phonehome

Looks like you can see random examples: http://coderwall.com/roll-the-dice

I'm on the fence with patents... overall I think the response by Lodsys is reasonable and if their license fees are as the article states, then it should not be to much of a burden to developers.

My guess is Apple financially works out something with Lodsys so all iOS apps are extended a license.

the arrogance of a company to even propose such a relationship with an employee blows me away

If I was AT&T looking for unauthorized tethering folk, I'd focus on the people that are using > 2 GB a month + other various heuristics. Something deff smells funny if someone is using substantial bandwidth and much of the traffic is with a UserAgent like Firefox or Chrome

sure but many websites use the useragent to alter the presentation for the device...this would diminish the experience for the lay user when tethering

They'll find other ways i.e. looking at the UserAgent in any unsecured HTTP request would signal tethering