7 ms·

Mobile Store Owner Sentenced to 10 Years for Scheme to Illegally Unlock Phones

37 points by us0r 4y ago

jfghi 4y ago
Certainly some criminal behavior that deserves charges. However, I think this is quite minor when compared to the behaviors of sbf and holmes.
- rnk 4y ago
  The article does say he made 25 million through this. That must be the reason he got such a severe sentence. That seems like too much time, because murder charges can get much less time. Breaking in to the us capital and hitting police officers bear spray, bricks, office equipment gets some people much less than a year. I'm not sure what I think a proper sentence is. It's like copying a dvd, software is free over the internet to do it and it's illegal; it's been illegal for decades to use that software, but there were only a very few random cases of prosecution. Who did the criminal steal money from in this case? I should own my hardware and I can run whatever I want on it. It's illegal in some cases because there's a series of laws leading to you can't modify your tractor software if you have a john deere, which in itself is a bad idea.
Mikeb85 4y ago
??? Locking phones should have been illegal. You can enforce contracts through other means, all locking does is prevent the owner from switching carriers at the end of a term or legally reselling the phone after it's paid off and they get a new one... Unblocking stolen phones I can understand but carriers got away with locking phones for far too long.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Unblocking stolen phones I can understand He also was apparently phishing T-Mobile employee credentials to do the unlocking/unblocking.
- nulbyte 4y ago
  TFA states after T-Mobile terminated their relationship with his business, he social engineered their help desk to steal credentials from other employees. It also states he made $25MM from the use of the stolen credentials. Not that I disagree that telcos should stop locking phones. Then again, this is why I don't buy telco branded phones to start with.
  - cyberphobe 4y ago
    but it doesn't seem like he did anything (morally) wrong with that access. Just helped people dodge T-Mobile's abusive practices. It would be one thing if there was like SIM swapping or something, but it doesn't look like that happened here.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      > Just helped people dodge T-Mobile's abusive practices. I would not call T-Mobile offering to subsidize a device in exchange for a $x per month for a y months as abuse by T-Mobile.
    - Beaver117 4y ago
      Nobody is forced to use T mobile, there are tons of smaller MVNOs that are cheap and no-contract.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > all locking does is prevent the owner from switching carriers at the end of a term or legally reselling the phone after it's paid off and they get a new one... All US mobile networks unblock phones once the contract term ends. Although, it should happen automatically rather than the phone owner having to request it. https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking
smm11 4y ago
The store owner didn't steal enough, apparently. He'll pay for lesser theft by going to prison.
m3drano 4y ago
Excuse my ignorance about the US justice system, but do I get correctly that the Theranos folks got like 11-13 years? Seems disproportionate.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  12 years ago I aspired to becoming an attorney; now I look back at that time and shake my head at my former naivete. To be clear, this guy was doing some crime - he was using his skills to unlock stolen phones so that they could be resold, plus he broke into T-mobile's computer systems by various means long after his access was revoked. But much of the press release is about how the worstest, baddest thing he did was help people get out of their phone contracts (thus acquiring a phone cheaply because so many carriers want to give you the latest greatest phone for $0 down and then collect huge monthly subscriptions). I've never bought a phone this way because it always ends up costing more. But if you want to buy your phone outright, bring in your own device, or prepay for your phone service, the big cell service providers in the US treat you like absolute dirt. So while I don't endorse this guy's actions, I also don't feel any sympathy for his 'victim'.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > But if you want to buy your phone outright, bring in your own device, or prepay for your phone service, the big cell service providers in the US treat you like absolute dirt. How so? I have walked into ATT and T-Mobile stores and purchased SIM cards very easily. With eSIM, I bet you do not even need to go to a store.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      Perhaps it's the area where I live, but my experience with those kinds of services over the years has involved a distinct lack of enthusiasm and lengthy waits to get the simplest things done, with different staff due to turnover. I thought it was clear that I'm making a generalization rather than asserting a universal or very specific truth.
troad 4y ago
Gross. Locking phones to a carrier is clearly an anti-competitive practice that should have been found to be illegal ages ago.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  So people should be legally forbidden from being able to accept a subsidized phone in exchange for a temporary lock?
  - Sprocklem 4y ago
    Why are these the only two options? In Canada, all our phones are carrier-unlocked and still subsidized by the use of multi-year contracts. There are perfectly adequate legal mechanisms of enforcing contracts without needing to lock phones.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Sure, and are subsidized phones more expensive in Canada as a result? US networks can also choose to advertise unlocked subsidized phones. The fact that they do not at a sufficiently competitive price to locked phones must mean the lock is worth having. The law is not forcing only two options, the market is. Any lender can lend money for a phone, just like Canadian mobile networks do.
      - TMWNN 4y ago
        >Sure, and are subsidized phones more expensive in Canada as a result? Plans are far more expensive in Canada,[1] so I'd be very surprised if phones are not also more expensive. In the past five years I've benefited from three very attractive Sprint promotions: * 2017: Through Best Buy, offers amazing iPhone SE deal to customers. <https://np.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/6lyjyl/cheap_prepaid_iphones_whats_the_catch/djxljov/?context=3 https://np.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/6lyjyl/cheap_pre...> * 2020: Used iPhone 8 for $99. I buy one, sell the above iPhone SE for a profit. <https://np.reddit.com/r/Sprint/comments/hl1qu3/my_experience_upgrading_phones_on_kickstart_and/ https://np.reddit.com/r/Sprint/comments/hl1qu3/my_experience...> * 2022: New iPhone 13 for $200 plus trade-in. I trade in the above iPhone 8 and will pay $6.67/month for the following 30 months. (Had I chosen the iPhone SE v2 I would not have paid anything.) I am very, very certain that none of the Robelus has ever offered an iPhone for anything like any of the above, let alone all three. [1] Canadians who have a US mailing address often choose to get US plans with Canadian roaming service, because doing so is cheaper than getting a plan from Robelus.
ttobbaybbob 4y ago
10 years and $28,473,535 seems excessive (as noted by others elizabeth holmes only got 11 for what seems a far larger, more potentially-destructive fraud). what's the logic behind this sentencing? or is there no logic and its some sort of regulatory capture and t-mobile et al want to make an example ?
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  His sentencing is likely less for the fraud and more for the hacking.
  - wintogreen74 4y ago
    Or the wire fraud. That's a federal charge and a felony. At $1M the range is going to be likely around 40-50 months, so $25M + (in this case) several aggravating factors like amount of loss, number of victims, defendant’s intentions and marketing techniques pushing that to 100+ months is not surprising. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manual/2015/Sentencing_Table.pdf https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manu...
- nier 4y ago
  How about this thought. Guy comes out of prison in 10 years a nobody. Tells his skewed story how he played Robin Hood to T-Mobile’s Sheriff of Nottingham. Will probably officially live on welfare so he won’t have to pay back a dime of whatever he hid of the rest of the money. Holmes comes out and everybody will remember her for putting thousands of life’s at risk. I’m naive when it comes to venture capitalist circles but I would like to think her life is ruined. Maybe the courts also take that into account? And what part of the sentencing is the punishment of the actual criminal and what part is the signal you’re sending to society to not do likewise or else? I think for every Holmes you could maybe have a few hundred Robin Hoods, I’m sorry I forget the guy’s real name. If I was a nation, I would be scared of both but maybe a little more of the latter in terms of network effects. Maybe we need more judges here to explain stuff to us like we’re 5 year olds.
danielvf 4y ago
> To gain unauthorized access to T-Mobile’s protected internal computers, Khudaverdyan obtained T-Mobile employees’ credentials through various dishonest means, including sending phishing emails that appeared to be legitimate T-Mobile correspondence, and socially engineering the T-Mobile IT Help Desk. Khudaverdyan used the fraudulent emails to trick T-Mobile employees to log in with their employee credentials so he could harvest the employees’ information and fraudulently unlock the phones. > In total, Khudaverdyan and others compromised and stole more than 50 different T-Mobile employees’ credentials from employees across the United States, and they unlocked and unblocked hundreds of thousands of cellphones during the years of the scheme. > Khudaverdyan obtained more than $25 million for these criminal activities.
- troad 4y ago
  > Khudaverdyan obtained more than $25 million for these criminal activities. I wonder how much economic value he created for “hundreds of thousands” of consumers by removing T-Mobile’s artificial restraints on competition.
  - retrac 4y ago
    It's funny how little we think about it like that. Harming corporate profits in many cases means we've reduced friction and improved total economic efficiency. But yeah, obviously hacking the telecom is a no-no.
    - wintogreen74 4y ago
      "Harming corporate profits" seems like a weird spin, considering locked phones are typically on long-term contracts that subsidize the purchase price. If you buy a lease-to-own car, then stop making payments and go to a different auto dealership is that just "economic efficiency?"
      - cyberphobe 4y ago
        your analogy doesn't work because cars aren't locked to dealerships. If the dealer controlled how you used your car and restricted what you did with your car via some sort of artificial software limitation within the vehicle, then removing that limitation would also be a good thing.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
>one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, two counts of accessing a computer to defraud and obtain value, one count of intentionally accessing a computer without authorization to obtain information, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, five counts of money laundering, and one count of aggravated identity theft. Which one of these charges is illegally unlocking phones? He went to prison for hacking T-Mobile, the title seems like it's trying to scare potential jailbreakers.
- SomewhatLikely 4y ago
  The article says he accepted money for "official TMobile" unlocks. That sounds fraudulent and likely involved money transfer over wires. So the first two counts you listed?
nier 4y ago
Reading the headline, I thought what a harsh sentence for jailbreaking a few phones. Turns out we have to come up with a new word for what has been going on here. This isn’t about DFU mode, exploiting bugs, or clever SIM hacks. These people broke into the telcom systems to actually unlock these devices for good. «In total, Khudaverdyan and others compromised and stole more than 50 different T-Mobile employees’ credentials from employees across the United States, and they unlocked and unblocked hundreds of thousands of cellphones during the years of the scheme. Khudaverdyan obtained more than $25 million for these criminal activities.»
- thwayunion 4y ago
  That still seems harsh if T-Mobile rent extraction was the only true harm and there wasn't eg sim-swapping or id theft involved. (e: I missed the $25M proceeds. Changes my thoughts a little, but still, 10 yrs seems like a lot if T-mobile was the only victim... seems like taking all his money and then some, compensating T-Mobile for actual costs, and giving the rest to the local public school or whatever would be better all-around and we can all shed some crocodile tears for the telcos.)
  - nier 4y ago
    My little theory is the more likely it is for individuals to copy such a criminal scheme the more the justice system wants to set an example with the punishment.
    - thwayunion 4y ago
      WRT schemes like this one, maybe so. I don't know. But on the broader point of hard prison sentences being good for deterrence, the US recidivism rate speaks for itself.
    - from 4y ago
      He also went to trial and lost. His codefendant plead guilty and has yet to be sentenced but I think he'll get ~5 years.
footlose_3815 4y ago
[dead]
ETHisso2017 4y ago
How much does someone want to bet that SBF gets less than 10 years for his scheme to defraud millions of people?
- giarc 4y ago
  I'll take that bet. Last estimate I saw for SBF was 115 years. Bernie Madoff got 150 years.
devmor 4y ago
It seems like the reasoning is a bit off here. Unlocking phones shouldn't be an issue - it should be the fact that he surreptitiously accessed protected systems that matters.
cyberphobe 4y ago
Lots of telco bootlicking and "what about muh corporate profits" in this thread on "hacker" news.
- from 4y ago
  Was Khudaverdyan "sticking it to the man" or enabling hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and making the rest of society's phone bills higher?
  - cyberphobe 4y ago
    > rest of society's phone bills higher this implies that the price of a phone bill is connected to the price of operating the service. The price is set by what they think they can get, not how much it costs to run.
    - from 4y ago
      > this implies that the price of a phone bill is connected to the price of operating the service. The price is set by what they think they can get, not how much it costs to run. I am not denying that telecoms is an oligopoly, I'm just saying this guy is no Robinhood. I think there still is some competition for pricing among cellular providers especially if you consider MVNOs, but even if this fraud had no effect on the cost of cell service, shareholders in any of the major telecom companies, which probably include the majority of adults by virtue of their inclusion on the S&P 500, are out billions of dollars of dividends thanks to the fraud these unlocking services enable.
      - cyberphobe 4y ago
        Right, it's not "making the rest of society's phone bills higher", it hurts the stock gains for shareholders. That's what I meant by "what about muh corporate profits"
        from 4y ago
MarkusWandel 4y ago
I never understood the economics of cell phone carrier locking. So you buy a phone that is meant to be paid off over a 3 year contract. Then you unlock it and sell it. That doesn't invalidate the contract, does it? Is it that easy to walk away from such contracts?
from 4y ago
There seems to be some misunderstandings in this thread. Anyone who has paid off their device can already get it unlocked from all the major carriers for free. 99% of the unlocks of this guy and similar services perform are for phones obtained by theft or fraud. They are either robbed from T-Mobile stores or they are obtained by "credit muling." Credit muling is where various sketchy people round up homeless or desperate people who need cash to go into cell phone stores and get as many phones as they can on credit with no intention of paying the phone off. The recruiters then take the phones and pay the "mules" a nominal fee like $100-200. This fraud costs carriers billions of dollars each year and makes everyone's cell phones bills higher.

37 points by us0r 4y ago

Certainly some criminal behavior that deserves charges. However, I think this is quite minor when compared to the behaviors of sbf and holmes.

rnk 4y ago
The article does say he made 25 million through this. That must be the reason he got such a severe sentence. That seems like too much time, because murder charges can get much less time. Breaking in to the us capital and hitting police officers bear spray, bricks, office equipment gets some people much less than a year. I'm not sure what I think a proper sentence is. It's like copying a dvd, software is free over the internet to do it and it's illegal; it's been illegal for decades to use that software, but there were only a very few random cases of prosecution. Who did the criminal steal money from in this case? I should own my hardware and I can run whatever I want on it. It's illegal in some cases because there's a series of laws leading to you can't modify your tractor software if you have a john deere, which in itself is a bad idea.

Mikeb85 4y ago

??? Locking phones should have been illegal. You can enforce contracts through other means, all locking does is prevent the owner from switching carriers at the end of a term or legally reselling the phone after it's paid off and they get a new one... Unblocking stolen phones I can understand but carriers got away with locking phones for far too long.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Unblocking stolen phones I can understand He also was apparently phishing T-Mobile employee credentials to do the unlocking/unblocking.
nulbyte 4y ago
TFA states after T-Mobile terminated their relationship with his business, he social engineered their help desk to steal credentials from other employees. It also states he made $25MM from the use of the stolen credentials. Not that I disagree that telcos should stop locking phones. Then again, this is why I don't buy telco branded phones to start with.
- cyberphobe 4y ago
  but it doesn't seem like he did anything (morally) wrong with that access. Just helped people dodge T-Mobile's abusive practices. It would be one thing if there was like SIM swapping or something, but it doesn't look like that happened here.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > Just helped people dodge T-Mobile's abusive practices. I would not call T-Mobile offering to subsidize a device in exchange for a $x per month for a y months as abuse by T-Mobile.
  - Beaver117 4y ago
    Nobody is forced to use T mobile, there are tons of smaller MVNOs that are cheap and no-contract.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> all locking does is prevent the owner from switching carriers at the end of a term or legally reselling the phone after it's paid off and they get a new one... All US mobile networks unblock phones once the contract term ends. Although, it should happen automatically rather than the phone owner having to request it. https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking https://www.fcc.gov/general/cell-phone-unlocking

smm11 4y ago

The store owner didn't steal enough, apparently. He'll pay for lesser theft by going to prison.

m3drano 4y ago

Excuse my ignorance about the US justice system, but do I get correctly that the Theranos folks got like 11-13 years? Seems disproportionate.

anigbrowl 4y ago
12 years ago I aspired to becoming an attorney; now I look back at that time and shake my head at my former naivete. To be clear, this guy was doing some crime - he was using his skills to unlock stolen phones so that they could be resold, plus he broke into T-mobile's computer systems by various means long after his access was revoked. But much of the press release is about how the worstest, baddest thing he did was help people get out of their phone contracts (thus acquiring a phone cheaply because so many carriers want to give you the latest greatest phone for $0 down and then collect huge monthly subscriptions). I've never bought a phone this way because it always ends up costing more. But if you want to buy your phone outright, bring in your own device, or prepay for your phone service, the big cell service providers in the US treat you like absolute dirt. So while I don't endorse this guy's actions, I also don't feel any sympathy for his 'victim'.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > But if you want to buy your phone outright, bring in your own device, or prepay for your phone service, the big cell service providers in the US treat you like absolute dirt. How so? I have walked into ATT and T-Mobile stores and purchased SIM cards very easily. With eSIM, I bet you do not even need to go to a store.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    Perhaps it's the area where I live, but my experience with those kinds of services over the years has involved a distinct lack of enthusiasm and lengthy waits to get the simplest things done, with different staff due to turnover. I thought it was clear that I'm making a generalization rather than asserting a universal or very specific truth.

troad 4y ago

Gross. Locking phones to a carrier is clearly an anti-competitive practice that should have been found to be illegal ages ago.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
So people should be legally forbidden from being able to accept a subsidized phone in exchange for a temporary lock?
- Sprocklem 4y ago
  Why are these the only two options? In Canada, all our phones are carrier-unlocked and still subsidized by the use of multi-year contracts. There are perfectly adequate legal mechanisms of enforcing contracts without needing to lock phones.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Sure, and are subsidized phones more expensive in Canada as a result? US networks can also choose to advertise unlocked subsidized phones. The fact that they do not at a sufficiently competitive price to locked phones must mean the lock is worth having. The law is not forcing only two options, the market is. Any lender can lend money for a phone, just like Canadian mobile networks do.
    - TMWNN 4y ago
      >Sure, and are subsidized phones more expensive in Canada as a result? Plans are far more expensive in Canada,[1] so I'd be very surprised if phones are not also more expensive. In the past five years I've benefited from three very attractive Sprint promotions: * 2017: Through Best Buy, offers amazing iPhone SE deal to customers. <https://np.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/6lyjyl/cheap_prepaid_iphones_whats_the_catch/djxljov/?context=3 https://np.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/6lyjyl/cheap_pre...> * 2020: Used iPhone 8 for $99. I buy one, sell the above iPhone SE for a profit. <https://np.reddit.com/r/Sprint/comments/hl1qu3/my_experience_upgrading_phones_on_kickstart_and/ https://np.reddit.com/r/Sprint/comments/hl1qu3/my_experience...> * 2022: New iPhone 13 for $200 plus trade-in. I trade in the above iPhone 8 and will pay $6.67/month for the following 30 months. (Had I chosen the iPhone SE v2 I would not have paid anything.) I am very, very certain that none of the Robelus has ever offered an iPhone for anything like any of the above, let alone all three. [1] Canadians who have a US mailing address often choose to get US plans with Canadian roaming service, because doing so is cheaper than getting a plan from Robelus.

ttobbaybbob 4y ago

10 years and $28,473,535 seems excessive (as noted by others elizabeth holmes only got 11 for what seems a far larger, more potentially-destructive fraud). what's the logic behind this sentencing? or is there no logic and its some sort of regulatory capture and t-mobile et al want to make an example ?

boomboomsubban 4y ago
His sentencing is likely less for the fraud and more for the hacking.
- wintogreen74 4y ago
  Or the wire fraud. That's a federal charge and a felony. At $1M the range is going to be likely around 40-50 months, so $25M + (in this case) several aggravating factors like amount of loss, number of victims, defendant’s intentions and marketing techniques pushing that to 100+ months is not surprising. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manual/2015/Sentencing_Table.pdf https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manu...
nier 4y ago
How about this thought. Guy comes out of prison in 10 years a nobody. Tells his skewed story how he played Robin Hood to T-Mobile’s Sheriff of Nottingham. Will probably officially live on welfare so he won’t have to pay back a dime of whatever he hid of the rest of the money. Holmes comes out and everybody will remember her for putting thousands of life’s at risk. I’m naive when it comes to venture capitalist circles but I would like to think her life is ruined. Maybe the courts also take that into account? And what part of the sentencing is the punishment of the actual criminal and what part is the signal you’re sending to society to not do likewise or else? I think for every Holmes you could maybe have a few hundred Robin Hoods, I’m sorry I forget the guy’s real name. If I was a nation, I would be scared of both but maybe a little more of the latter in terms of network effects. Maybe we need more judges here to explain stuff to us like we’re 5 year olds.

danielvf 4y ago

> To gain unauthorized access to T-Mobile’s protected internal computers, Khudaverdyan obtained T-Mobile employees’ credentials through various dishonest means, including sending phishing emails that appeared to be legitimate T-Mobile correspondence, and socially engineering the T-Mobile IT Help Desk. Khudaverdyan used the fraudulent emails to trick T-Mobile employees to log in with their employee credentials so he could harvest the employees’ information and fraudulently unlock the phones. > In total, Khudaverdyan and others compromised and stole more than 50 different T-Mobile employees’ credentials from employees across the United States, and they unlocked and unblocked hundreds of thousands of cellphones during the years of the scheme. > Khudaverdyan obtained more than $25 million for these criminal activities.

troad 4y ago
> Khudaverdyan obtained more than $25 million for these criminal activities. I wonder how much economic value he created for “hundreds of thousands” of consumers by removing T-Mobile’s artificial restraints on competition.
- retrac 4y ago
  It's funny how little we think about it like that. Harming corporate profits in many cases means we've reduced friction and improved total economic efficiency. But yeah, obviously hacking the telecom is a no-no.
  - wintogreen74 4y ago
    "Harming corporate profits" seems like a weird spin, considering locked phones are typically on long-term contracts that subsidize the purchase price. If you buy a lease-to-own car, then stop making payments and go to a different auto dealership is that just "economic efficiency?"
    - cyberphobe 4y ago
      your analogy doesn't work because cars aren't locked to dealerships. If the dealer controlled how you used your car and restricted what you did with your car via some sort of artificial software limitation within the vehicle, then removing that limitation would also be a good thing.

boomboomsubban 4y ago

>one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, two counts of accessing a computer to defraud and obtain value, one count of intentionally accessing a computer without authorization to obtain information, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, five counts of money laundering, and one count of aggravated identity theft. Which one of these charges is illegally unlocking phones? He went to prison for hacking T-Mobile, the title seems like it's trying to scare potential jailbreakers.

SomewhatLikely 4y ago
The article says he accepted money for "official TMobile" unlocks. That sounds fraudulent and likely involved money transfer over wires. So the first two counts you listed?

nier 4y ago

Reading the headline, I thought what a harsh sentence for jailbreaking a few phones. Turns out we have to come up with a new word for what has been going on here. This isn’t about DFU mode, exploiting bugs, or clever SIM hacks. These people broke into the telcom systems to actually unlock these devices for good. «In total, Khudaverdyan and others compromised and stole more than 50 different T-Mobile employees’ credentials from employees across the United States, and they unlocked and unblocked hundreds of thousands of cellphones during the years of the scheme. Khudaverdyan obtained more than $25 million for these criminal activities.»

thwayunion 4y ago
That still seems harsh if T-Mobile rent extraction was the only true harm and there wasn't eg sim-swapping or id theft involved. (e: I missed the $25M proceeds. Changes my thoughts a little, but still, 10 yrs seems like a lot if T-mobile was the only victim... seems like taking all his money and then some, compensating T-Mobile for actual costs, and giving the rest to the local public school or whatever would be better all-around and we can all shed some crocodile tears for the telcos.)
- nier 4y ago
  My little theory is the more likely it is for individuals to copy such a criminal scheme the more the justice system wants to set an example with the punishment.
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    WRT schemes like this one, maybe so. I don't know. But on the broader point of hard prison sentences being good for deterrence, the US recidivism rate speaks for itself.
  - from 4y ago
    He also went to trial and lost. His codefendant plead guilty and has yet to be sentenced but I think he'll get ~5 years.

footlose_3815 4y ago

[dead]

ETHisso2017 4y ago

How much does someone want to bet that SBF gets less than 10 years for his scheme to defraud millions of people?

giarc 4y ago
I'll take that bet. Last estimate I saw for SBF was 115 years. Bernie Madoff got 150 years.

devmor 4y ago

It seems like the reasoning is a bit off here. Unlocking phones shouldn't be an issue - it should be the fact that he surreptitiously accessed protected systems that matters.

cyberphobe 4y ago

Lots of telco bootlicking and "what about muh corporate profits" in this thread on "hacker" news.

from 4y ago
Was Khudaverdyan "sticking it to the man" or enabling hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and making the rest of society's phone bills higher?
- cyberphobe 4y ago
  > rest of society's phone bills higher this implies that the price of a phone bill is connected to the price of operating the service. The price is set by what they think they can get, not how much it costs to run.
  - from 4y ago
    > this implies that the price of a phone bill is connected to the price of operating the service. The price is set by what they think they can get, not how much it costs to run. I am not denying that telecoms is an oligopoly, I'm just saying this guy is no Robinhood. I think there still is some competition for pricing among cellular providers especially if you consider MVNOs, but even if this fraud had no effect on the cost of cell service, shareholders in any of the major telecom companies, which probably include the majority of adults by virtue of their inclusion on the S&P 500, are out billions of dollars of dividends thanks to the fraud these unlocking services enable.
    - cyberphobe 4y ago
      Right, it's not "making the rest of society's phone bills higher", it hurts the stock gains for shareholders. That's what I meant by "what about muh corporate profits"
      - from 4y ago

MarkusWandel 4y ago

I never understood the economics of cell phone carrier locking. So you buy a phone that is meant to be paid off over a 3 year contract. Then you unlock it and sell it. That doesn't invalidate the contract, does it? Is it that easy to walk away from such contracts?

from 4y ago

There seems to be some misunderstandings in this thread. Anyone who has paid off their device can already get it unlocked from all the major carriers for free. 99% of the unlocks of this guy and similar services perform are for phones obtained by theft or fraud. They are either robbed from T-Mobile stores or they are obtained by "credit muling." Credit muling is where various sketchy people round up homeless or desperate people who need cash to go into cell phone stores and get as many phones as they can on credit with no intention of paying the phone off. The recruiters then take the phones and pay the "mules" a nominal fee like $100-200. This fraud costs carriers billions of dollars each year and makes everyone's cell phones bills higher.