Re:13,500 Vivo Smartphones found running on same IMEI number
by mindslight on Saturday June 06, 2020 @04:00PM
(#23441841)
Titles could actually make things worse.
Right now, if you buy a phone and it ends up on the blacklist after the return period, you can find a service that changes the IMEI or figure it out yourself if you can stand to wade through forum FUD. Since a significant number of blacklisted phones are from broken finance contracts, a phone simply being in the blacklist does not imply that it was stolen - a broken finance contract is a civil matter purely between the carrier and the original owner. Therefore, rewriting the IMEI on such a phone is completely legal, at least in the US.
Whereas if phones had titles, then a financed phone could have a legal encumbrance recorded on that title after you thought you'd bought it outright, and changing the IMEI to get out from that would be illegal. Phones are not incorporeal, immovable, expensive, or dangerous devices. Lacking all of the usual justifications for existing title systems, heading away from draconian registration makes more sense than heading towards it.
Right now, if you buy a phone and it ends up on the blacklist after the return period, you can find a service that changes the IMEI or figure it out yourself if you can stand to wade through forum FUD. Since a significant number of blacklisted phones are from broken finance contracts, a phone simply being in the blacklist does not imply that it was stolen - a broken finance contract is a civil matter purely between the carrier and the original owner. Therefore, rewriting the IMEI on such a phone is completely legal, at least in the US.
Whereas if phones had titles, then a financed phone could have a legal encumbrance recorded on that title after you thought you'd bought it outright, and changing the IMEI to get out from that would be illegal. Phones are not incorporeal, immovable, expensive, or dangerous devices. Lacking all of the usual justifications for existing title systems, heading away from draconian registration makes more sense than heading towards it.