There is probably a tense debate happening internally right now about how they want to respond. PR says no, Product says nuke it, Legal is stretching their fingers, and Engineering just finished reproducing the issue.
My understanding is that they are re-using a device serial number but they imply that changing this means a major change to how iMessage works so they banking on Apple inertia.
Charging $2 before the horse has bolted seems a bit ... would have preferred that Apple was involved.
