It's hard for me to blame Verizon for attempting for making it more difficult for the average user to tether on an Unlimited plan without paying.
They can't or won't throttle those on 4G Unlimited Data Plans and also can't or won't prevent customers from putting their 4g Unlimited Sim in any device that supports Verizon 4G. I can understand why they would also want to prevent extremely high data usage when new customers pay by the gigabyte.
With that said, I will be the last one to criticize someone over tethering without a plan.
1. I've tethered without a plan through PDANet
2. Rooted my device, removed apps that Verizon spent a lot of time and man hours designing and pre-installing on my phone
3. Used my Unlimited Data Plan in my 4G Certified Motorola Xoom and my Nexus 7 LTE
All of them could violate my TOS, some may be OK, but I am sure Verizon would prefer that I didn't do any of them.
Whenever I chose #3, I could and still can tether just fine, while running stock firmware on KitKat. Is that worse than doing #1 or #2?
Also, I'm not a rocket scientist, but I know how to root, unlock, and restore to stock every phone I've ever owned. Rooting voids the warranty. However, when I root, I always do it to have more control over the software. I never over or underclock the processor, modify the audio levels put through the speakers or anything that could cause damage to the hardware, yet I am rooted.
If the digitizer fails after 3 months, is it OK to unroot the device and take it in for warranty repair. Obviously, some manufacturers have tamper guards in place, but people find ways to bypass them too.
In my opinion, Dpham00s link to XDA is the best advice and most effective, but also carries some risk. By design, carriers need to have the ability to provide updates to their hardware. Rooting and modifying the software can prevent this.
I know that some can't root their devices if it's a work device. You may be able to temporarily root, freeze the files that allow the phone to search for and accept updates, and then unroot.
If you truly want to ensure that the phone doesn't update automatically and modify your ability to tether, rooting is often your best option.
if you're not comfortable about that, feel free to ask for help. There are many here with far more knowledge than me that would be glad to help.
I can't really blame Verizon for pushing updates to devices used on their network, or protecting their best interests and working to increase revenue for their shareholders. I won't totally defend them, but I can't blame them for your situation.
It is, as was stated earlier, a cat and mouse game. I'm probably not perfect and neither is Big Red. One is a rat and the other is an a$$hole
I beg everyone to decide who is more evil, who is the rat, and who is the a$$hole.