[General Questions and Answers] IMnobody:
Wild thoughts from Rationalization Man.

Cloning is the act of making one, or more, exact copies of a "donor/host" (Phones in our case).

Where there's then, two or, more identical units, capable of being active, at the same time, on any given network. But, is it cloning, if only one "Target" unit survives and is active?

I'd say it's not cloning, if the source phone is destroyed, once the process is completed.

There are already some presidents, where cloning occurs. Boost Mobile's ESN swapping policy, is

one example. Because they're part of the Sprint network system, they're not allowed to enter a "Known" Sprint ESN onto they're database (clean ESN, or not). So, to flash a decommissioned Sprint EVO phone, onto their system, you first need a new clean ESN.

To do this, you must first activate a "New "Boost Mobile account", then, buying one of they're cheapest CDMA phone, which they then "Activate" (so you can used it, till the process is complete). They then, go through the process of taking this new "Source" phones, ESN" (&, all other information needed), etc, flashing it, to the "targeted" EVO. You then turn off & turn in, that "New" donor phone, before activating, &, starting to use the "Target" EVO phone.

Presumably the "New Donor" is then scraped, parted out, or what ever (never to be used again), and the "EVO's old ESN" is lost.

I think this is how Boost get past the cloning issues, because, the new donor is the supposedly destroyed, with no possibility, of it ever being active again, at the same time as the targeted host. Sprint remains happy, just because, it doesn't hurt their market share numbers.

So, let's look at this hypothetically. You have two EVO'S, one (the donor) is active, &, on the network, but, damaged, beyond any reasonable hope of repair (so, your paying the bills, but, you can no longer use it as a phone).

The Second (the host target), is in good physical condition. But, maybe has a bad ESN, is in a software coma, or, for whatever reason, so it, can't be directly reactivated on Sprint or Boosts network (It might be to be capable of being flashed to another carrier, but, that's not an issue here, because it's ESN will likely be dumped anyway, &, therefor not likely to be reused).

Taking all the information from phone "A, the source", and, transfer it to phone "B, the Target" should be legal, as long as phone "A" is then destroyed. So I don't see the issue. We already swap modules for repair, like the LCD, Digitizer, SD cards, and, modify the OS, not circumvent the system. With the EVO, it's easy enough to swap the service plate, serial # etc, from phone " A to B" once the process is complete. This method of cloning, is not to get free service, though I'm sure it could somehow be abused. I'm suggesting this just as a method to recover the use, of the active service account, to a working phone.

So, as long as the "Donor/Source" phone is never again active, or, used on any system, our brain transplanted host , cloned from an identical unit, should be perfectly legal.

You should be able to cite other similar circumstance, like in cases where, an OEM computers motherboard goes bad. If you replace it with the exact same brand & model board, your not legally forced, obligated or, required to buy a new copy of it's operating system. And, I'm sure there's other examples that could be applied.

When you turn in a broken phone to Sprint, they give you a new phone with a new ESN. The old phone is either repaired and sold as refurbished, or scrapped. And a lot of those, fixed or not apparently find they're way onto eBay, among other places for consumers to fix or cannibalize for parts.

Of course nobody seems to know how to do this yet, but, if it's done the right way, for the right reasons, where's the harm in cloning?

???

IM