P3Droid: Some Food for Thought - Bootloaders, Rooting, Manufacturers, and Carriers

[nerdslogic]

If you tether without authorization, you violate the ToS.
If you root, you violate the ToS.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's fair. Whining here will do nothing. Get over your entitled self. These are the terms.

Who are you talking to? Rooting violates WARRANTY...tether violates ToS

 

[Skull One]

All VZW SHOULD be able to say is "well....it's your warranty" but outside of that providing we aren't abusing their network we SHOULD be good.

But some of are not in total agreement with that, either.

As is the case with cars, the manufacturer has to be able to show that the modifications or the parts that you used were the CAUSE of the problem, before they can deny a warranty claim.

I think that if you root, and later on a defective battery fries the phone, or a button falls off or the screen dies, you absolutely should get a warranty replacement or repair, regardless of whether you rooted or not.

Why? Because one had nothing to do with the other. Now, if you root and brick it, fine, they can show that you messing with it caused the problem and deny your claim and you are SOL.

You are referring to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. It is a shame you have never read it fully.

First and fore-most I have read this act fully and have had to use it against Chevrolet on both my 2004 and 2006 Corvettes that I raced for 5 years. They constantly wanted to claim that my modifications caused one or more failures. To remedy that situation it was sometimes required that I return the car to "STOCK" before I could legally get them to perform the warranty work. The Texas AG agreed with Chevrolet that a return to "STOCK" was needed to properly trouble shot "certain" situations per the manuals provided by GM to their dealerships for repairs.

With that in mind the same exact issue applies to ROOTED phones. Since rooting allows you to overclock as well as raise the voltage applied to the CPU (possibly GPU and support chips), it could be claimed that the batteries failure was due to overclocking since it took the phone "out of specification during its operational life" and cause the battery to overheat and hence fail prematurely.

For this scenario to be resolved you would either have to prove you only used the "kernel" provided by the phone manufacturer or VZW would have to take your word for it. I think you can guess on how that conversation will go down.

Now here is the other issue you have failed to address with your example. the ToS specifically states that any changes to the phone's software takes it out of specification for use on their network. That means the second you show them a rooted phone, they can disconnect your service and still force you to pay either your remaining contract or the ETF, whichever is cheaper to the customer.

So trying to use the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act to justify that VZW has to do warranty repair is pretty stupid when they can simply cut off your service and their isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

 

[jntdroid]

Now here is the other issue you have failed to address with your example. the ToS specifically states that any changes to the phone's software takes it out of specification for use on their network. That means the second you show them a rooted phone, they can disconnect your service and still force you to pay either your remaining contract or the ETF, whichever is cheaper to the customer.

I thought the Supreme Court's ruling last year made rooting/jailbreaking legal, and basically said that, while it can still void the warranty, the service cannot be terminated b/c of it?

Nice to see you around here - I haven't been as active lately... how's the Addison/FB life?

 

[Its TwiX]

I would post up a picture making fun of p3 for his tweets last night, but it's NSFDF. Good fun though. People were probably freaking out. AndIRC was dying of laughter.

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums

 

[canyoufindben]

If you tether without authorization, you violate the ToS.
If you root, you violate the ToS.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's fair. Whining here will do nothing. Get over your entitled self. These are the terms.

Who are you talking to? Rooting violates WARRANTY...tether violates ToS

It also violates the ToS, phone/software on network out of spec.

 

[canyoufindben]

Now here is the other issue you have failed to address with your example. the ToS specifically states that any changes to the phone's software takes it out of specification for use on their network. That means the second you show them a rooted phone, they can disconnect your service and still force you to pay either your remaining contract or the ETF, whichever is cheaper to the customer.

I thought the Supreme Court's ruling last year made rooting/jailbreaking legal, and basically said that, while it can still void the warranty, the service cannot be terminated b/c of it?

Nice to see you around here - I haven't been as active lately... how's the Addison/FB life?

I think it just ment manufacturers couldn't throw the DMCA at you.

 

[SquireSCA]

All VZW SHOULD be able to say is "well....it's your warranty" but outside of that providing we aren't abusing their network we SHOULD be good.

But some of are not in total agreement with that, either.

As is the case with cars, the manufacturer has to be able to show that the modifications or the parts that you used were the CAUSE of the problem, before they can deny a warranty claim.

I think that if you root, and later on a defective battery fries the phone, or a button falls off or the screen dies, you absolutely should get a warranty replacement or repair, regardless of whether you rooted or not.

Why? Because one had nothing to do with the other. Now, if you root and brick it, fine, they can show that you messing with it caused the problem and deny your claim and you are SOL.

You are referring to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. It is a shame you have never read it fully.

First and fore-most I have read this act fully and have had to use it against Chevrolet on both my 2004 and 2006 Corvettes that I raced for 5 years. They constantly wanted to claim that my modifications caused one or more failures. To remedy that situation it was sometimes required that I return the car to "STOCK" before I could legally get them to perform the warranty work. The Texas AG agreed with Chevrolet that a return to "STOCK" was needed to properly trouble shot "certain" situations per the manuals provided by GM to their dealerships for repairs.

With that in mind the same exact issue applies to ROOTED phones. Since rooting allows you to overclock as well as raise the voltage applied to the CPU (possibly GPU and support chips), it could be claimed that the batteries failure was due to overclocking since it took the phone "out of specification during its operational life" and cause the battery to overheat and hence fail prematurely.

For this scenario to be resolved you would either have to prove you only used the "kernel" provided by the phone manufacturer or VZW would have to take your word for it. I think you can guess on how that conversation will go down.

Now here is the other issue you have failed to address with your example. the ToS specifically states that any changes to the phone's software takes it out of specification for use on their network. That means the second you show them a rooted phone, they can disconnect your service and still force you to pay either your remaining contract or the ETF, whichever is cheaper to the customer.

So trying to use the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act to justify that VZW has to do warranty repair is pretty stupid when they can simply cut off your service and their isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

I gave an example of how other companies in other industries tried to take similar stances in the past, and failed. It's a similar situation for illustrative purposes. For you to take it literally to ever level in an effort to call me stupid, shows that you have less intelligence than the person you are attempting to berate.

Giving examples of how the market has reacted in the past to *similar* situations, doesn't mean that this one will go that way. And to cite an example does not mean that it has to be 100% applicable and exact across the board for the example, and the underlying point contained therein, was invalid. To think so literally and to obviously be unable to think outside the box and see the big picture, makes your petty insults seem all the more silly, because they obviously apply to you more than they do to your intended target.

If I used a K&N air filter in my car because I wanted to be able to wash it rather than keep buying new ones, GM cannot deny a warranty claim, UNLESS they can show that using that filter, didn't seal properly or let in some contaminates that would have been stopped by the OEM filter, etc...

That's all that was being pointed out. That just because you rooted to change the font size, won't make the buttons fall off. Some measure of common sense should be applied here, but if you are unable to muster that, perhaps you should send your resume to VZW? They could use more of your type there. ;-)

BTW, if you have an iPhone, why are you even here? LOL

 

[Skull One]

Now here is the other issue you have failed to address with your example. the ToS specifically states that any changes to the phone's software takes it out of specification for use on their network. That means the second you show them a rooted phone, they can disconnect your service and still force you to pay either your remaining contract or the ETF, whichever is cheaper to the customer.

I thought the Supreme Court's ruling last year made rooting/jailbreaking legal, and basically said that, while it can still void the warranty, the service cannot be terminated b/c of it?

Nice to see you around here - I haven't been as active lately... how's the Addison/FB life?

The Library of Congress addendum to the DMCA now affords cell phone hackers protection from prosecution. It does not afford them the right to continue using the device on the cellular network for which it is designed if said phone is hacked.

BTW this addendum was made possible by Apple trying to prosecute Jailbreakers

 

[czerdrill]

@czerdrill

I understand that the speaker phone may not directly increase network load, but neither does tethering. Tethering can be used for someone to hop online to send a couple emails while on the road, or log into their companies/schools network to get some information. It's not always about downloading torrents and xbox gaming and replacing home internet. This is why I think Verizon is going about this entirely wrong.

Hey man, I'm in no way saying that someone tethering is bringing the network to a halt. It's not. Not the people who tether 1MB, or the people who tether 50GB. The network is built to handle that. But...it is increasing the load on the network. Anytime anyone connects to the network, its load will increase, and Verizon wants to capitalize on that (and rightly so).

The network won't fail, or become spotty because one guy is torrenting and the other guy is just checking emails, but both guys are putting an extra load (albeit a small one for the email guy) and both guys are violating their TOS. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not cool, but it's not illegal or against the agreement that was signed.

The speakerphone example doesn't affect anything on Verizon's end, tethering does, even if it's a little. I've had my phone a year and I've tethered no way more then 5-10 times (and that's being generous). If they come after me, yes I'll be pissed off because I know for a fact there are people out there, people on this very forum, who've replaced their ISP with VZW 3G, and torrent all day. But, will I try to argue and say "but I only violated the TOS a little bit..."? No way. I know what I'm doing, and if they want to pursue it they have the right to. I would be a fool to try to argue against something that I signed and presumably read. My arguments would hold no weight, not to VZW and not to any court. They're not doing anything wrong, by wanting you to pay to extend their network to all your devices. Again, if I owned VZW I'd be doing the same thing.

 

[SquireSCA]

@czerdrill

I understand that the speaker phone may not directly increase network load, but neither does tethering. Tethering can be used for someone to hop online to send a couple emails while on the road, or log into their companies/schools network to get some information. It's not always about downloading torrents and xbox gaming and replacing home internet. This is why I think Verizon is going about this entirely wrong.

Hey man, I'm in no way saying that someone tethering is bringing the network to a halt. It's not. Not the people who tether 1MB, or the people who tether 50GB. The network is built to handle that. But...it is increasing the load on the network. Anytime anyone connects to the network, its load will increase, and Verizon wants to capitalize on that (and rightly so).

The network won't fail, or become spotty because one guy is torrenting and the other guy is just checking emails, but both guys are putting an extra load (albeit a small one for the email guy) and both guys are violating their TOS. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not cool, but it's not illegal or against the agreement that was signed.

The speakerphone example doesn't affect anything on Verizon's end, tethering does, even if it's a little. I've had my phone a year and I've tethered no way more then 5-10 times (and that's being generous). If they come after me, yes I'll be pissed off because I know for a fact there are people out there, people on this very forum, who've replaced their ISP with VZW 3G, and torrent all day. But, will I try to argue and say "but I only violated the TOS a little bit..."? No way. I know what I'm doing, and if they want to pursue it they have the right to. I would be a fool to try to argue against something that I signed and presumably read. My arguments would hold no weight, not to VZW and not to any court. They're not doing anything wrong, by wanting you to pay to extend their network to all your devices. Again, if I owned VZW I'd be doing the same thing.

Why would anyone replace their ISP with VZW 3G? LOL

Their 3G can barely keep up with AT&T's EDGE, let alone their 3G. It's not much faster than dial-up in a lot of areas, I cannot imagine going back to that.

4G/LTE however, is amazing. My girlfriend gets 22mbit down and 31mb up on her Thunderbolt. Which is not rooted. Cause rooting is wrong.

I can see where people would try to use 4G for their ISP. And I think that they should pay for that, no question.

 

[Its TwiX]

Comparing a car warranty to a phone warranty is utterly ridiculous. The fact is if you root your phone and your button falls off, if you send it back that way they don't have to fix anything. Even if it has nothing to do with the problem, you already voided your warranty by rooting.

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums

 

[czerdrill]

@czerdrill

I understand that the speaker phone may not directly increase network load, but neither does tethering. Tethering can be used for someone to hop online to send a couple emails while on the road, or log into their companies/schools network to get some information. It's not always about downloading torrents and xbox gaming and replacing home internet. This is why I think Verizon is going about this entirely wrong.

Hey man, I'm in no way saying that someone tethering is bringing the network to a halt. It's not. Not the people who tether 1MB, or the people who tether 50GB. The network is built to handle that. But...it is increasing the load on the network. Anytime anyone connects to the network, its load will increase, and Verizon wants to capitalize on that (and rightly so).

The network won't fail, or become spotty because one guy is torrenting and the other guy is just checking emails, but both guys are putting an extra load (albeit a small one for the email guy) and both guys are violating their TOS. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not cool, but it's not illegal or against the agreement that was signed.

The speakerphone example doesn't affect anything on Verizon's end, tethering does, even if it's a little. I've had my phone a year and I've tethered no way more then 5-10 times (and that's being generous). If they come after me, yes I'll be pissed off because I know for a fact there are people out there, people on this very forum, who've replaced their ISP with VZW 3G, and torrent all day. But, will I try to argue and say "but I only violated the TOS a little bit..."? No way. I know what I'm doing, and if they want to pursue it they have the right to. I would be a fool to try to argue against something that I signed and presumably read. My arguments would hold no weight, not to VZW and not to any court. They're not doing anything wrong, by wanting you to pay to extend their network to all your devices. Again, if I owned VZW I'd be doing the same thing.

Why would anyone replace their ISP with VZW 3G? LOL

Their 3G can barely keep up with AT&T's EDGE, let alone their 3G. It's not much faster than dial-up in a lot of areas, I cannot imagine going back to that.

4G/LTE however, is amazing. My girlfriend gets 22mbit down and 31mb up on her Thunderbolt. Which is not rooted. Cause rooting is wrong.

I can see where people would try to use 4G for their ISP. And I think that they should pay for that, no question.

Why indeed LOL. But, there are people who do it, and there's one guy in particular on this forum who does it and takes every opportunity to remind people he does it. I don't remember his name, but clearly he is a moron. I'm sure 4G is great, and that would definitely be a more viable option if you're trying to replace your ISP, but throw something free (whether its legal or not) and people will jump at it, even if their internet is slow as hell LOL.

 

[TheTyler0013]

I would post up a picture making fun of p3 for his tweets last night, but it's NSFDF. Good fun though. People were probably freaking out. AndIRC was dying of laughter.

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums

Can u please pm it to me I would love to see it.

Brought by a Holy Thunderbolt from Oden

 

[pc747]

@czerdrill

I understand that the speaker phone may not directly increase network load, but neither does tethering. Tethering can be used for someone to hop online to send a couple emails while on the road, or log into their companies/schools network to get some information. It's not always about downloading torrents and xbox gaming and replacing home internet. This is why I think Verizon is going about this entirely wrong.

Hey man, I'm in no way saying that someone tethering is bringing the network to a halt. It's not. Not the people who tether 1MB, or the people who tether 50GB. The network is built to handle that. But...it is increasing the load on the network. Anytime anyone connects to the network, its load will increase, and Verizon wants to capitalize on that (and rightly so).

The network won't fail, or become spotty because one guy is torrenting and the other guy is just checking emails, but both guys are putting an extra load (albeit a small one for the email guy) and both guys are violating their TOS. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not cool, but it's not illegal or against the agreement that was signed.

The speakerphone example doesn't affect anything on Verizon's end, tethering does, even if it's a little. I've had my phone a year and I've tethered no way more then 5-10 times (and that's being generous). If they come after me, yes I'll be pissed off because I know for a fact there are people out there, people on this very forum, who've replaced their ISP with VZW 3G, and torrent all day. But, will I try to argue and say "but I only violated the TOS a little bit..."? No way. I know what I'm doing, and if they want to pursue it they have the right to. I would be a fool to try to argue against something that I signed and presumably read. My arguments would hold no weight, not to VZW and not to any court. They're not doing anything wrong, by wanting you to pay to extend their network to all your devices. Again, if I owned VZW I'd be doing the same thing.

Why would anyone replace their ISP with VZW 3G? LOL

Their 3G can barely keep up with AT&T's EDGE, let alone their 3G. It's not much faster than dial-up in a lot of areas, I cannot imagine going back to that.

4G/LTE however, is amazing. My girlfriend gets 22mbit down and 31mb up on her Thunderbolt. Which is not rooted. Cause rooting is wrong.

I can see where people would try to use 4G for their ISP. And I think that they should pay for that, no question.

Good question and if people would have been following that logic and not bricking their phones we would not be at where we are right now. People have came on this forum and bragged about burning though 25+ gigs and downloading movies, tethering xbox, and all kinds of stupid stuff. When someone tries to call them out it turns into a flaming match.

 

[SquireSCA]

Comparing a car warranty to a phone warranty is utterly ridiculous. The fact is if you root your phone and your button falls off, if you send it back that way they don't have to fix anything. Even if it has nothing to do with the problem, you already voided your warranty by rooting.

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums

OMG. Nobody is saying that a car warranty is the same as a phone warranty. Am I not typing in English?

It's an example of how an industry tried to lock things down so that customers could only use their parts and there service and do things their way so that they could charge whatever they wanted, etc...

It's a "similar situation", not an EXACT PARALLEL.

Sweet Jeebus, stop being Larry Literal here. LOL

Companies tried to lock things down and control every aspect of products that people paid for, and the government stepped in and said no, there has to be limits, these people payed for them and unless their actions CAUSED the problem, you have to honor the warranty, with few exceptions.

And before someone cites an exception, yes, there were and still are some. But that does not in any way invalidate the premise that companies tried to be too controlling and had to be "corrected" via legislation.

It is merely an example of how "it's just the way it is" can change if enough people get fed up and demand that change.

So before the next person responds with, "But a phone doesn't require transmission fluid so the analogy is wrong"... Stop. Go back, read the post in the context that I gave you, in the spirit it was given, and read it 5 times if you have to.

If you still can't figure it out, put your hockey helmet back on and go back to running head first into a wall while I go put a gun in my mouth... LOL