People who have attended one of my talks on mobile phone security (e.g. Confidence, SIGINT, IT Underground) already know why carriers don’t particularily mind theft – after all, a stolen device means that the former owner will buy another one (often at outrageous OTC prices). AT&T has now taken this bullshit one step further.
According to the Boy Genius Report, AT&T will now offer an insurance plan:
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The insurance plan, which will be run by Asurion, will carry a price tag of $13.99/month and will be available for purchase through Apple’s App Store. The charges will be billed to the credit card on file with Apple. … You must enroll in the plan within 30-days of upgrading/purchasing a new iPhone.
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Let me explain the reason for the outrage further: each and every GSM-based network contains provisions for keeping “unwanted” phones out of the network – the so-called EIR database (an element of every GSM network) always contains the provisions for IMEI blacklisting. A carrier can ban any phone from its network by simply adding it to the database’s blacklist.
Given that Apple and AT&T could easily gang up with law enforcement and eliminate the resale value of stolen devices, I consider it socially outrageous that the two now start to peddle insurance. But it makes sense economically – after all, if your iPhone is stolen, you’ll likely buy another one anyways.
Just think about market share and sell through…
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