Slashdot Mirror
Hack Your Phone, Go to Jail
thodu writes: "This bill [Mobile Telephones (Re-Programming)] in the UK aims to make it illegal for anyone to change a GSM phone's IMEI number. Though the intention in this case is seemingly for the good (to track and prevent stolen phones from being used), the line between legitimate mods and illegal hacks is increasingly becoming blurred. What next - a bill to disallow modifying your PC ?"
While I generally don't agree with restrictions on the use of hardware I buy, this is a special case. The law is intended to reduce the amount of phone-thefts in the UK (the phones are then reprogrammed and re-sold). There is currently a huge problem with phone theft over here which is driven by the fact it's so simple to give a stolen phone a new identity, so I don't think this legislation is over the top...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I don't mean to troll here, but isn't this similar to laws against removing VIN (vehicle id numbers) and serial numbers from high-cost goods in the US?
Of course, if this law extends to prohibit other modification of the phone that interferes with fair use, I suppose that's different....
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
It is *not* illegal to change the VIN of a car. It is quite legal in the UK to grind the VIN from a vehicle or trailer and stamp in another (and you can make a number up), assuming you make it clear to any potential purchaser and the DVLC.
What is illegal is to change the VIN of a car, not notify the DVLC and put it on the road. This is often done to pass a car as a "ringer" w/the same VIN as another similar car.
It the same vien, a fraud involving changing the IMEI as the modus operandi is illegal. Changing the IMEI for the hell of it and not connecting the the network (comp. putting car on road) should not be a crime.
That wouldn't help since these are stolen phones, and people who steal phones rarely go to the phone company and sign a contract.
Stealing things is against the law. Handling stolen goods is against the law. Passing off stolen goods as not stolen is against the law. There looks to be plenty of applicable criminal law here.
Indeed the text of the bill specifically states "There will be minimal resource implications for the criminal justice agencies - the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts and the Prison Service - to investigate, enforce, prosecute and process the cases through the courts and to accommodate convicted offenders given a custodial sentence. The number of cases prosecuted under this new offence are likely to be relatively small in number," In which case the whole thing starts to look like a waste of time.
Yeah but at the level of the cell phone network hardware, the IMEI number (or in my case the ESN number) is what identifies the phone to the network.
If your phone is stolen and you tell the mobile service provider, they tell the network to disable access to the phone with the ESN# (or IMEI#) shown on your account information. If you change this ESN/IMEI number, you can register this phone again with a new service provider on a new account and the network won't know the difference and won't be able to disable the phone's access.
This is why changing the IMEI number is valuable to phone crooks.