1984 Is So Here

This seems impossible, but it is on "The Atlantic" website....unless it's a pretty neat hoax.

Apparently, it is now a CRIME to unlock your smartphone (the one you bought....your property), so that you can use it with any carrier you want.

Now, does that seem a bit draconian?

Ya think?

Has this been updated? Revised? Revoked?

How is this possible? 

The Gunslinger

UPDATE:  Another Source.

Un-Fucking-believable.

I just made it under the wire - NOT A FELON! Yipee!

I bought my smartphone through T-Mobile, the worst of all possible carriers. I worked with them from the beginning to actually get signal to my house. When it proved impossible, the "grace period" for cancelling my contract had barely passed, and they refused to let me out of it without demanding a termination fee. 

THE FACT THAT I ONLY WANTED TO CANCEL BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT PROVIDE THE SERVICE DESIGNATED IN THE CONTRACT TO WHICH THEY ALSO WERE A PARTY....didn't matter to them. They had me on timing, regardless of the fact that they had never fulfilled their part of the contract: TO PROVIDE ME WITH SERVICE at my residence.

They also refused to give me the unlock code for the smartphone I had, which was tied to their network.

So. T-Mobile could not provide service. Yet, would not allow me to cancel the contract without penalties, and insisted on making my smartphone useless to me.

They're REAL ASSHOLES.

Happily, I purchased my phone before the effective date of this freedom-crushing law, and was able to purchase an unlock code from a third party and now have a functioning smartphone on another network, that actually provides service. 

AT&T. They should get credit for good service and good signal. Even as T-Mobile should be cast into the sea and forgotten by history.

Except as an example of how NOT to run a company.

So, anyway, given my experience...this fucked up law would have made my VERY EXPENSIVE phone nothing more than a doorstop. Would have forced me to buy another VERY EXPENSIVE phone in order to get the service I originally contracted for with T-Mobile...but never got.

So the government is now in league with T-Mobile to fuck the next sucker out of service, signal, termination fee, and phone.

Nice.

Goodbye, sweet America.

How did is come to this?

/Gun

SECOND UPDATE:

Isn't there an opportunity here? Start a company that sells unlocked phones directly to consumers...with the guarantee that they can take them anywhere, to any carrier, to any network at any time.

I like it. If you make it happen before I do, great. More competition, the lower the prices go.

Let's get on that!

/Gun