Funny, he doesn’t look like he’d try something like this.1) Where does a teen get $500 to buy a phone he admits he can’t use because he’s already got a phone on a different carrier? Especially if 2) he wasn’t already planning to hack it all along, which he admits.
So let me be the first or near-first to say how much we shouldn’t be cheering this dude on. I’m torn about that though. On one hand, Jobs and Gates built their empires by exploiting technology from Xerox and improving on it. While not illegal, certainly the spirit of something was violated. Is it then hypocritical to go after George here? Still, he doesn’t seem to want to do anything more than game the system, not change it like they did.
Maybe it’s inevitable, considering the amount of media these recent generations have been exposed to. He’s just the latest incarnation of the Napster ‘because I can I should’ digital looting mindset. Too bad, because it looks like he’s pretty smart. And there will no doubt be countless ‘consumer-customer-brand-evangelists’ who will advocate that Apple should ‘embrace’ this as an opportunity to engage the new consumer who’s in charge of the brand. I believe a lot of things related to marketing and some of what those same people say, (whacky Mentos & Diet Coke-type stuff and all), but I also hope Apple comes down hard on him.
And still others would be tempted to cheer him on because they hate Apple and the perceived monopoly the brand has. Don’t let that cloud the issue though. This isn’t American ingenuity at work: he’s a hacker. These are the same dudes who do nothing but mess with PCs all day to shut down networks.
Considering the times though, he’ll probably end up in a spot next to Justin Long.
Tags: George Hotz, iPhone
8 comments:
I have trouble feeling sorry for Apple for a few reasons:
The kid bought the phone ($500) and, in my opinion, has every right to take the thing apart and try to use it to communicate with Mars or whatever.
We're not talking about "stealing" service. We're talking about unlocking existing capabilities.
Apple made the deal with the devil. I don't think the kid, defacto, has made the same deal.
Apple has always been about free thinking - and sometimes that means subversive thinking.
While I doubt Apple can publicly "embrace" what AT&T might consider some form of phone service piracy (esp. since Apple leverage their relationship with AT&T so they'd have carte blanch to create what has been widely described as the most consumer-friendly interface in telecom history) it also seems fairly un-apple of them to make an example of a teenager with a soldering iron (a la Jobs in Apple's early days, as you pointed out).
I do think the resale on Ebay has some troubling implications. That DOES sound like piracy. That feels like greed, not curiosity. But I don't think it's exactly illegal. He owns it - I suppos ehe can sell it. Just so everyone knows: he voided the (weak) factory warranty.
I have a hard time lumping this kid in with hackers who bring down networks or even with people illegally download music and movies. He may have the same skill sets but that alone doesn't make him a criminal. Has he taken anything that's not his? He altered a product he owns and he continues to honor his T-Mobile contract. I don't know if Apple ought to touch this. They're out the few dollars they get from at&t for new customers but it's at&t who's the loser here. But whether at&t has a case or whether this kid has violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- that's a lawyer's deal. I don't know if we should celebrate George Hotz (although I'd like to be as smart as him) but I don't see him as having done anything really wrong.
I'm in agreement with James and Irene here. He owns the phone he purchased and is free to turn it into a microwave if he wants. (And I think that capability is built in, it just needs to be "unlocked.")
As for Apple "deserving it," I think they do. The arrogance of Jobs is mind-blowing. The fact that they went into an exclusive deal with AT&T, knowing full well the weaknesses of the network, was a disservice to iPhone purchasers.
All this kid did was enable his phone to use another service. I think that's simple ingenuity, not hacking.
Deserving it? Apple's not even getting hurt here. Not at all. A hackable iPhone is more attractive than a non-hackable iPhone. The only thing that saved the Playstation Portable were the hackers who started buying it and trying to run Linux on it.
Who's getting hurt? AT&T of course. This means fewer subscriptions. Sure, AT&T might get pissed of at Apple for not making the iPhone harder to hack, but they're in a long-term deal with Apple that favors AT&T, and are not likely to break it, even if they could without a huge penalty.
My vote: George is a Hero, AT&T Deserves it, and Apple couldn't care less.
What Jesse said.
It's all about screwing AT&T, which most people loathe (along with all the other telcos).
People like Apple. They don't want to screw them.
Not sure why anyone would blame the locked-into-one-network thing on Apple. It's clearly a telco thing- they've done it with other cool phones before.
So yeah, George is a hero for screwing AT&T. Apple could care less for all the reasons j-d listed.
There are a couple of things to consider (others may have already stated these things; I didn’t take the time to read all the comments—plus, I didn’t watch the full video):
Like it or not, AT&T paid a great deal of money for exclusive rights to the phone. So it probably is illegal for the kid to rewire it. That’s one current scam in the telecom industry. Consumers are tied to providers if they really want a specific phone model (it’s pretty much a monopoly scenario—although you could make the same argument about Apple and its technology). And of course, the early termination fees also tie us to carriers. AT&T is probably within its rights to charge the kid those fees too.
Wireless carriers are able to discount phones because they are really selling minutes plans to consumers (i.e., if you wanted to simply buy an iPhone without a calling plan, it would cost a lot more). I liken it to the old Polaroid scenario. Polaroid pretty much gave away the cameras, because they could only be used with Polaroid film. Polaroid was selling film, not cameras. Ditto the wireless carriers. They’re not selling phones; they’re selling calling plans. So when someone works around that, they are essentially ripping off the carrier.
What this kid did, although he might not realize it, is create a paradigm shift in the category. Hell, the public might not even realize it yet. The telecom industry allows us to port our numbers when changing carriers. But now this kid has shown we can take our phones too. That’s a major change that U.S. carriers are not prepared to deal with. Imagine being able to take an iPhone and hook up with the mom-and-pop wireless carrier offering the cheapest minutes. This could essentially put certain wireless carriers completely out of business.
Of course, because we hate all wireless carriers, we think this kid is kinda amusing. The wireless carriers certainly deserve our hate, because they’ve provided lousy service for decades, acting as if they’re utilities versus services. But this kid really has created a serious mess. Let’s just see if consumers catch on and use the situation to seize control of the wireless industry.
Clearly an iHero.
Thanks for the plug
I try to be a idiot whenever possible, thanks. But, please, fucking relax, idiot.
Typical attitude: it’s mine, I can do with it whatever I want. Sure, if that’s all someone does. Buy it, pay for it, it’s theirs. But when he puts a workaround out there for others to follow suit, then it's no longer just one person at home messing with their own property.
Forget what anyone thinks about AT&T for a sec, they still have the right to charge what they want without having someone game the system to their advantage. People in turn have the right to go elsewhere.
And still, the crux of your response is that you’re pissed at the negative use of the word hacker in this case? Ha, okay, whatever. Call it what you want, but the 17-year whiz kid ‘progammer’ figured out how to get around AT&T. Not only is that not blue/white hat, it’s real close to grey/blackhat tactics imo.
That’s the shit that gives hackers a bad name. You don’t like it, talk to him, not me.
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