the rest of
the world.) Without the appropriate digital encoding/decoding chip,
you can't communicate on the network. These are COMPETING
technologies, just like Windows, Linux, and MacOS. If the world (or
the country) were FORCED into using a single standard, which do you
think would be chosen?

>
>stuck buying the package. Imagine automobiles and gasoline. Would
>the consumer stand for a model of business where a given line of
>automobile could only be refueled at a certain chain of gas
>stations?

Actually, we do have something like that now. We have gasoline
engines, Diesel engines, Natural Gas engines, electric engines, and
even Hydrogen engines. You can't get fuel for all these technologies
everywhere, can you? Gasoline, yes. Diesel is available in most
locations. Natural Gas is available in a few locations, and Hydrogen
in VERY few locations (I've only seen pictures of Hydrogen refueling
stations) I've seen some areas you can recharge electric cars. Are
you saying that we should only have one technology for
transportation? Who decides? I could probably guess what technology
would win right now.

>Is there any real technological reason a cell phone could not operate
>on all cell-phone allocated radio spectrums?

No. There are actually phones that will work on both CDMA and GSM
networks. These technologies can work on a number of frequencies,
and these frequencies vary according to geographic areas (some
countries use different frequencies). You can get GSM phones that
are quad band that speak on 850, 900, 1800, and 1900Mhz which covers
almost all frequencies used across the world. We will also soon have
700Mhz spectrum in the US for other wireless technologies.

>
>But, don't expect the cell phone mavens -- corporate America and the
>rest of the world -- to go for such a consumer friendly scheme.

You act as if the companies are deliberately forcing you to do
certain things to be mean. No, they are doing things in ways they
think are better (for whatever reasons) and they are competing
against each other. The only entities that can truly FORCE things to
go one way or another are monopolies (i.e. the old AT&T) and
Governments. Do you want government making all these decisions?
We've all seen situations where governments get too much control,
like Myanmar/Burma, Iran, China, Iraq under Saddam, Afghanistan under
the Taliban...
--
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Jay Morgan
jhmorganmindspring.com
770-355-5556
=========================================
Personal message:
Simplify taxes and eliminate special interests from our tax system!
Support the Fair Tax - http://fairtax.org/

On 2 Oct 2007, at 22:53, John Massengale wrote:

> BTW, I dropped my iPhone, and Apple gave me a new one, no questions
> asked. You don't get that with an unlocked phone.

Apple checked that it wasn't unlocked before they gave you a new one,
did they? How, since it was presumably broken?

Kindest regards,

Niall O Broin

On 10/02/2007 16:58 PM, "Michael Krzyzek" <michaeltactile.com> wrote:

> Speaking of firmware I need to rebut Glenn Fleishman about the following
> statement in the round table, "For 20 years, I've said to anyone worried about
> installing software on a computer, 'It's just software. It can't actually hurt
> your computer. The hardware will be fine. If you have a problem, make sure you
> have a backup. You won't break your computer by installing that.'"

I missed that or I would have rebutted it too. There were a few virii that
used BIOS entry points to do such evil things to your BIOS that they bricked
your system. Luckily, they were of the "burn THEN pillage" variety. But no,
there's not always been some barrier of safe that kept software from
affecting hardware.

--
John C. Welch

At 02:36 09/30/07 -0700, Dave Scocca wrote:
>The "hurt"--in terms of financial impact--that an AT&T employee or shareholder
>experiences is EXACTLY THE SAME whether you "hacktivate" the phone or put
>it on the shelf unopened and unactivated.

But this is a silly point, since virtually no one even considers buying an
iPhone just to put it on the shelf. The realistic options (for those in the
US) are

1) don't buy it
2) buy it and hacktivate it for offline use
3) buy it and hacktivate it for use with another carrier
4) buy it and activate it with AT&T

Number 4 is obviously better for those associated with AT&T.

It's tempting to say that numbers 2 and 3 are equivalent to number 1 as far
as AT&T is concerned. But this assumes that 2 and/or 3 are viable options.
If they are sufficiently difficult, substantial numbers of those who prefer
2 or 3 will choose 4 over 1 -- unhappily perhaps, but still with wallet
open. Therefore any argument which assigns equal weights to all four
options fails the reality check.

Again, note that I'm not taking ANY position on the original question. I'm
only pointing out that the claim that withholding revenue from AT&T has no
effect on anyone is fallacious (and perhaps an exercise in
rationalization). Hopefully the fact that I include #1 in the list of
options makes this clear, as that's my preferred and chosen option now and
for the foreseeable future. I don't owe AT&T (or its stockholders or
employees) anything, and neither does anyone else here AFAIK. My action (or
in this case nonaction) does withhold revenue from AT&T. So I'm not saying
that withholding revenue from AT&T is unethical or ethical, just that the
effect is real.

Edward

This is all very interesting but to comment upon something Adam listed as a
reason for him not getting an iPhone way back when...

I am in the same boat when it comes to cell usage as Adam, I have a prepaid
phone that I add $100 USD to for yearly use. I don't even use that amount
but it covers me against expiration of minutes for the year. It happens
that I have ATT then cingular then back to ATT (I've had the same situation
for 5 years and the darn company keeps changing back and forth) as a
provider. I'd LOVE an iPhone if I could continue the cell service with the
amount of minutes/cost that I have.

Would I be acting unethically if I hacked the iPhone to use a ATT prepaid
plan? I know you can activate the iPhone to use pay as you go plans but I
don't even want THAT level of minutes/cost. And I am unaware if it's
possible to hack the iPhone in this manner.

Adam

Soon you may not have to hack an iPhone.

Verizon just announced a new phone that very much resembles an iPhone. The major difference is probably an addition of a keyboard.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/

I guess this was bound to happen.

Ryoichi Morita

On Oct 3, 2007, at 6:32 AM, Edward Reid wrote:

> At 02:36 09/30/07 -0700, Dave Scocca wrote:
>> The "hurt"--in terms of financial impact--that an AT&T employee or
>> shareholder
>> experiences is EXACTLY THE SAME whether you "hacktivate" the phone
>> or put
>> it on the shelf unopened and unactivated.
>
> But this is a silly point, since virtually no one even considers
> buying an
> iPhone just to put it on the shelf. The realistic options (for
> those in the
> US) are
>
> 1) don't buy it
> 2) buy it and hacktivate it for offline use
> 3) buy it and hacktivate it for use with another carrier
> 4) buy it and activate it with AT&T
>
> Number 4 is obviously better for those associated with AT&T.
>
> It's tempting to say that numbers 2 and 3 are equivalent to number
> 1 as far
> as AT&T is concerned. But this assumes that 2 and/or 3 are viable
> options.
> If they are sufficiently difficult, substantial numbers of those
> who prefer
> 2 or 3 will choose 4 over 1 -- unhappily perhaps, but still with
> wallet
> open. Therefore any argument which assigns equal weights to all four
> options fails the reality check.
>
> Again, note that I'm not taking ANY position on the original
> question. I'm
> only pointing out that the claim that withholding revenue from AT&T
> has no
> effect on anyone is fallacious (and perhaps an exercise in
> rationalization). Hopefully the fact that I include #1 in the list of
> options makes this clear, as that's my preferred and chosen option
> now and
> for the foreseeable future. I don't owe AT&T (or its stockholders or
> employees) anything, and neither does anyone else here AFAIK. My
> action (or
> in this case nonaction) does withhold revenue from AT&T. So I'm not
> saying
> that withholding revenue from AT&T is unethical or ethical, just
> that the
> effect is real.

I think your message reasonable but I don't agree with your
conclusion because you use "withholding" too loosely. "Withholding"
should only be used in reference to a good, service, or payment which
one party may owe another party. My landlord is also a general
contractor. If I don't pay my rent you can say I'm withholding it but
you can't say I'm withholding payment if I don't hire him to build me
a house because I didn't hire him for that job. If I buy an iPhone
I'm not withholding anything from AT&T. If I bought it from Apple, I
paid Apple what I owed. If I bought it from AT&T I paid AT&T what I
owed. If I also sign up for an AT&T contract, use it to activate the
iPhone then don't pay the bills from that contract, *then* I'm
withholding something. The iPhone purchase does not include the
obligation to sign up for (and presumably pay for) an AT&T contract
so there is no withholding and no "real" effect.

On 4-Oct-2007, at 05:49, Roy Morita wrote:

> Verizon just announced a new phone that very much resembles an
> iPhone. The major difference is probably an addition of a keyboard.
>
> http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/

LG: 320x240 iPhone: 480x320 at 163ppi
LG: Bluetooth iPhone: Bluetooth 2.0
LG: USB iPhone: USB 2.0 dock
LG: size ?? iPhone: 11.6mm thick

(bet the LG is close to twice the thickness)

LG: battery life?? iPhone: 8 hour talk, 250 standby

(bet the LG is close to half that)

The iPhone is running OS X, the LG is running some custom phone OS.

As for the weight, the iPhone is a ridiculous 135 grams, think the LG
will be over 250?

Others might not think these are major differences, but I do. Not
that I own a iPhone or will own an LG VX10000

On Oct 4, 2007, at 7:49 AM, Roy Morita wrote:

> Soon you may not have to hack an iPhone.
>
> Verizon just announced a new phone that very much resembles an
> iPhone. The major difference is probably an addition of a keyboard.

Eh, it's an LG enV with touch added. Yes, the Voyager has other
improvements but touch is the only one that really makes comparing
the Voyager to the iPhone any different than comparing the enV to the
iPhone. The big stuff the Voyager has over the iPhone, removable
battery, removable storage, physical keyboard, better broadband
network, are all present in the enV as well as a number of other
devices. I'm not even saying the enV is/was crummy, not at all, it's
just in line with the incremental improvements that are part of the
status quo for the cel phone industry in the U.S.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/verizons-lg-vx10000-voyager-
revealed-and-groped-with-gallery-306428.php

Even assuming they did a good programming job to go along with the
touch interface (which is a big assumption), it's still not going to
be as good at browsing as iPhone's Safari or provide as good a
syncing experience with a desktop as the iPhone. It doesn't have WiFi
which you might say is less important because it has superior
wireless broadband I don't think Verizon's data plans match AT&T
option that was introduced with the iPhone.

The screen is better than the enV's but it's still not as good as the
iPhone. How is it as a video player, you know you can't watch iTunes
Store video or YouTube videos but what *can* you watch besides
whatever Vcast offers? As a media player (music, video, photos), what
are the chances that the Voyager will have an interface that's
anywhere near as good as the iPhone for browsing and playback.

Does the Voyager have an accelerometer to automatically change from
portrait to landscape? Doubtful. Does it at least have a touch
gesture so you can change orientation manually, regardless of what
program you're in? I'd be surprised but we'll have to wait and see.

Except that it was clearly printed on the outside of the iPhone box that AT&T activation was required to use the iPhone, even if you only meant to use it simply as an iPod.

It seems to me that Apple is justified in locking down the equipment via firmware update, because they clearly stated that requirement on the outside of the box. If the buyer doesn't agree, they don't have to buy it. I think Apple was being generous by notifying folks in advance that the 1.1.1 firmware update might brick their hacked phones.

But the interesting question to me is that all the talk of "hacking" the iPhone has my non-tech-savvy friends saying things like, "Why would you want to buy one of those? Hackers are going to steal your information!" Thus, the talk of hacking a phone has the less-informed public thinking of identity theft rather than freedom-to-use-with-whatever-carrier. That's far more hurtful to business, in my eyes, than locking the iPhone down to work with only one carrier.

At 04:51 10/04/07 -0700, Curtis Wilcox wrote:
>I think your message reasonable but I don't agree with your
>conclusion because you use "withholding" too loosely.

The Compact OED, at http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/withhold?view=uk, says

"withhold: ... refuse to give (something due to or desired by another)"

Presumably payments and service activations are desired by AT&T, even when
they are not legally owed. (It has been called to my attention that
corporations have no emotions and therefore cannot "desire" anything. Pooh.)

So I say that I am not using the word more loosely than common usage, but
that rather you are construing it more narrowly than common usage.

In any case, it appears that you understood and did not misconstrue my
argument, so we are into pure semantics and completely OT. It would be
different if my meaning had been unclear, but I don't think it was.

Edward

> Except that it was clearly printed on the outside of the iPhone box
> that AT&T activation was required to use the iPhone, even if you
> only meant to use it simply as an iPod.

In that case, Apple clearly stated that you must use ATT activation
in order to us the service. That pretty much settles the legal issue.
I also assume that Apple states on the box that the full text of the
agreement is available upon request or on their webpage.

There are still a few questions:

* Can Apple purposely brick an iPhone if they believe that you broke
your agreement?
* How long can Apple make you use ATT before you are allowed to use
your iPhone with another carrier?
* Does this agreement limit the use of third party applications?

David Weintraub

On Oct 7, 2007, at 6:51 AM, David Weintraub wrote:

> There are still a few questions:
>
> * Can Apple purposely brick an iPhone if they believe that you broke
> your agreement?

It's only bricked if you update it, and nobody was forced to run the
update. if it was a forced update then i could see all the blograge,
but unlocked users had ample warning and opportunity to skip the update.

> * How long can Apple make you use ATT before you are allowed to use
> your iPhone with another carrier?

The requirements on the box are for a minimum 2 year AT&T service plan.

> * Does this agreement limit the use of third party applications?

I don't think 3rd party apps were ever the target, just a casualty of
keeping the phone locked down.

Well apparently there is a "jailbreak" exploit for the iPhone and iTouch verison 1.1.1.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/10/iphone-and-ipod-touch-v1-1-1-full-jailbreak-tested-confirmed/

The downside? It uses a security exploit in mobile Safari's handling of TIFF images. (I would be interested in seeing if this is a general WebKit exploit or just a mobile Safari thing.)

Hmm.

Yeah that sounds like a valid foundation for future third party applications. So how soon after Apple patches the security hole will we see another blogstorm about closing third party apps?

I get that people might want to put whatever they want on their iPhone/iTouch, but how many of them understand what that entails without Apple providing a SDK and a path for install? Yes, the argument could be made that Apple sucks for not doing so. While it was ill received, understandably, at the WWDC that the current method is web apps, that is the current supported method for providing third party functionality. Anything else at this point comes down to the cleverness of the hacker/cracker and how they can compromise the iPhone/iTouch. By my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong, the previous "jailbreak" methods and the sim unlocking exploited security vulnerabilities in the software to work. That is the definition of a security exploit. Up until this point it required physical access to the iPhone/iTouch, but now there is a demonstrated vulnerability in mobile Safari. Expect every security maven out there to scream bloody murder until Apple fixes it. I won't even get into the ethics of releasing a security issue into the general press before alerting the company that creates the software/device.

--
Michael

I have a fundamental disconnect with people who are up in arms about the iPhone 1.1.1 update. Let me give an example based on something that isn't the iPhone.

I have a Linksys WRT54G router. It's a nice piece of hardware I've had for years. It allows me to share my internet connection with four ethernet ports and wireless b/g access. It is also one of the most hacked routers that I'm aware of. There are more firmware replacements for this than you can shake a stick at. They provide many upgrades to the standard functionality and allow some truly advanced capabilities. So say I downloaded and installed an alternate firmware. I go along my merry way and everything is just ducky. Then Cisco/Linksys comes out with an update and I decide to install it. Should I expect my previous, hacked, functionality to remain? Of course not.This is why you don't see blog flames about the latest Linksys update. If someone messes up their router and tries to repair it by installing an official update and it doesn't work? Oh well they know they were messing around with, and I want to emphasize this, unsupported modifications.

In essence this is what Apple did with the 1.1.1 update. They didn't require anyone to install it, they didn't automatically install it. In fact they gave a big warning message, in bold no less, that if you have altered your iPhone this update might cause problems. Everyone who is having problems after "hacktivating" or modding had a chance to not install the update. That they did so is firmly on their heads.

Money talks to a corporation, if you pay money for their product that means you liked it enough to buy it. Period. Look, if the iPhone doesn't do what you need it to, doesn't work on the cell carriers you want it to, don't buy it. It you covet it but think that if it only had "x-feature" it would be the best phone ever, don't buy it. If you have any qualms whatsoever about whether the iPhone will meet your needs, don't buy it. If you hate AT&T with a fiery passion, don't buy the iPhone in the US. If you hate "carrier that has an exlclusive to the iPhone" wherever you live, don't buy the iPhone.

If you still buy it and then want to hack it up? Go for it. Just don't expect me to get up in arms when you do something that breaks it.

--
Michael