[FRIAM] Hacking Phones In China

[Nicholas Thompson]

 

Dear FRIAM, 

 

I thought, at the very minimum, this might amuse some of you, and that, at the 
maximum, some of you might have something useful to say to my friends in china. 
 Steve?

 

[O]ur colleague Mark,… volunteered to take us out to get Chinese

telephones. We don’t have much use here for telephones qua telephones, really. 
We

communicate with America by e-mail and Skype; all the people we know in China 
are right here

in the building where we work. Whom would we call? But we are persuaded that 
wandering

around a city -- particularly other cities than Beijing -- will be more 
comfortable if we have

access to GoogleMaps to tell us where we are, even if the labels are all in 
Chinese. (“No. See

here, we are near ‘squiggle-cross-backhatch-box-with-two-lines,’ but we want to 
be at ‘double-xon-

top-of-box-with-three-lines-over-swoopy-x-shaped-thing.’”) So off we went, 
Mark, Martha,

Dominic and me, on the subway to Weigongcun, two stops away. We wound up in a 
shop for the

second largest telecom company in China, which nonetheless felt like a little 
hole-in-the-wall

that badly needed a new coat of paint. There was a wall of sample telephones 
and another wall

of leaflets describing the plans we could buy. Of course we could not 
understand them at all. It

was simultaneously reassuring and disturbing that our Chinese friend, Mark, had 
trouble

understanding them too. From our distant perspective, the choice was easy: give 
us the cheapest

thing that will help us find ourselves when we’re lost in Xi’an, Guangzhou or 
Shanghai.

 

The idea was to buy a SIM card -- “subscriber identity module” -- and plug it 
into the iPhone we

had brought from America. After some back and forth, we settle on a plan that 
allows us to get a

discount by pre-paying the fees for a year. We got another discount by choosing 
a telephone

number that ends with a four. Four (sè, 􀢛), apparently, is an unpopular number 
in China

because the word is a (near) homophone with another word meaning “death” (sě, 
􀢮). In

Mandarin there is a tone difference, but there isn’t even that in some other 
dialects. Numbers

that end in four are sold primarily to foreigners. They don’t care about the 
superstition, and the

Chinese don’t care if the foreigners die.2 It’s a win-win situation.

 

The plan was the install the SIM card into my iPhone. Mark assured us that 
“iPhones are easy to

deal with.” When we had paid our 500 rmb and gotten a little piece of plastic 
in return, however,

the trouble started. Mark expected our phone to have a little slot in the side 
where the SIM

would fit. No slot. Oh, it’s an American phone. No problem, he says. His 
friends know how to

hack into American phones. (“You don’t want any of the data that’s on your 
phone, do you?”

Hmm.) The next day, it turns out that there is a problem. American phones 
aren’t just locked,

they’re somehow sealed in bondage to their American service providers. Hacking 
them would

require chopping out most of their innards and replacing them. We might as well 
buy a new

phone. Alright … but wait! Martha brought her Android phone from home. Would it 
be easier

to deal with? Maybe. Wait. Yes! This phone can work in China! Away Mark goes 
with a

smile, Martha’s phone and our 500 rmb piece of plastic. Back he comes with a 
frown. No, you

need a PIN to “unlock” the phone. Maybe your phone service provider in America 
will give you

the code? (“Maybe our phone service provider will treat us to dinner and a 
movie, give us a foot

massage and wash our dishes while we are away at work.”) So, we sent off 
messages to America

asking whether Verizon will kindly let us unlock our phone so we can join a 
competing provider

while we are in China. Meanwhile, we have a 500 rmb piece of plastic that is 
electronically

connected to a magical Chinese death-number.

Great.

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

http://www.cusf.org  

 

 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] Hacking Phones In China

[Sarbajit Roy]

My advice for your friends would be to get a local Chinese person to
buy a USD$ 40 Chinese phone/tablet for them which would give them
googlemaps.

On 10/13/12, Nicholas  Thompson  wrote:
>
> Dear FRIAM,
>
> I thought, at the very minimum, this might amuse some of you, and that, at
> the maximum, some of you might have something useful to say to my friends in
> china.  Steve?
>
> [O]ur colleague Mark,… volunteered to take us out to get Chinese
>
> telephones. We don’t have much use here for telephones qua telephones,
> really. We
>
> communicate with America by e-mail and Skype; all the people we know in
> China are right here
>
> in the building where we work. Whom would we call? But we are persuaded that
> wandering
>
> around a city -- particularly other cities than Beijing -- will be more
> comfortable if we have
>
> access to GoogleMaps to tell us where we are, even if the labels are all in
> Chinese. (“No. See
>
> here, we are near ‘squiggle-cross-backhatch-box-with-two-lines,’ but we want
> to be at ‘double-xon-
>
> top-of-box-with-three-lines-over-swoopy-x-shaped-thing.’”) So off we went,
> Mark, Martha,
>
> Dominic and me, on the subway to Weigongcun, two stops away. We wound up in
> a shop for the
>
> second largest telecom company in China, which nonetheless felt like a
> little hole-in-the-wall
>
> that badly needed a new coat of paint. There was a wall of sample telephones
> and another wall
>
> of leaflets describing the plans we could buy. Of course we could not
> understand them at all. It
>
> was simultaneously reassuring and disturbing that our Chinese friend, Mark,
> had trouble
>
> understanding them too. From our distant perspective, the choice was easy:
> give us the cheapest
>
> thing that will help us find ourselves when we’re lost in Xi’an, Guangzhou
> or Shanghai.
>
>
>
> The idea was to buy a SIM card -- “subscriber identity module” -- and plug
> it into the iPhone we
>
> had brought from America. After some back and forth, we settle on a plan
> that allows us to get a
>
> discount by pre-paying the fees for a year. We got another discount by
> choosing a telephone
>
> number that ends with a four. Four (sè, 􀢛), apparently, is an unpopular
> number in China
>
> because the word is a (near) homophone with another word meaning “death”
> (sě, 􀢮). In
>
> Mandarin there is a tone difference, but there isn’t even that in some other
> dialects. Numbers
>
> that end in four are sold primarily to foreigners. They don’t care about the
> superstition, and the
>
> Chinese don’t care if the foreigners die.2 It’s a win-win situation.
>
>
>
> The plan was the install the SIM card into my iPhone. Mark assured us that
> “iPhones are easy to
>
> deal with.” When we had paid our 500 rmb and gotten a little piece of
> plastic in return, however,
>
> the trouble started. Mark expected our phone to have a little slot in the
> side where the SIM
>
> would fit. No slot. Oh, it’s an American phone. No problem, he says. His
> friends know how to
>
> hack into American phones. (“You don’t want any of the data that’s on your
> phone, do you?”
>
> Hmm.) The next day, it turns out that there is a problem. American phones
> aren’t just locked,
>
> they’re somehow sealed in bondage to their American service providers.
> Hacking them would
>
> require chopping out most of their innards and replacing them. We might as
> well buy a new
>
> phone. Alright … but wait! Martha brought her Android phone from home. Would
> it be easier
>
> to deal with? Maybe. Wait. Yes! This phone can work in China! Away Mark goes
> with a
>
> smile, Martha’s phone and our 500 rmb piece of plastic. Back he comes with a
> frown. No, you
>
> need a PIN to “unlock” the phone. Maybe your phone service provider in
> America will give you
>
> the code? (“Maybe our phone service provider will treat us to dinner and a
> movie, give us a foot
>
> massage and wash our dishes while we are away at work.”) So, we sent off
> messages to America
>
> asking whether Verizon will kindly let us unlock our phone so we can join a
> competing provider
>
> while we are in China. Meanwhile, we have a 500 rmb piece of plastic that is
> electronically
>
> connected to a magical Chinese death-number.
>
> Great.
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
> http://www.cusf.org 
>
>
>
>
>
>


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org