Some good news today in the fight for making it legal to SIM-unlock your phone without having to go through an operator. The White House has swiftly responded to the petition that garnered the support of more than 114,000 people, with a pretty crystal clear subject line -- "It's time to legalize cell phone unlocking."

That's a pretty powerful step in the right direction, but it doesn't actually change anything yet. If you want to (legally) SIM unlock your phone, you still have to go through your operator to get it done. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. If your account is in good standing and you've paid off the subsidy on your phone, they should hand over the SIM unlock code with no problem.

There are cases, however, that make things a little more difficult, and that's where this legality issue comes into play.