Thread: Is changing IMEI possible?
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nze is offline nze
2010-04-08 , 18:40
Posts: 5 | Thanked: 0 times | Joined on Apr 2010
#43
afaq made some good points there..

Originally Posted by TA-t3 View Post
masterx: If you buy an imei-blocked phone, then it's stolen (as you're basically saying yourself). Why on earth would you then think it's ok to _use_ the phone, by spoofing the imei? It's exactly things like that which creates a market for those gangs from certain parts of Europe which are currently doing the burglar rounds in my own and other countries. Without a market this extremely annoying thieveries wouldn't be an issue.
yeah, I'd like to see you happily throwing away your new £450 phone as you realise that it's stolen. Or maybe ask the police to pay you back
Concerning that market, would you really want that authorities worldwide could just with one click shut down your mobile?
I wouldn't (FYI: I already had a phone stolen, not nice; still..)
But that is not the actual point IMO.

Originally Posted by hardkorek View Post
Well i think there is more reasons to change IMEI than using stolen phone.
I think this is only one way to be anonymous and use gsm phone.
precisely.

Originally Posted by egoshin View Post
It has nothing with anonymity - the phone IMEI is known for mobile providers and SIM card issuer only. In most countries they don't give it anybody besides police.

Mots likely - cheating one or both of it (phone providers or police).
Unfortunately having trust in the police to always do only the Right Thing with the power/information they have hasn't quite proofed a good idea. This is not about 'having something to hide' or sth illegal going on, it is about privacy rights and prevention.
And this discussinon is especially in the interest those who legally obtained their phone: It's a very short way from the phone vendor to your doorstep.
I don't get why on this topic, even the members of an open source based community are against giving the user the right to control his identity. No one would go on and say 'TOR is abused a lot by criminals. Let's make it illegal and ensure that everyone connecting to the internet is 100% identifiable. Oh and we should add the functionality to brick their computer if we see them try to use it' (btw, IPv6 gives me the creeps..).
Furthermore, I do think this is a topic that should rather be discussed here than advising ppl to leave the forum and search on hacking sites. Please don't get me wrong on that, I do not at all want to promote any illegal actions, but a technical discussion should still be possible. Or will maemo.org then get blocked by the big UK firewall?