Comment by tsimionescu
1 day ago
Please avoid this type of maximalist rhetoric. There is clearly a public good to be served by making sure it's not easy to disrupt radio communications, especially by accident. Since any antenna, if not carefully controlled, can cause significant disruption in radio communication around it, it follows that it's a good thing, in principle, that users can't easily misuse their radio emitters to cause disruptions for others. I would say that this is all fairly uncontroversial, outside some extreme libertarian "my property woo!" positions.
Now, while in this particular case, the "vulnerability" that Google patched wasn't affecting the actual radio components, it may have still caused disruptions to the 4G/5G software - it's not very clear to me. It's also very possible that it didn't, and it was just allowing users to circumvent some market segmentation BS that some carrier marketing invented. In that case, I'm all for using our political power to prevent such BS.
But this is still a completely different argument than claiming that you should be allowed to do anything with your phone because you bought it (at least allowed by the design, even if it would be illegal). This is simply not a real right that anyone recognizes, or even desires - again, beyond some extremist libertarians.
I am not objecting to it not being allowed to jam radio/disrupt communications. I am objecting to corporations one-sidedly policing us, using said disruption as a mere excuse (or not even an excuse in this case - Google secretly patched this, without disclosing it in the patch notes).
Is it really an "extremist libertarian" position that corporations shouldn't abuse their backdoor access to our devices to enforce their whims? Or even that our property shouldn't enforce laws against us? Like mandating all cars come with a remote shutoff that police can use. It sounds like a totalitarian dystopia to me.
The point is that, according to the law a sit stands, a device manufacturer that knowingly ships a device that can be used to accidentally jam communications is breaking the law. Not only is the device manufacturer allowed to modify the device to prevent this, they are compelled by the law to take reasonable steps to do so. Automatic updates are such a reasonable step (and note, you can refuse to install updates on your Android phone - of course, you'll miss out on security updates as well, and may not be able to run certain apps if you're too far out of date). The exact same thing is true of cars.
If a car manufacturer realized that they accidentally left a button in your car that allows you to leak oil, they would have to issue a recall, and any service shop that worked on your car would be obligated to remove said button to make your car work - at the auto maker's expense, of course. The service checkup is the equivalent of the online update on your phone: you're not forced to do it, but many things will stop working if you do, and illegal features will be removed from your car at the checkup.
Of course, I agree that the patch here is not at the same level as an easy way to accidentally jam nearby radios. However, the general legal principle is the same: the argument "Google can't legally modify my property in ways I don't want when I install an update" isn't true, because they can and should have this power in certain cases. That the particular case of enabling VoLTE despite the carrier settings disallowing it doesn't warrant this power simply means that this case should be fought by different arguments, not by a general principle that simply doesn't exist in law.