Android phones disabled remotly in Mexico

[IkeaGnome]

1 hour ago, Arika said:

agreed.

 

i re-read the article (though short) and it is quite vague as to what happened and what instigated the blocking in the first place.

It’s the collateral that’s inside the packaging and testing. One of the articles I read yesterday lead to the Mexican government’s press brief. Not being fully tested and documentation coming in English, not Spanish we’re mentioned when the article was translated. 
 

On mobile now, but if I remember when I’m at my computer later I’ll grab that source. 

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

It’s the collateral that’s inside the packaging and testing. One of the articles I read yesterday lead to the Mexican government’s press brief. Not being fully tested and documentation coming in English, not Spanish we’re mentioned when the article was translated. 
 

On mobile now, but if I remember when I’m at my computer later I’ll grab that source. 

all seems still like a cop-out though, i think what they really mean is "we didn't get any import taxes or fees, and thus 'illegal'..."

 

but then again why don't they say *that*?

 

 

it just seems fishy to me all around lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 

 

ps: what im imagining is probably that: they *did* get import taxes and fees, and *still* pulled this off after the fact, imagine that, lmao. 

[TexZeTech]

18 hours ago, IkeaGnome said:

Sorry, had to work while I was working on an edit to that post.

 

It's the companies that started disabling phones. I read an article that made it sound like the MXN government told them to in the first place. They didn't. The companies started this policy. Started enforcing it and the Mexican government stepped in and told them not to.

What kind of phone do you plan to get that can't be remotely locked? Please don't say iPhone. They have the ability to remotely lock phones as well. 

Honestly no i wouldn't be going to an iphone ever. With that said I'm more aware of what my phone is capable of, than I would like to be something something ignorance is bliss.

 

If I was going to go in the realm of ultra normal paranoid, it would either be get the google pixle phone and install a custom rom or roll my own or straight up go to a linux phone and even that ultimately still has different issues.

 

Last option unplug from life, bury head-in sand. Use smoke signals to download jpgs at a rate of one signal a minute. #fullTinfoilhat

[jagdtigger]

5 hours ago, Arika said:

agreed.

 

i re-read the article (though short) and it is quite vague as to what happened and what instigated the blocking in the first place.

Yeah thats definitely interesting, but the main concern here is  the fact that manufacturers can and will kill devices they surrendered ownership of both HW and the copy of SW on the device at the time of purchase... After that they shouldnt have any say what the owner does with the device.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Yeah thats definitely interesting, but the main concern here is  the fact that manufacturers can and will kill devices they surrendered ownership of both HW and the copy of SW on the device at the time of purchase... After that they shouldnt have any say what the owner does with the device.

This has been the case for luxury products (eg watches, handbags, etc) for decades.

 

Phones just have a very convenient way of "self-destructing" at the whim of the manufacturer. This would be fine if the device was stolen and needed the data to be erased, but to do it to people who bought it legally somewhere else is just needlessly idiotic in the same way the luxury products and Microsoft/Adobe do it.

 

For those who have maybe lived under a rock, Microsoft and Adobe had price discrimination as part of their sales, and thus you "technically were not permitted" to sell the keys you bought in some cheaper country to a country where the prices were more expensive. If you did this online, you basically got accused of copyright infringement. Now, how much of that actually was copyright infringement is anyone's guess, especially since ripping off the serial numbers from decommissioned or broken OEM laptops was lucrative in this way. But then again, people came up with ways to generate the serial numbers too. That's why "activation" became a thing. This is G2A's entire business model.

 

At any rate, I hope someone figured out what causes this. It's one thing to "lock out a device" to protect the user, it's another to "protect the company's profits", the latter is just shameless anti-consumerism.

[Thaldor]

On one hand, f**k thieves. If my phone was stolen, I would love to have a control over it no matter what the thief decided to do with it, sell it to some third party and still "Hello, this phone is mine, send it here or I will keep spying you with it. Lovely house, BTW."

I also think it is only natural that companies start to default on locking phones before they have been sold and the sale have been registered to their systems. Again, f**k thieves. If it comes haunting the unsuspecting people who just want to get stuff cheap, well, that is going to be a very good lesson to be careful where you shop.

 

But on the other hand companies overstepping their boundaries for fat profits is just as bad as stealing. If it is just phone manufacturers crying over lost profits then that is clearly overstepping their role unless they have made it crystal clear that you should buy your device locally because reasons. Steam for one has made it clear that the regional pricing isn't for companies to profit from buying games from cheaper areas and selling them elsewhere and have taken steps towards blocking this and I am completely fine about it because Valve did warn about it for years.

 

So, if there's some more legit reason than just the old corporate greed and it came to that Mexican authorities or whatever didn't want to help track down the problem, I am completely fine phone manufacturers doing this. They could be more clear like instead of something BS just directly put "This device was stolen, return it to some store and we give you discount for a new one. Sorry for the trouble." I can understand this because I wouldn't give a single cent if my phone was stolen and someone bought it and me nuking it from the orbit would destroy their last photos of their granny that they took with my phone, it would be sad but maybe next time, don't buy stolen s**t. Legit safety reasons are also one that I can understand, like using those phones there could cause actual danger if the user didn't completely know what they were doing like at some point Samsung phones did support QC charging but some of their chargers didn't but their fast charging protocol was still somewhat same as QC and I managed to partially fry the USB-C port from my HTC U11 with samsung charger. But again being more clear about it would be much better (and when it comes to the people not getting their spend moneys back, again, that's the price of the lesson, it is not the company's fault that people bought phones from somewhere else and they are becoming dangerous, it would be actually be quite considerate to give the 30% discount).

But if it's just corporate greed, then f**k them.

[E-waste]

On 10/23/2023 at 1:05 PM, TexZeTech said:

4gb

Windows 10 can run firefox with three or four tabs with just 2 GB of memory.  I also had a 256 mb memory virtual machine with Ubuntu Linux running pi-hole and I didn't have any issues.

 

Try switching to Firefox and try using Privacy Badger, not to turn off trackers (firefox already does that) but a simpler interface for disabling extra websites, if NoScript looks too technical.  It can reduce page loading time by as much as half and probably reduces memory use as well.

[TexZeTech]

2 hours ago, E-waste said:

Windows 10 can run firefox with three or four tabs with just 2 GB of memory.  I also had a 256 mb memory virtual machine with Ubuntu Linux running pi-hole and I didn't have any issues.

 

Try switching to Firefox and try using Privacy Badger, not to turn off trackers (firefox already does that) but a simpler interface for disabling extra websites, if NoScript looks too technical.  It can reduce page loading time by as much as half and probably reduces memory use as well.

I was over simplifying and two of the pages were youtube, still didn't enjoy the experience.

 

Also just because windows 10 can run it doesn't mean it's performant in the ways I want and it also depends on other factors.

The last time i tried Windows 10 on that laptop, I flat out said "Yeah, that's never happening it's Linux now." .

 

Thank you for the advice, I may or maynot implement some or any.

[Jmz_P]

Just wondering...since this "ability" is public now, how long till someone or some group figures out how its done and is able to ransomware these phones? Orrrr...one of these companies gets hacked and loses control of their own "command and control" servers?

[Dracarris]

14 hours ago, TexZeTech said:

Honestly no i wouldn't be going to an iphone ever.

Well, you can't force people to their luck

8 hours ago, Thaldor said:

 

On one hand, f**k thieves. If my phone was stolen, I would love to have a control over it no matter what the thief decided to do with it, sell it to some third party and still "Hello, this phone is mine, send it here or I will keep spying you with it. Lovely house, BTW."

 

This does exist, for example in the form of "Find My". And control is in the device owners hand.

 

Regarding this thing in MX, I still don't understand it. What parts do the manufacturers play, what the Mexican government? On first sight, looks to me like the BS protectionism that Brazil imposes on imported devices, but a good step further. What exactly makes these devices illicit? Does the manufacturer lose out on anything due to it? If no, is the government forcing them to take these steps? In any case this is a burning pile of bullshit.