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A comment on Unlocking Cellphones Becomes Illegal Saturday in the U.S.. Parent comment

Re:Unlocking Cellphones Becomes Illegal Saturday in the U.S. by dpark on Thursday January 24, 2013 @04:06PM (#5112217)
Were you doing this work in Costa Rica? Because if not, your example is completely different. You were doing work in the US that the US deems illegal.

And actually, I'm not certain that your lawyers were correct in stating that the work was illegal. It's illegal to operate an online casino in the US. That's not the same as it being illegal to develop software that can be used by an online casino. If the casino in question was serving US customers, then you might be considered an accomplice in a crime. If they were only serving customers outside the US, I seriously doubt you'd be guilty of any crime.

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Re:Unlocking Cellphones Becomes Illegal Saturday in the U.S. by m0nastic on Thursday January 24, 2013 @05:02PM (#5112548)
The work was being done in Costa Rica, onsite. And the software was used for their own online gambling site (we were testing the production site, not software that they provided to other people).

I concur that it was probably a more complicated legal matter, but our counsel was pretty confident that this would have been problematic.

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Re:Unlocking Cellphones Becomes Illegal Saturday in the U.S. by dpark on Thursday January 24, 2013 @05:14PM (#5112626)
The comparison makes more sense, now. :)

Were they allowing US customers to use their site? If so, you were might have been in a gray area. I agree with your legal dept that it could have been problematic either way. Not necessarily illegal, but not worth the hassle.

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