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AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

geekwire.com

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Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#51

Post by windexh8er »

rasz wrote: post #40
jdblair wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A contract was violated when these phones were unlocked. In return for a locked phone the buyer received a subsidy from AT&T on the cost of the hardware. I don't want people to violate contracts with me, why should I recognize someone as a hero just because I don't like the contract? To be absolutely clear, I don't like locked phones, either, so I always buy non-carrier-locked devices and it means I pay the full, uns…

Subsidy is when someone gives you money, cellphone contract is when you agree to pay back the $1000 handset in 12-24 hidden installments.

No.

First, a subsidy can exist in many ways. It's not explicitly "when someone gives you money". It's often the case that phones are discounted through deals such as buy one get one (BOGO), for example. When you purchase those two phones they are tied to a contract that states you'll carry new lines of service through the carrier that subsidized the phones for a period of time. That's one example of a common US carrier subsidy.

Second is when costs of a phone are spread out over a contract period it is credit, not a subsidy. The carrier gives the phone to the buyer on credit since they haven't paid for it up front. This is often done now so people can buy phones they may not have the capital for up front. In this way the carrier lessens churn by locking buyers into a continuous upgrade cycle. If they want out of their contract they have to pay the balance of the phone and any early termination fees (ETFs). To imply these are "hidden installments" is disingenuous as the terms are laid out in the contract.

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#52

Post by nathankunicki »

DaniloDias wrote: post #46
deogeo wrote: post #14

1.) How is unlocking a phone "malware"? Isn't the lock malware, and the unlocking serves the owner of the device? Calling it malware reeks of regurgitating AT&T propaganda. 2.) How did this "deprive AT&T of the stream of payments it was owned under the customers’ service contracts and installment plans."? A phone getting unlocked doesn't void a contract, so those customers are still on the hook.

Many of these devices are unlocked in bulk and sold overseas. This deprives them of the payments that they expected for fronting the cost of the device.

I still don't understand how. Regardless of who ends up using the phone, surely the original purchaser/signer is still on the hook for the monthly payments?

ie. If I buy a contract iPhone from AT&T then unlock and sell on the phone, that doesn't nullify the fact that I still owe AT&T $100 a month for 24 months, regardless of where the phone is?

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#53

Post by Nextgrid »

sundayedition wrote: post #10

I wonder what the footprint is do the SIM hijacking, e.g. is anyone a sufficiently high enough bribe away from the type of scheme that compromises their account because it only takes 1 employee to effect it. I've been switching to hardware keys when I'm able but it's not always feasible. I just bought a Titan key combo and you can't use most 3rd party email clients with it so that made it kind of useless to me (since…

Fraudulent SIM swaps are already being done and it's a lot less sophisticated than this - just show up to a store with a fake ID (or bribe the low-wage employee who isn't paid enough to give a shit so I can't really blame them).

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#54

Post by chiefalchemist »

Looks like they completely buried the lead. That is, US carriers use proprietary hardware/software devices to establish and maintain a profitable strangle-hold on the consumer.

No doubt the law the broken. There's no justification for that. However, the lead is the lead is the lead, and it's burried.

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#55

Post by PhasmaFelis »

DaniloDias wrote: post #46
deogeo wrote: post #14

1.) How is unlocking a phone "malware"? Isn't the lock malware, and the unlocking serves the owner of the device? Calling it malware reeks of regurgitating AT&T propaganda. 2.) How did this "deprive AT&T of the stream of payments it was owned under the customers’ service contracts and installment plans."? A phone getting unlocked doesn't void a contract, so those customers are still on the hook.

Many of these devices are unlocked in bulk and sold overseas. This deprives them of the payments that they expected for fronting the cost of the device.

The article makes it sound like this particular guy was just charging consumers to unlock their personal phones so they could use them on different networks.

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#56

Post by nordsieck »

Nextgrid wrote: post #47
nordsieck wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The contract sucks shit that's why All those people were free to buy unsubsidized phones elsewhere. They knew exactly what they were getting into when they signed up.

Counterpoint: carriers don't always make it easy to unlock your phone even if they allow you to do so as per the contract. It can involve lots of back and forth with clueless monkeys in their customer service department. There's also the issue of legitimately buying/acquiring a phone, finding it to be locked and having no idea which carrier it is locked to nor how to go about getting it unlocked. It isn't an easy pro…

> There's also the issue of legitimately buying/acquiring a phone, finding it to be locked and having no idea which carrier it is locked to nor how to go about getting it unlocked. It isn't an easy process even if everything is legitimate and the phone was acquired legally and not stolen nor its IMEI/ESN being banned anywhere.

It sounds like you're talking about buying a used phone. Sure - there's danger there. Danger which can be completely mitigated by buying at the owner's provider's store, and having an employee look up that info before giving over money.

If you want to avoid all that business, it's really, really easy to just buy from the manufacturer. If you do that, they always come unlocked, not stolen and not banned.

Broadly: locked phones suck. I would never buy one (unless it was used and on a network I'm already with). But I also know several people who cannot save money. At all. Subsidized phone plans are specifically tailored for those people. The subsidized experience will always be worse than strict ownership simply because incentives between the provider and the user are not aligned. But for those people who can't save money, I think this is the best option they have.

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#57

Post by psychometry »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #54

Looks like they completely buried the lead. That is, US carriers use proprietary hardware/software devices to establish and maintain a profitable strangle-hold on the consumer. No doubt the law the broken. There's no justification for that. However, the lead is the lead is the lead, and it's burried.

It's "lede"...

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#58

Post by balabaster »

rolltiide wrote: post #9
kbar13 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is one of the problems with datacenters as well. you assume your router is well and safe but the NSA (or whatever) employee could always intercept it in transit and hack it.

this is the problem with offshore hosts as well. you assume the lack of an information sharing treaty and plain text writing of a law ensures the privacy of your data, but the government can just arbitrarily hand it over to the first FBI agent that asks

this is the problem with hosting it at home on your own server with your own hardware. Your kids will hack it when you're not looking and install a Roblox server and let every idiot into your server to do whatever they want with it. Also, kids are stupidly easy to bribe.

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#59

Post by belltaco »

spectrum1234 wrote: post #41

ATT support is awful. I recently had to contact support and through chat support the person said they were adding notes to my account. Of course when I call support another day they have no record of this. They then proceed to forward my call to 2 other departments each of which has no idea why I'm calling. I talked to each of these people for several minutes. How can a company possibly function like this?

Same with Comcast, if not worse. For some reason their systems appear to take forever to load a customer account. One could probably find and pull a physical file of a user account faster in the pre-computer days out of a huge room full of wall to wall filing cabinets. I am not sure if it's ineptness or they pretend to take long to make support calls as frustrating as possible.

Re: AT&T employees were bribed to install phone unlocking malware on company network

#60

Post by cortesoft »

kiallmacinnes wrote: post #11

> “Now he will be held accountable for the fraud and the lives he has derailed.” Whoa there. What? Yes, he's committed a crime and should be held accountable for that. But.. Who's lives has he derailed? If I was to accept a bribe to commit a crime, nobody is derailing my life but me - to say anything else suggests a level of intelligence bordering on inability to understand and take responsibility for my actions. Can…

He derailed the lives of AT&T shareholders, who lost 4/10 penny per share!
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