While Italy's quick and easy culture of wiretapping would never fly in the United States, where in most cases prosecutors must show "probable cause" to believe a crime has been committed before tapping a phone, the current Italian system seems to have some well-placed American fans.
"They're in a no-win situation if what they're trying to do is stiff-arm Rakoff," said David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied how Judge Rakoff overruled the S.E.C.'s settlement with WorldCom, the phone company that committed a vast accounting fraud.
Mr. Raymond pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit phone harassment and was sentenced to five months in prison.
He still receives threatening phone calls "whenever Isis commits an atrocity that is reported nationally" a year after the photo emerged, says Mr Oberholtzer.
The analyst is calculating Microsoft's mobile marketshare based on the assumption that Nokia — the most bridge-burning committed Windows Phone OEM (even if HTC is suddenly claiming its 'the new face of Windows Phone') — will expand its use of WP7 to offer mid market handsets that are priced cheaply enough to compete with Android's low-end reach, thereby fuelling Windows Phone's growth.
CHOOSING the right cellphone to give can be difficult, but once that choice is made, there's another big issue to consider: How to get the discounted price for a phone without committing the gift-getter to a long-term contract.
Yet when Nokia and Microsoft first announced their Windows Phone coalition, back in 2011, and Nokia committed to Windows Phone as its "primary smartphone strategy", it dismissed Android on the grounds that it would be too difficult for it to stand out from the crowd using Google's OS.
Mr Donovan notes that someone determined to detonate a bomb or commit fraud can always use a phone obtained abroad.
For the iPhone to become a success, it has to be convincing enough to motivate consumers to (1) call their current carrier to cancel, (2) call Cingular, or visit one of their stores, to get a new phone and (3) commit to a two-year contract.
