4 ms·

Is not donating malaria nets to poor africans more or less defensible than choosing to sell them phones which deactivate when unpaid? You seem to be suggesting

by FDSGSG 5y ago

Is not donating malaria nets to poor africans more or less defensible than choosing to sell them phones which deactivate when unpaid? You seem to be suggesting that it would be fucked up to not donate these phones to the poor people who aren't paying their bills. Does that mean that it's also fucked up to not donate them other things?

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Nobody's saying they have to give out phones for free. We're saying that somehow those people ended up with the phones in their possession and the company's right to get paid DOES NOT mean it can lock out emergency functions on the phones. They can go ahead and cut off the normal phone service but if they lock out the dialer app and even one person fails to call an ambulance or police or firemen or whatever because of that lock that's one hundred percent on them. This goes double, triple if the lockout happened by mistake to innocent people. Honestly, it's bad enough that these companies think it's even acceptable to remotely control computers. Locking out emergency services is just on a whole new level. Didn't get paid? Seek redress in the justice system like everyone else.
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  Okay, please go ahead and show me where the article claims that they "lock[ed] out emergency functions on the phones", thanks.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Okay. It's right there on the title: "my script killed 10k phones". Do you have any reason to believe "killed" means anything lesser than "rendered completely useless, bricked"? Also, there's the fact the software "would lock the low-level features that allowed you to make calls". There is no reason to believe calls to emergency services were exempted. I don't really want to comment on the rest of the article. Actually, as one of the "poor sods from places like Peru and Chile" I do have quite a few things to say about the author's gross negligence and his endless rationalizations. I just don't want to get permabanned for saying them. Suffice it to say that negligence of this magnitude is actually a crime where I live.
    - FDSGSG 5y ago
      >Do you have any reason to believe "killed" means anything lesser than "rendered completely useless, bricked" Yeah, because traditionally all the normal ways of locking phones still let 911 calls through. It should be fair to assume so unless stated otherwise.

by FDSGSG 5y ago

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Nobody's saying they have to give out phones for free. We're saying that somehow those people ended up with the phones in their possession and the company's right to get paid DOES NOT mean it can lock out emergency functions on the phones. They can go ahead and cut off the normal phone service but if they lock out the dialer app and even one person fails to call an ambulance or police or firemen or whatever because of that lock that's one hundred percent on them. This goes double, triple if the lockout happened by mistake to innocent people. Honestly, it's bad enough that these companies think it's even acceptable to remotely control computers. Locking out emergency services is just on a whole new level. Didn't get paid? Seek redress in the justice system like everyone else.

jfrunyon 5y ago
Okay, please go ahead and show me where the article claims that they "lock[ed] out emergency functions on the phones", thanks.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Okay. It's right there on the title: "my script killed 10k phones". Do you have any reason to believe "killed" means anything lesser than "rendered completely useless, bricked"? Also, there's the fact the software "would lock the low-level features that allowed you to make calls". There is no reason to believe calls to emergency services were exempted. I don't really want to comment on the rest of the article. Actually, as one of the "poor sods from places like Peru and Chile" I do have quite a few things to say about the author's gross negligence and his endless rationalizations. I just don't want to get permabanned for saying them. Suffice it to say that negligence of this magnitude is actually a crime where I live.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    >Do you have any reason to believe "killed" means anything lesser than "rendered completely useless, bricked" Yeah, because traditionally all the normal ways of locking phones still let 911 calls through. It should be fair to assume so unless stated otherwise.