(you can also see my local news interview [1] on Iphone hacks, open networks, and cancelling your cell phone contract. Please share your thoughts on cracking the Iphone below. [2])
The days of soldering parts together to unlock your iPhone are over.... unless you just enjoy soldering, and in that case, as you were. For everyone else, put your soldering guns away. Today, a San Francisco-based group is claiming to have developed software that will allow users to "unlock" their AT&T iPhones so they can be used on other networks. In the US, the only other GSM carrier is T-Mobile, but that gives you one more choice than you had before.
Perhaps the most important point to make is that there is a strong argument that using the software to unlock your iPhone is legal, as long as it is for personal use. Basic American copyright law protects the software code, or firmware that runs the Iphone and locks it to AT&T's network. Additional protections exist from the always controversial Digital Millenium Copyright Act (let's just say that if a laws appeared on celebrity gossip sites, the DMCA would be front and center most days). The DMCA offers additional protection to rights holders by restricting users of copyrighted material from circumventing technological protection measures intended to restrict access to the copyrighted material. This includes accessing content even for legitimate, fair uses of content. However, in November of 2006, the Copyright Office approved 6 exceptions to the DMCA "anti-circumvention" restrictions.
While there is nuance to discuss, and attorneys will appear on both sides, one of these exceptions clearly included provisioins allowing consumers to unlock their cellphones "for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."
"For the sole purpose" is the key phrase here. It indicates that you, for your personal need to use your iphone on a communication network other than AT&T's, can circumvent protections AT&T has embedded into its phone. On the other hand, you will not likely see a bunch of unlocked phones on Ebay in a few days, since circumventing technological protection measures in order to make them available for sale would not be viewed as for the "sole purpose of lawfully connecting..."
That said, there is a key grey area that will likely decide the future of unlocking your iphone. This is the concept of whether it is legal to distribute, for free, the code that allows users to unlock there phones. There will be a great deal of disagreement on this subject, but a good argument from attorney Bart Showalter [3] suggests that if the software is narrowly focused on busting the network lock, it would likely fit into the anti-circumvention exception to the DMCA. In other words, if the Copyright Office granted users the right to unlock their cell phone for certain reasons, it would be an illogical contradiction to then say that distributing the means (software code) to exercise those rights is illegal. At the very least there is a basic argument to be made(though some IP lawyers will scream secondary liability a la DeCSS) that anyone distributing this is certainly not directly circumventing Iphone firmware, and is simply making available software that allows users to do something that the Copyright explicitly permitted.
Either way, the unlocking of the Iphone is proof positive that consumers demand networks that allow them to use the technology and software of their choice.
Check out these links as well
- Engadget story on Iphone crack [4]
- Engadget Iphone crack legalities story [5]
- PCWorld's article on DMCA challenges to Iphone hackers [3]
- UCAN interview on Iphone hacks, open networks, and breaking your contract [1]