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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 ?"
Do you know of any, because I sure don't.
Why shouldn't something that only serves theives (as far as I can see) be illegal?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
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."
Just to know they can.
There are honest people who just like to tinker.
Mobile phone theft is a real problem in the UK, and has caused violent crime to rise sharply over the past year. Understandably, politicians and police in the UK are concerned, and are trying their hardest to stop the problem.
The UK telecoms operators have mobilised their SIM management systems to allow them to disable mobile phones according to the ID on the phone; previously only one or two of them did this.
Now saying this; I don't see how this Bill will do anything to stop the situation. The phones are stolen already, and are in the hands of the criminals. No doubt they have a stack of them in a warehousr; anything else just isnt' profitable. Anyone who thinks the piddling little threat of extra jail time that this Bill adds will stop the bad guys from modifying the phones are out of their heads. Do they really believe that the criminals care what this Bill says?
Its nothing but a quick headline grab, something for grining-Blair to point at and say "We're doing something about it, look!" and then allows him to get back to inventing rating schemes for various shitty public services, and cutting funding to the police forces.
The real answer is simply to pay the police more, recruit more, and put them out on the streets where they can stop the phones being stolen in the first place. Like that'll ever happen.
Sorry, but I have no problems with this kind of law.
When your mobile phone gets stolen, all mobile phone operators who are enforce IMEI-based disabling will disallow phone calls. (Not all of them do this...)
This reduces the incentive to steal a mobile phone immensly.
It can have some unpleasant consequences though: some years ago, a batch of Nokia mobile phones was stolen, all of them with the same IMEI number. Those phones eventually ended up in stores, where they were, legally, bought by consumers.
Unavoidably, one of those phone got stolen and that IMEI number got blocked. As a result, thousands of people ended up with a disabled phone. Nokia refused to do anything about it, since they can be hold responsible for phone that were bought through 'grey' channels.
Why would a person other than a thief want to change this?
The approach of illegalising things that have a potential "bad" use just because nobody can come straight out with a "good" use will end in disaster.
Defrauding telephone companies is already illegal. If some the telephone companies don't want this heppening then they should put it in their contracts. There is no need for new legislation.
The only reason this is happening IMO is to tie in with the RIP bill amendments that the UK government have already tried to rush through (thankfully, the changed were met with sufficient resistance to delay for a while)
The government wants to be able to track and record everyones movement by their mobile phone. And of course this ability will prevent all future terrorist attacks and rid the country of crime. Everyone will he happy and all will rejoice.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
I love it how people avoid any REAL discussion of events and possibilites by simply calling someone PARANOID.
10 years ago would you call someone paranoid if you were told that companies would market products that were implanted into your childrens skin so you could track them.
10 years ago would brand a person paranoid if your were told congress was debating a bill to allow companies to hack private citizens.
10 years ago would you call me paraniod if I told you people would be threatened with criminal penalities for reporting security bugs in software.
Debate, don't just label people.
If you chopped off the chasis number on a car you own, it doesn't hurt anyone but yourself.. Why should you go to jail for that?
The law should say that simply doing this mod isn't illegal, but that it is sufficient grounds for a search warrant/wire tap/other investigative methods. After all, the IMEI was put in specifically to fight theft and cloning. It seems reasonable to assume that anyone changing it is probably going to do something illegal with it.
Nope, no sig