If someone buys the phone with the subsidy then subsequently leaves T-mo and pays the ETF, will T-mo unlock the phone? Also, is the ETF prorated? In any case, it seems that the combination of a cheap phone for voice and a netbook/laptop + WiFi or if ubiquitous access is necessary a data stick are a better deal for the money.

Precisely. Calling barbarians barbarians is racist now. Rights are human rights, not subject to "cultural norms," and we are perfectly justified imposing those rights on the ignorant--by force, if necessary.

Not that much I imagine, but Franklin sold a whole lot more Aces than Psystar sold commodity machines running Mac OS X.

I think we know how this one's going to turn out for our convicted murderers, [redacted] and [redacted].

The FTC didn't set it up. The big three set it up to comply with the FACT Act (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act). Although I agree that a .gov would have been much more apropos.

If you destroy evidence, make sure you destroy the backups, too.

Tracfone has a brand, Straight Talk (I have no affiliation and that's not a referral link), with phones available at WalMart with unlimited voice and text plus 30 MB data for $45/30 days. Prepaid being only for low-usage folks is a bygone idea.

Why wouldn't they? The people using it that way have probably been hearing that we are "at war" on something since they were children: the "War on Poverty," the "War on (some) Drugs," the "War on Terror."

"In hindsight we might have picked a simpler language than PL/I, . . ." Now there's an understatement!

Don't. Trust that if you offer a fair product at a reasonable price, then the consumers will buy it rather than copy it. It's the same model that worked with Non-copy protected cassettes back in the 80s and 90s.

But, but, but HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC!

The consumer (nay, customer, or better yet, citizen) loses nothing but his chains by resisting and refusing to pay into DRM schemes (with tax money in the case of UK citizens and the BBC). But if these schemes gain acceptability, then all content will eventually be locked down, so all "consumers" lose--even those who were willing to accept that some "premium 'content'" would be digitally restricted. Fortunately, if a human can see or hear something, a human can copy it so it's ultimately all a moot point: pervasive digital restrictions management will only serve to fuel a vast digital "underground" that will be underground only in name as social acceptability of its circumvention outweighs the shrill voice of the shills, the content "industry," and the politicians.

Then let the "content providers" take their ball and go home. If they think they're not leaving money on the table, their call. But keep your digital restrictions out of my living room.