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The problem with modding a car is this: - If I mod a car such that it performs better, but violates emmissions and safety laws, is such a modification legal fo
by illumin8 17y ago
The problem with modding a car is this:
- If I mod a car such that it performs better, but violates emmissions and safety laws, is such a modification legal for street use? The law says no.
Similarly:
- If I mod the baseband firmware in my iPhone such that it lets me use it on other carriers, but isn't approved by the FCC and might cause interference with approved devices, is it legal to use it on the airwaves? The law also says no.
Also, flashing the baseband firmware on a radio could definitely cause permanent, irreversible damage. How can you legitimately expect any hardware vendor to honor a warranty after this?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- sfall 17y agoI think that FCC approval is based on the frequencies of the antenna not the carrier.
- illumin8 17y agoThe FCC approval is based on lab-testing of a specific hardware and firmware configuration. They test it in the lab to make sure it doesn't step on other licensee's frequencies. Sometimes, just by putting a different antenna and hardware configuration on the same radio, you can cause interference, harmonics, etc, that were not present on a past model. This is why every new model of iPhone/iPad needs FCC approval before it can be sold to the public. Telling the general public that they can load whatever firmware they want on their radio ignores the fact that these radios have highly complex software algorithms affecting frequency hopping, collision detection, etc. It would be like saying "anyone on our network can modify their Ethernet firmware" and then wondering why someone took down the entire LAN because their custom firmware did a broadcast storm.