[shmichael]

That's exactly the purpose of this measure - to prevent consumers from fully owning their device. Presumably the carriers are selling you the device at some discount for longer term loyalty (through constraining the phone). This is not a security measure and government agencies being able to bypass it seems irrelevant.

[dingledork69]

You are confusing Verizon's motives with Google's motives. Verizon disabling the bootloader on phones that users are still paying off, or bought at a discount together with special terms of condition, is something that might be defensible.

Google however made it so that any Pixel phone bought anywhere, even by customers who pay 100% of the price themselves with no carrier involved are not actually owned by those users until they connect it to the internet and Google blesses the device.

[amw]

> is something that might be defensible.

I would like to propose that it never is, and only seems so sometimes because our society is insane.

[zamnos]

I don't think I'm insane for not wanting my cellphone to get stolen and then be sold as a working phone to somebody else. Anything to cut down resale value of stolen phones. With full root you can overwrite the IMEI, and the stolen phone is as good as new.

[phpisthebest]

The other way to do that, which I know is crazy in modern times, is to actually enforce property crime laws and punish people that steal things...

how novel...

instead we have to accept draconian controls on our ownership of devices as a way to combat theft. I would much rather see criminals punished....

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

"Defense in depth" applies to crime too. After-the-crime discovery and punishment can only do so much.

It's not that no enforcement happens, a quick search for "phone theft ring busted" returned an article [1] from March of this year. The search results suggest it's far from the only relatively recent bust.

Phones have exceptional monetary value compared to their size/weight. They're easy to steal, and anything that makes wiping the phone easier, faster, or cheaper will be exploited as it increases the value the thieves, fences, etc can extract.

The enforcement scheme needed to substantially reduce phone theft would likely be extremely expensive. It would also likely involve device and purchase tracking methods that many would consider draconic and ripe for abuse by governments and law enforcement.

What would you specifically recommend be done on the enforcement side of things, compared to what happens presently?

[1] https://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/Ne...

[phpisthebest]

>>It's not that no enforcement happens, a quick search for "phone theft ring busted"

very limited enforcement happens, for every story you pull that shows enforcement, i can pull 10 that shows that even when a person can track their stolen phone to a building with "find my phone" many police dept refuse to do anything. This is a common thing.

I am willing to bet the phone theft ring that was busted was only busted as ancillary to a wider investigation in to terrorism, drugs, sex crime, or some other criminal activity and they were not targeting phone thefts at all

It would also be interesting to know if the charges are dropped, as they often are these days for these low level property crimes.

When you have people leaving their windows down, and trunks open to show there is nothing to steal or people can just brazingly walk in to a store and walk out of handfuls of merchandise because theft is soo rampant and prosecutors refuse to prosecute the crimes there is an enforcement issue.

>>The enforcement scheme needed to substantially reduce phone theft would likely be extremely expensive

I disagree, but please enlighten me as to what you think will be expensive

>>What would you specifically recommend be done on the enforcement side of things, compared to what happens presently?

Actually filling criminal charges for theft instead of just the Catch and release model we have today, so much so that police dept often do not even arrest or investigate the crimes at all because they know activist prosecutors will simply refuse to file charges for any theft under a certain dollar value.

I am not sure why this is even debated given that stores are moving out of several cities due to rampant theft that is going unenforced / unpunished. A quick search will show news report after news report of unlawful property theft being done sometimes even in full view of law enforcement who do nothing because they have been instructed not to in many major cities

[amelius]

This is orthogonal to owning. A third party could be the one checking for stolen phones if you implemented it the right way.

[scarface74]

If you don’t want the carrier to lock your phone and give you a discount, then pay full price for it.

[suavesito]

My viewpoint is not that it is fair or not for the carrier doing so. But that restricting freedom from a users device and software should not be allowed. This means that if the carrier decides to sell devices via some kind of credit it cannot take away the freedoms of the user (and future owner) of the device, but the carrier can decide simply to not sell devices via some credit.

[sbuk]

Arguably, if it’s bought with credit, it’s not yet the user’s device. The ‘owner’, is the creditor.

[deno]

This is how a lease works not credit. If you take something on credit then you are the sole owner, you just become liable for the payment.