I didn't say we should legalize what he did. I said the punishment sounds harsh.
T-Mobile already receives an incredible amount of assistance from the state, both direct and indirect. Erasing an eighth of someone's life at the taxpayer's expense on top of all of that seems like a bit much.
And don't worry, I too realize the telcos are people too. I stipulated we would all cry crocodile tears for the telco and pay them back for whatever their actual losses were (which were likely a tiny fraction of his proceeds).
It is harsh but he helped people commit fraud against T Mobile and received 25 million for it, which must be a fraction of what his clients gained, or else they wouldn't pay him.
I am fairly sympathetic to white-collar crime but after he made his first million he could have sat down and thought about the morality of it all. He was already rich so he had the leisure time to contemplate perhaps not breaking the law...
Now, if he decided the law was immoral and it was correct to break it in protest then that is defensible but that's not the case here.
Instead, he continued to break the law but labeled it as “official t mobile unlocks” in order to trick people who had no intention of becoming criminal action into giving him money to do the crime. That to me is beyond the line.
For me, this is akin to selling weed labeled as expensive oregano because you want to expand your market beyond potheads. People deserve to know what they are getting into.
Considering even the US government uses SMS 2FA, which means control of your phone number is tantamount to authorization to do things on your behalf, there should be severe penalties for breaking into the systems of phone network operators.
Not that the SMS 2FA is the appropriate way to be doing things, but it is what it is, and the government is not wanting to take on any liability, and the mobile networks do not want any liability (nor should it be foisted upon them), keeping the punishment high for stuff like this seems like the best we can hope for.
> which were likely a tiny fraction of his proceeds
The losses probably substantially exceed his proceeds because these unlocking services enable all kinds of other fraud. If he charges $50 to unlock a $1000 phone that someone got on credit and will never pay for and that will be exported to China where it can now be freely used thanks to the unlock, then what is T-Mobile's loss amount - $50 or $1000?
There isn't always ID theft involved though, it's often just a small scale "bust out" where a person needs $300 and is willing to ruin their credit to get it.
T-Mobile already receives an incredible amount of assistance from the state, both direct and indirect. Erasing an eighth of someone's life at the taxpayer's expense on top of all of that seems like a bit much.
And don't worry, I too realize the telcos are people too. I stipulated we would all cry crocodile tears for the telco and pay them back for whatever their actual losses were (which were likely a tiny fraction of his proceeds).