snopes.com— There is a simple way of making lost or stolen mobiles useless tothieves and the phone companies know about it, but keep it quiet.
May 29, 2006View in Crawl 4
A lot of service providers (at least in North America) also don't honor IMEI blacklists (they don't really care if your phone is being used, as long as whoever stole it isn't making calls the company can't bill you for). Or if they DO blacklist the IMEI, it's only for their own network, and a criminal only has to register the handset on a different network and away they go.And as was mentioned, it's not difficult to change IMEIs in lots of phones.
Surely America aren't just catching on to this? Cross-network blacklisting has been in operation in the UK for years, with plans for it to go pan-European very shortly indeed!
I'm not sure how this ended up being an 'urban legend'. In the UK the providers specifically tell you about IMEI numbers and what to do in case of theft. There's no secret or cover up!
[quote]The reason for not doing it, beside the strictly monetary issue, is that checking that the phone is legit at each transaction can be ressource demanding... I know of some operator who don't perform basic authentication at peak hours because they can't handle it... I think the next reason is also that there are glitches in the system and quite a few phones whose IMEI is not recorded properly or not standard and these would be blocked instantly and you'd have to manage the pissed off users... [/quote]all networks have to authenticate the handset at anytime in order for the phone to work. if they didn't, the cell stations would not be able to track your phone and do hand-offs when you become out of range of 1 cell and in range of another. if the phone couldn't authenticate then the phone would not work!!
nogamiMay 29, 2006
A lot of service providers (at least in North America) also don't honor IMEI blacklists (they don't really care if your phone is being used, as long as whoever stole it isn't making calls the company can't bill you for). Or if they DO blacklist the IMEI, it's only for their own network, and a criminal only has to register the handset on a different network and away they go.And as was mentioned, it's not difficult to change IMEIs in lots of phones.
pritchMay 29, 2006
Surely America aren't just catching on to this? Cross-network blacklisting has been in operation in the UK for years, with plans for it to go pan-European very shortly indeed!
tompMay 29, 2006
Thats what I was thinking!!
cazabamMay 29, 2006
I'm not sure how this ended up being an 'urban legend'. In the UK the providers specifically tell you about IMEI numbers and what to do in case of theft. There's no secret or cover up!
nikzaneMay 29, 2006
Good god... we were futzing about with these codes on our Nokia 3210's in like '95 or something! Rubbish submission. No digg.
nikzaneMay 29, 2006
Blech.. double post, sorry. Digg down.
cutter78May 30, 2006
worthless information (read the entire article!)
cmonJul 27, 2006
Is there any way to tell or check to see if a cell phone purchased from a private party may be stolen?
m0ntyNov 15, 2006
[quote]The reason for not doing it, beside the strictly monetary issue, is that checking that the phone is legit at each transaction can be ressource demanding... I know of some operator who don't perform basic authentication at peak hours because they can't handle it... I think the next reason is also that there are glitches in the system and quite a few phones whose IMEI is not recorded properly or not standard and these would be blocked instantly and you'd have to manage the pissed off users... [/quote]all networks have to authenticate the handset at anytime in order for the phone to work. if they didn't, the cell stations would not be able to track your phone and do hand-offs when you become out of range of 1 cell and in range of another. if the phone couldn't authenticate then the phone would not work!!