PEDES3ANTECH

Last week, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission) announced a draft Canadian  Wireless Code of Conduct  that will eventually become a regulatory tool for wireless service in Canada. It seeks to create a “.. mandatory code for all mobile wireless service providers to address the clarity and content of wireless service contracts and related issues for consumers.” Throughout last year, the CRTC has been actively gathering comments and suggestions from the public about what they want to change in how wireless service in Canada is regulated. It is then safe to assume that this draft code of conduct is a direct mandate from the consumers- and I argue because of this, it is a big step towards nothing. Why a Wireless Code of Conduct? Obviously most Canadians feel that the wireless service industry is an evil corporate empire that has been bullying them for such a long time. The public obviously feels that the big 3 wireless carriers in Canada (Be...

Recently in the US, it became illegal for you to unlock your device outside the channels provided by your service provider. The  exception  from  DMCA  (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) granted by the Librarian of Congress regarding cellphone unlocking expired on January 26, 2013. So starting that day, anybody selling cellphone unlocking services can be subject to litigation under DMCA. How did this happen? If you look at the origin of DMCA, it was not even meant to regulate cellphone unlocking, it was mainly for protecting digital copyrights. However it has morphed into a tool for circumventing true mobile freedom. DMCA sets protection of copyrighted digital materials by criminalizing the circumvention of access control softwares and Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools. The key here is access control software- this is where cellphone unlock comes into the picture. Originally, access control softwares and DRMS were used to make sure nobody is able to gain ac...