Did Anyone know...It is now a felony to root your phone!

JIMV · January 27th, 2013, 11:18 PM

The Most Ridiculous Law of 2013 (So Far): It Is Now a Crime to Unlock Your Smartphone....

Quote:

ADVISORY

BY DECREE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS

IT SHALL HENCEFORCE BE ORDERED THAT AMERICANS SHALL NOT UNLOCK THEIR OWN SMARTPHONES.

PENALTY: In some situations, first time offenders may be fined up to $500,000, imprisoned for five years, or both. For repeat offenders, the maximum penalty increases to a fine of $1,000,000, imprisonment for up to ten years, or both.*

The Most Ridiculous Law of 2013 (So Far): It Is Now a Crime to Unlock Your Smartphone - Derek Khanna - The Atlantic

This is real...no fooling. The idiot government has decided they now own and control our smartphones...

chanchan05 · January 27th, 2013, 11:27 PM

Unlock is not root. Unlock means being able to use it on all networks. Your phone can remain locked to a network even if rooted.

Motorhead1991 · January 28th, 2013, 12:16 AM

Either way it's rediculous. I wish the US was more like the rest of the world where evedy phone was unlocked and carriers didn't mind as long as you paid them.

FinancialWar · January 28th, 2013, 01:20 AM

God bless America...

Hadron · January 28th, 2013, 02:53 AM

There's a much longer discussion of this over in the Lounge.

Davdi · January 28th, 2013, 04:07 AM

So what did the carriers promise the US Government to get this monumentally daft ruling?

SiempreTuna · January 28th, 2013, 04:24 AM

I don't no about the most ridiculous, but a law about unlocking has to be one of the least neccessary: the issue is already covered perfectly adequately by contract law and probably by laws on theft.