Masking Agent....Patent

[kqlnut]

What difficulties are you referring to? That some providers don't accept the Pinephone because it's not on their whitelist? I

That is it yes, won't get far without a carrier. I did just lightly touch on that patent and noted

4. The method of claim 1, wherein masking the data includes at least covering data or replacing data.

If that doesn't relating to IMEI editing then that's good news, I don't have a phone yet and no idea how but guessed being Linux and open source editing the IMEI was possible, but you don't know either I see?

Manipulating the IMEI is something that would have to be done in the modem, not the OS. I think the modem itself is also running some form of Linux and there is ongoing effort to build an open source firmware for it, but it is still in some parts proprietary and cannot be freely manipulated.
(To be honest, I don't see the connection from the patent you mentioned to any of this. But I also don't know what context the patent is intended for and didn't look closely into it.)