AT&T may have been the victim of a massive phone-unlocking scheme

Wireless carriers like to lock down smartphones in order to make it more difficult for users to switch to another carrier with a compatible network, and while it’s perfectly legal for users to just remove these locks themselves, carriers have no obligation unlock a user’s smartphone if they request it. That’s why Swift Unlocks was so popular a few years back, as the website would send you an unlock code for pretty much any AT&T smartphone on the market for a small fee, but how did it get its hands on those codes? Well, according to a recent lawsuit from AT&T, the people running the website were AT&T employees who were funneling the codes out of the company’s computer.

AT&T said three of its employees secretly installed software on its network so a cellphone unlocking service could surreptitiously funnel hundreds of thousands of requests to its servers to remove software locks on phones. The locks prevent phones from being used on competing networks and have been an important tool used by cellular carriers to prevent customers from jumping ship. They can be electronically removed, usually after fulfilling a contract obligation, but many websites offer the same service for a small fee with no questions asked. AT&T’s allegations are made in a filing with U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in which it accuses two companies, four people and an unknown software developer or developers, of participating in the audacious scheme. AT&T filed its lawsuit on Sept. 11 but it was first reported by Geekwire on Friday. The carrier first discovered something was amiss in September 2013 when a surge in the number of unlock requests alerted the company to the possible abuse of “Torch,” the software used to unlock cellphones, it said in the complaint.