Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by londons_explore on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @04:06PM
(#40215679)
In Kazakhstan, when a phone is used on a mobile network for the first time, the IMEI of the phone gets locked to that mobile network and that sim card. When you buy the sim card, they photocopy your passport/ID card.
No other sim will work in it until you take that photo ID/passport to the mobile companies office to have it unlocked. The photo id (even if expired) becomes the unlock code for the phone.
Made phone theft drop to pretty much zero.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by medo-bear on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @06:22PM
(#40217146)
> Made phone theft drop to pretty much zero
Use a nuke to kill a fly?
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by 6th on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @07:41PM
(#40217823)
It was the only way to be certain.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by _heimdall on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @12:40AM
(#40219565)
The ends always justify the means.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by sambazi on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @04:16AM
(#40220785)
i imagine that phone theft is more common in poorer regions
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by medo-bear on Thursday May 02, 2024 @02:45AM
(#40233378)
Stupid assumption. Phone theft including being robbed for your phone, was more common in London, Sydney, Melbourne than in any place in Eastern Europe I lived in.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by sambazi on Thursday May 02, 2024 @02:57AM
(#40233441)
i guess you haven't been living in a crowded place in eastern europe then
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by fencepost on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @03:38PM
(#40215332)
I think I’m more concerned with the fact that the carriers know the IMEI of phones and claim that they can do nothing about stolen phones.
Maybe once upon a time, but I'm pretty sure stolen devices can be blacklisted from networks these days.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by nolan879 on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @03:56PM
(#40215565)
Carriers have been blacklisting IMEIs for at least 10+ years. Since phones tended to be carrier-locked back then you couldn't go to a new carrier without being in good standing to get your device's unlock code from the old carrier. Now that devices are available unlocked by default, it is probably harder since it would require carriers to communicate IMEIs?
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by ale42 on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @05:38PM
(#40216677)
Not sure, I think that there are international lists of stolen IMEIs. Maybe it's just in Europe, though.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by wrboyce on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @08:18PM
(#40218063)
~15 years ago the blacklists were certainly shared within Europe, but there was an intercontinental trade of blacklisted phones from Europe to Africa (and, if memory serves, Asia).
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by hinkley on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @07:30PM
(#40217732)
I looked it up. US Carriers were forced by the US government to start blacklisting them in the final months of 2012. They didn't do it voluntarily.
Australia had been doing it since 2003. IMEIs have been around for 30 years? Everyone having a cellphone is still a relatively recent phenomenon, but according to Pew 80% of American adults had cellphones for several years already before carriers were forced to deal with stolen ones.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by lesuorac on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @04:57PM
(#40216252)
I believe the point is that they could've been blacklisted from the start and instead carriers would just put up their hands say "there's nothing we can do" despite there being something they can do.
It's like when your apple laptop gets stolen and then starts using your applecare support and apple won't help you get it back.
Of course, if you decided not to pay your phone bill I'm sure that device would get blackslisted real fast.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by madeofpalk on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @05:08PM
(#40216370)
In Australia, you can report your phone as stolen and it becomes IMEI blocked, not able to be used on Australian phone networks.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by sambazi on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @04:18AM
(#40220794)
sounds like a dos vector. is there a lot of abuse of this?
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by tessellated on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @07:01AM
(#40221689)
sounds like considering linking to a social security number would be a good idea.. any reasons this ain't commonplace?
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by mynameisvlad on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @07:28PM
(#40217718)
The article literally talks about blacklisting and has a photo of what a blacklisted phone shows when this happens.
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by hinkley on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @12:20PM
(#40225382)
And what time frame did I apply for when I exited mobile?
Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers
by mynameisvlad on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @03:50PM
(#40228465)
Your entire comment makes it sound like your gripes are current issues, not those that you experienced decades ago in a completely different mobile landscape.
You continually use the present tense when the argument... just doesn't apply anymore.
> I think I’m more concerned with the fact that the carriers know the IMEI of phones and claim that they can do nothing about stolen phones.
This is not a fact anymore.
I should have been well positioned for early retirement during the early smart phone gold rush but was just so put off by the Ma Bell feeling of the mobile industry that I had exited before most people had even entered.