5 ms·

If this is not their phone, made by them, how can they brick them? How is that legal?

jacobush 10y ago
Playing the devils advocate here, the phones were accessing their servers without permission. They made the phones stop.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Like shooting trespassers, some of whom didn't know they were trespassing.
  - Neliquat 10y ago
    This happens on military and intel bases regularly. Security is not always simple and clean. Common sense and observing warnings will suffice for most, but things happen.
Tepix 10y ago
If they install SilentOS on their unlicensed devices, SilentOS can refuse to run. The question is: Is there an alternative OS that can be used with these devices? If not then they are unusable without the OS. Is that the same as bricked?
- bunderbunder 10y ago
  In all but the most pedantic of senses, yes, it is bricked. Even if there were an alternative OS, I'd say it's still pretty well bricked, since installing alternative OSes is outside the skill level and/or comfort zone of most consumers.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Bricked used to mean impossible to get working, not hard. I mean, I recall discussions of whether something was really bricked if you could rescue it by hooking up to a JTAG header.
    - serf 10y ago
      Bricked never meant impossible around here. It has always meant (around these parts, SoCal) that the ceiling for recovery was sufficiently high as to warrant concluding that recovery is impractical. Practically every device i've ran into that has been bricked has been put into that state via software. It may be impossible to fix such state without a JTAG bus and code from the manufacturer, or by desoldering chips, but I can't remember recently when something bricked was truly destroyed and every recovery method was rendered impossible. (bearing in mind I wouldn't consider something like a ran-over laptop to be 'bricked', but rather just destroyed) I'm sure some folks use the term when they are referring to destroyed equipment (a 'bricked' gpu from overheating) but I haven't really encountered it personally.
maxerickson 10y ago
It might not be legal. From the screenshot, it's not entirely clear to me that the baseband is actually bricked. The updated OS refusing to run on some phones isn't the same as damaging the phone.
- pmontra 10y ago
  Yep. That guy at least had a phone and could flash it with another OS and use it. He has nothing now. Not nice from Blackphone. They should have disabled only their sw.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  No one's actually pulled apart the update (to get a copy, you'd need a real Blackphone + email support) to check what it's doing.
informatimago 10y ago
It is legal because they don't license their software with a license ensuring freedoms of the user. The user is not free to use their software. That's the point of the GPL. If the users took care of only buying products including only GPL'ed software, then they would have the freedoms: 1- to use the software, 2- to copy it for their friends, 3- to get the source to audit it and modify it (so they would be free to remove any backdoor that wouldn't exist in the first place for this very reason), 4- to compile the source to binaries and use them to replace the provided binaries (so their may increase their level of trust of the software they run on their hardware). Do not buy products that come with freedom-restricted software!
- zaroth 10y ago
  After all that the GPL still doesn't help these users unless they are also able to spin up and maintain the various servers & services the software also relies on.
- zik 10y ago
  It's legal for them to disable the software but not for them to prevent the user from using the hardware. It depends on how literal the "bricking" really is but if they made it impossible to load up (say) cyanogenmod then they could be up for a big destruction of property lawsuit.
raesene9 10y ago
I'm guessing it would depend on what T&C's the user clicked "I accept" on when setting the phone up or getting the update. Whenever I get an update on iOS you get the lovely huge Apple T&Cs, which you have to accept to install the update. So if SilentCircle does the equivalent and put in there "in the event that this is running on a non-approved device, we'll disable the software" then I click "I agree" it would seem fair enough for them to so. If I were them I think playing it a little cooler would've been to pop-up "Hey this is a knock-off device, we're not letting you use all the cloud service and you're getting no updates from us" and leave it at that...
PeterisP 10y ago
If the user does not have a valid licence for the software (since the counterfeit manufacturer essentially gave them a pirated copy) it would be legal for it to stop working.

Playing the devils advocate here, the phones were accessing their servers without permission. They made the phones stop.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Like shooting trespassers, some of whom didn't know they were trespassing.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  This happens on military and intel bases regularly. Security is not always simple and clean. Common sense and observing warnings will suffice for most, but things happen.

Tepix 10y ago

If they install SilentOS on their unlicensed devices, SilentOS can refuse to run. The question is: Is there an alternative OS that can be used with these devices? If not then they are unusable without the OS. Is that the same as bricked?

bunderbunder 10y ago
In all but the most pedantic of senses, yes, it is bricked. Even if there were an alternative OS, I'd say it's still pretty well bricked, since installing alternative OSes is outside the skill level and/or comfort zone of most consumers.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Bricked used to mean impossible to get working, not hard. I mean, I recall discussions of whether something was really bricked if you could rescue it by hooking up to a JTAG header.
  - serf 10y ago
    Bricked never meant impossible around here. It has always meant (around these parts, SoCal) that the ceiling for recovery was sufficiently high as to warrant concluding that recovery is impractical. Practically every device i've ran into that has been bricked has been put into that state via software. It may be impossible to fix such state without a JTAG bus and code from the manufacturer, or by desoldering chips, but I can't remember recently when something bricked was truly destroyed and every recovery method was rendered impossible. (bearing in mind I wouldn't consider something like a ran-over laptop to be 'bricked', but rather just destroyed) I'm sure some folks use the term when they are referring to destroyed equipment (a 'bricked' gpu from overheating) but I haven't really encountered it personally.

maxerickson 10y ago

It might not be legal. From the screenshot, it's not entirely clear to me that the baseband is actually bricked. The updated OS refusing to run on some phones isn't the same as damaging the phone.

pmontra 10y ago
Yep. That guy at least had a phone and could flash it with another OS and use it. He has nothing now. Not nice from Blackphone. They should have disabled only their sw.
voltagex_ 10y ago
No one's actually pulled apart the update (to get a copy, you'd need a real Blackphone + email support) to check what it's doing.

informatimago 10y ago

It is legal because they don't license their software with a license ensuring freedoms of the user. The user is not free to use their software. That's the point of the GPL. If the users took care of only buying products including only GPL'ed software, then they would have the freedoms: 1- to use the software, 2- to copy it for their friends, 3- to get the source to audit it and modify it (so they would be free to remove any backdoor that wouldn't exist in the first place for this very reason), 4- to compile the source to binaries and use them to replace the provided binaries (so their may increase their level of trust of the software they run on their hardware). Do not buy products that come with freedom-restricted software!

zaroth 10y ago
After all that the GPL still doesn't help these users unless they are also able to spin up and maintain the various servers & services the software also relies on.
zik 10y ago
It's legal for them to disable the software but not for them to prevent the user from using the hardware. It depends on how literal the "bricking" really is but if they made it impossible to load up (say) cyanogenmod then they could be up for a big destruction of property lawsuit.

raesene9 10y ago

I'm guessing it would depend on what T&C's the user clicked "I accept" on when setting the phone up or getting the update. Whenever I get an update on iOS you get the lovely huge Apple T&Cs, which you have to accept to install the update. So if SilentCircle does the equivalent and put in there "in the event that this is running on a non-approved device, we'll disable the software" then I click "I agree" it would seem fair enough for them to so. If I were them I think playing it a little cooler would've been to pop-up "Hey this is a knock-off device, we're not letting you use all the cloud service and you're getting no updates from us" and leave it at that...

PeterisP 10y ago

If the user does not have a valid licence for the software (since the counterfeit manufacturer essentially gave them a pirated copy) it would be legal for it to stop working.