Soldering on: George Hotz. Photograph: Jeff Christensen/AP
George Hotz, a 17 year-old American, has had a huge amount of publicity for unlocking the Apple iPhone, which is sold tied to an unloved AT&T phone service.
But this is just one of many. Gizmodo has been tracking the phenomenon, and has covered the forged SIM method, the Turbo SIM method, the hardware soldering solution, and a new claim by three Israeli hackers.
Belfast-based UniquePhones, which was planning a commercial service, has "received a 3am call from a lawyer claiming to represent AT&T and warning it that selling unlocking software could constitute copyright infringement and illegal software dissemination," says BBC News.
But will Apple and AT&T be able to stop the flood? "Hardly," says Business Week.
Individual users are already allowed to unlock their own phones under an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that the U.S. Copyright Office issued last November. The exemption, in force for three years, applies to "computer programs...that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."
What's less clear is whether companies and hackers can legally unlock the phones and then sell them to others, or sell unlocking software. "The law here is unclear," says Jonathan Kramer, founder of Kramer Telecom Law Firm in Los Angeles.
The iPhone locking is also getting a legal challenge. Herbert H. Kliegerman has filed a complaint in a New York Supreme Court. Apple Insider says he "accuses Apple of engaging in deceptive and misleading practices by failing to properly disclose to iPhone buyers that their phones would be locked to only work with AT&T SIM cards and that the unlock codes would not be provided."
Kliegerman used his iPone in Mexico and got a $2,000 bill, Yes, he should have signed up for AT&T World Traveler, which costs $5.99 a month.
The more obvious solution to all this unlocking stuff is the one proposed by InfoWorld's Enterprise Mac columnist, Tom Yager: Buy a real phone.
