Hacker News Reader

Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

Separate from phone hardware not being locked to a particular carrier, I'm especially interested in phone hardware not being locked to a bootloader.

Currently, Google Pixel hardware units bought through some carriers can't have GrapheneOS installed on them, because that carrier chose to disable "OEM Unlocking" of the bootloader.

View on HN

Verizon in particular. My Pixel 3 is still more than capable hardware-wise, but it's years out of software support. I could get much more use out of it, but the bootloader is locked and Verizon will not unlock it, so it's e-waste.

Protip: Call Verizon and tell them refusing to unlock your fully-paid for phone can be considered theft in your jurisdiction and can result in criminal charges.

They'll unlock it very quickly. The techs aren't legal geniuses.

I’d like to see a video of this working as it seems improbable. Techs are legal geniuses but seems like they’d have a script that boils down to “so sue us.”

I doubt this. Unlocks can be done by T4 support but legal threats will kick you to a separate system that will not respond to requests that quickly.

Unfortunately not. I'm currently embroiled in a complaint with my state's public utilities commission with Verizon. Verizon's corporate reps 'upgraded' my grandfathered plan without my consent while switching devices, and their phone reps truly don't care about the threat of regulatory bodies. So even with an actionable legal threat and a case number, their phone support has not at all been responsive.

Ah so this is the real reason verizon has been pushing people to upgrade and sending new boxes.

> My Pixel 3 is still more than capable hardware-wise

My Pixel 3a has started spontaneously shutting down; at any given moment, it may spend an indefinite amount of time in continuous boot-and-shutdown loops that render it unusable.

So don't buy phones from carriers? You can find a cheaper plan without a phone and then add a device you can use on any network, with the manufacturer's software.

That is kind of impossible for the FCC to regulate. If they mandated that, everyone would be able to install any OS on any hardware, notably iphones too. And that won't happen. If anything, FCC is anti software freedom. A lot of bullshit shenanigans that manufacturers pull (wifi whitelists etc.) are to please the FCC.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com