[sdkmvx]

Imagine a pawn shop that loans money on cell phones. Now imagine someone comes in and pawns their phone. It still has service and all, but he thinks he will come back next week and redeem it. A few months pass and he never comes back. Now the phone is legally (the pawn contract says one must completely own the collateral, so carrier subsidies etc. shouldn't be a problem) the pawn shop's property. Mr. Defaulter calls the phone company and has the IMEI blocked. Now the pawn shop is out the money and owns a useless piece of metal and plastic.

I've seen this problem with phones, tablets, and even tasers. The company will not activate them if they've been reported lost or stolen. But "finders-keepers" is legal and people can lie about theft. Of course the company also has a second interest not to help create a used market. Just like encrypted firmware schemes, this erodes personal control over our property. The legal owner with physical control should be able to use the device. Period.

There are also concerns over government or corporate disablement. Aside from obvious government malice during e.g. protests, does anyone really think either the government or the phone company can run a blacklist without false positives? Obviously not. Nobody can when your population size is >300 million. And the customer service grunt is just following the rules when your device is disabled and he cannot re-enable it.

The argument for this law is that it will reduce thefts by making the phones worthless. I understand this. I just don't think that is worth losing control over our property and devices.

[ChuckMcM]

That will sort it out in short order, and phones will no longer be accepted by pawn shops.

The interesting side effect will be that people will won't consider stealing a phone and pawning it as a viable way of getting some quick cash.

[Shivetya]

that and those who try this stunt will find themselves behind bars in short order, most likely for theft.

[maxerickson]

A simple answer is that the pawn shop should be careful about the contracts it takes. That is, if the owner will not or can not cede control of the IMEI, the phone isn't worth very much as collateral.

[manacit]

You're missing the part where the pawn shop, knowing people do stuff like this, will collect the Name / Phone # of the person pawning the cell phone and can call the authorities and get said person arrested.

[poopsintub]

This isn't a worthy argument. Pawning and selling your device is nothing new. There should be paperwork for all of this in case someone calls the phone company or wrongly claims it stolen.