The latest from TechCrunch
- Phone SIM Locks: Why Do Carriers Even Bother?
- WikLeaks Reports It Is Under A Denial Of Service Attack
- Sites With Government Seized Domains Are Moving On, On Twitter
| Phone SIM Locks: Why Do Carriers Even Bother? | Top |
| We’ve been down this road before: a new iOS version is released that undoes all of the nasty stuff hackers did to the previous version. A week later those same hackers blow out a jailbreak and then a few days later they release a full unlock (the latest iOS unlock is only for 3G and 3GS right now, so iPhone 4 users are stuck for now .) Given that this is pretty much standard procedure, why don’t carriers just give up? Sadly, most other phones don’t get this sort of white glove treatment. A grey market exists that traffics in phone unlocks for many devices including Blackberries and Nokias. Why? Because someone, somewhere wants to move their phone from country A to country B. The vast majority of phone users will never want to this but there is still plenty of demand. So why not ship without the lock? Well, there are a few possible answers, barring the obvious “Carriers suck.” First, the lock ensures carriers get their pound of flesh before your phone becomes obsolete. By locking your phone, they get to charge you at home, and, more important, they can charge you when you’re roaming (and boy will they ever charge you ). This is allows them to make back their phone subsidy and then some. Next, the lock ensures that phones can’t travel. For various reasons, carriers don’t want the phones of Cleveland to end up in Swaziland. The first of these reasons is that many phones just don’t work overseas. Second, phones in some countries are cheaper than in others. An iPhone in Europe, for example, usually costs much more than it costs on AT&T. It won’t do to allow phone buyers to cross the border like so many retirees looking for cut-rate Canadian Viagra, right? That said, why not just give up? All of the great phones, including Windows Phone 7 models, have at least some form of public jailbreak if not a full unlock. The phones without a public unlock actually can be unlocked if you call your carrier after six months. Or, finally, you can pay some weirdo to send you an unlock code. I would estimate the majority of phone users barely know they’re using SIM cards let alone understand the entire SIM unlock idea. Most folks who make calls while travelling are probably doing so for business and so their phone calls are expensed any way. Is it really worth the bad will generated by SIM locks when you’re overseas and want to swap out a SIM and can’t? Probably not, but again, carriers, oddly enough, don’t care. Will the SIM unlock ever disappear even though it is easily surmounted? I doubt it. It’s the famous old chestnut of “security through obscurity” that has always popular with corporate types. After all, if it looks like a lock, it must act like one. Image via ArtLebedev CrunchBase Information Apple Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| WikLeaks Reports It Is Under A Denial Of Service Attack | Top |
| @wikileaks WikiLeaks We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack. about 7 hours ago via web Retweet A lot of people, including many governments, have problems with WikiLeaks , the site dedicated to publishing sensitive and often classified documents. (Read more background on the controversial organization). The site is currently under a distributed denial of service attack, according to a Tweet from the WikiLeaks account. The site seems to be withstanding the attack so far. It is up right now . The DDOS attack comes just as WikiLeaks is preparing to release another set of U.S. government documents—this time diplomatic cables which may prove so embarrassing that the State Department decided to warn foreign governments ahead of their release. But WikiLeaks reports via Twitter that even if the site goes down, newspapers around the world will publish excerpts from the cables: @wikileaks WikiLeaks El Pais, Le Monde, Speigel, Guardian & NYT will publish many US embassy cables tonight, even if WikiLeaks goes down about 7 hours ago via web Retweet So who is behind the DDOS attack—government spy agencies, the Russians, 4chan? It is obviously a conspiracy. Different people will have different theories, including that WikiLeaks itself is behind the “attack” to draw attention (and sympathy) on the eve of its latest big leak. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt for now, until proven otherwise. Update : The New York Times published its first series of articles on the leaked documents along with selected cables . CrunchBase Information WikiLeaks Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Sites With Government Seized Domains Are Moving On, On Twitter | Top |
| Last week while everyone was waiting for the COICA bill to move through Congress, the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency one upped the Attorney General and seized domain names from a group of over 70 copyright infringing websites . A visit to the blacklisted domains now results in the ominous looking message from Homeland Security below. While the graphic is pretty scary, Market Ticker’s Karl Denninger points out the websites themselves and the servers they run on have not actually been seized , just the domains. “That’s a lot of staff attorney time and trouble to get a big fat nothing out of it, which is exactly what they get going down this road. Why? Because all they can do is redirect the domain pointers which will do exactly nothing when the sites re-register under a top-level domain not under the US Government’s jurisdiction – and there are lots of them.” Domains under US jurisdiction currently include anything controlled by Verisign which puts .com site owners in a legal relationship with the United States. According to Denninger, all afflicted site owners need to do is move to a non-US controlled top level domain in order to dodge further ICE seizures. Some have already started to migrate to other domains, though it’s likely choices like .net won’t be any safer. Torrent-Finder owner Waleed Gad El Kareem said he switched his site over to Torrent-Finder.info the moment he saw the ICE message on Torrent-Finder.com, posting the new site’s address on Twitter. @gadelkareem Waleed GadElKareem Torrent Finder is now http://www.torrent-finder.info November 25, 2010 11:49 pm via Digsby Retweet Hip hop site RapGodfathers has aggressively followed suit with its own .info address, using Twitter to get the word out about the move and asking people to retweet as well as @replying fans with its new domain. @RapGodFathers RapGodFathers.info Everyone please retweet our new link, lots of people still don't know about it. http://www.RapGodFathers.info #RGF November 27, 2010 3:58 pm via web Retweet Onsmash seems to have not made the move over, but is soliciting emails from fans on Twitter who oppose the domain name seizure as well as tweeting out stuff like “THEY CAN NEVER STOP US!!!” I’ve emailed them and sister site dajaz1.com about possible plans to move to a different domain and am waiting to hear back. @HofOnSMASH Hof // OnSMASH ARTISTS: If you oppose the seizure of @ OnSMASH pls send an email to gmail .com”>freeonsmash@ gmail .com & express why. Your participation is appreciated! about 23 hours ago via web Retweet Even the counterfeit sites have caught on, an email I sent to www.2009Jerseys.com was met with the following auto response, “Notice: The original Domain Name has been suspended, please visit the new domain name www.2009Jerseys.net, We apologize for the inconvenience. If there is new information, we will first time inform you.” The people behind Dvdcollects.com have decided to focus all their energy on the yet unfettered Bestcollects.com according to their Facebook page. If it really is that easy to pick up and move on its hard to believe that the other 70 or so sites won’t find friendlier domains on which to land, rendering ICE’s efforts ultimately futile. If anything, the seizures serve as lesson to all possibly infringing sites — Steer clear of the .com top level domain. | |
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