Slashdot Mirror
India Hanging Up On 25 Million Cell Phones
jvillain writes "India is about to pull the plug on 25 million cell phones in the name of fighting terrorism and fraud. 'The ban by India's Department of Telecommunications has been unfolding gradually since Oct. 6, 2008, six weeks before the attacks in Mumbai killed 173 people and wounded 308. A memo then directed service providers to cut off cellphone users whose devices didn't have a real IMEI — or unique identity number — in the interests of 'national security.' Since then, the move has picked up steam as a way to circumvent terrorists using black market, unregistered cellphones. The Mumbai attackers kept in touch with each other via cellphones and used GPS to pinpoint their attacks, which started Nov. 26, 2008, and went on for three days. The telecommunications department has issued warnings and deadlines through 2009 but has announced this one is for real, telling operators to block cellphones without valid IMEI numbers. Previously, it warned companies to stop importing them and customers to stop buying them.'"
So, does this just mean that if you want to have an untrackable phone in India, instead of buying a phone without a plan you can just go out and buy a cloned phone instead? I mean, seems to me the only thing better than not being tracked by the government for a criminal/terrorist is to have the government waste time tracking some poor innocent schlub they think is you.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Yes but there is already infrastructure in place to combat CC fraud. Granted in India its not a good or reliable system but its a system none the less. And sat phones can be tracked whereas IMEI-less cell phones are not especially trackable.
Basically they are just forcing all their cellular networks to refuse connection to phones lacking IMEI numbers. This is hardly an international crisis. It just means that people are going to have to pay for their phone calls or pay to call in their bomb threats. No more free rides.
IMEIs are not used at all in the call routing process, and are, ultimately, pretty easy to forge convincingly. Granted, this will stop everybody whose handsets have totally bogus IMEIs, but as long as the first 8 digits (type allocation code) and check digit are correct, then there's very little India can do without impacting legitimate customers.
GREAT idea.
You're doing it wrong.
Well they can. But it would not be possible for them to provide these satellite phones for all the people in and out of India to communicate with each other.
With these China made phones without an IMEI, terrorists have their jobs made easy for them. Besides it is not easy to rent satellite phones in India.
There's an App for that.
MAC addresses for wifi radios on laptops and phones.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yes. Yes they do.
There's an App for that.
Rejected from the App Store.
We have until April 10th 2010 to register all our cellphones with the CURP (something like your SS number) of the person using it, even if a company cel. http://www.renaut.gob.mx/RENAUT/?page=preguntas. Cel numbers not registered by that date will be blocked.
In a country where bank customer databases have been sold to the organized crime to pick kidnap victims, many times with participation of corrupt government or police officers, where we train our kids and families to never answer the phone with a family name for fear of being monitored by criminals this is giving everybody the creeps. Also next year, in a multimillon dollar deal, a company will be picked to create a national identification card with biometric data like retinal scans.
Again, in a country where politicians are regarded as little more than a group of high level thieves this is raising lots of eyebrows.
Yeah, because that wouldn't suck for the 24,999,995 non-terrorists using these phones.
Geez if the idea is to fight terrorism and fraud by raising the costs of distance communication why not just raise the costs of communication altogether and outlaw people talking to each other in general.
To clamp down on private citizens' right to privacy. ( and i don't care if its not written in stone for them, its a basic human right as far as i'm concerned )
The 'criminals' will just get around this road block too, they always do, and the legislators know this.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
But in order to do that, they first need to buy a fake ID and steal a CC. This forces them to commit two extra acts of crime to meet their objective. These two extra crimes will result in more eye witnesses, more tracable cash flows, and higher chance of them getting caught by a security camera. The longer the trail they leave behind, the easier they are to trace.
The cellphone fees are so high in Canada that nobody would ever use them for anything, including terrorism.
Basically they are just forcing all their cellular networks to refuse connection to phones lacking IMEI numbers. ... It just means that people are going to have to pay for their phone calls or pay to call in their bomb threats. No more free rides.
It's not a free ride now. It just means that the subscriber (or his phone company) bought a cheap phone that didn't have a registered IMEI. (Think "phone universal serial number, sniffable from the phone network.)
Now maybe it was a stolen phone with the IMEI overwritten by a dummy. Or maybe it was a legit recycled phone with reflashed firmware that killed the IMEI ditto. Or maybe it was a new phone from a cheapscate company that didn't register/buy a block of IMEIs and install them in its products. But the customer is still buying the service and still identified by his "smart chip".
The IMEI is mainly about tracking the phone and has nothing to do with billing. (For instance: During Iraq War II the NSA mapped out the "terrorist networks" - pun intended - easily, from satellite surveillance, by traffic analysis - when somebody serving as a communications hub switched smartcards for each of his links but didn't realize that the IMEI, which stays with the phone, was also being recorded. Call goes in one smartcard ID and immediately a series to other phone numbers go out on other smartcards from the same phone: it's a gotcha. This hit the media after the opposition figured out that cellphones were a trap and switched to non-cellphone communication.)
Given that killing service to IMEI-less phones is part of a reaction to "terrorist attacks" it looks like India is willing to kill phone service to 25 million legit cellphone users in order to force its own opposition to chose between lower-tech communication and getting caught.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If you have a gun you can take someone's phone. All you need is to memorize a few phone numbers for home base and to pick a rich tourist who looks like they have money to steal a phone from.
Some of the mumbai terrorists stole the hostage's phones and used them. Who's going to come after them for long distance overages in the afterlife when they've gunned down people already.
If you need a bunch of phones at once you can bribe someone in a cell stand or cell shop. In a nation of that many people it is tough to say there isn't many *someones* willing to make a deal if the price is right. You can just say you are a persecuted religious sect. Failing that you can use the barrel of a gun as a negotiating tactic.
How much landfill will 25 million phones take up?
I'm a fruit pirate. I bought a watermelon once, and spat the seeds in the back yard. They grew into another watermelon,
And look at how great that has worked out with real crime (robbery, murder, etc) when you do the same thing with another medium (guns). The "two extra crimes" thing is unimportant, do you realize how trivially easy it is for someone to steal an identity? Yeah, ok, if you spend $30,000 they are going to notice, but lets say a $100 extra charge at Wal-Mart? They won't know. As for fake IDs, they don't need to be foolproof to fool a store clerk. About the only place where IDs get checked throughput is at a traffic stop, at the airport (or at least security theater makes it look like they are) and if you are buying alcohol.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
This kind of news coverage and slant pisses me off. It is written as if this somehow infringes on your rights. The mobiles being banned are ones with FAKE IMIEs developed by unknown chinese companies that steel an IMIE and use it on thousands of phones. In US too you cannot get phones with fake IMIEs. In fact the telecom sector is a lot more restrictive than in India. In India, the handset is not tied to a particular carrier (there are exceptions, but they are not widespread like in the US). Even the IPhone here can be used with any carrier.
The comments on slashdot seemed to suggest that the govt is doing something sinister and wrong and blah blah blah. All they are doing is enforcing a law that is the law in almost all countries including the US.
This place is becoming more and more like fox news with its biased coverage and the way the news is peppered with lot of "seems" and "looks like" and "quotes" and "in the name of" generally giving the reader that is is something wrong that is done.
And the cowboy commentator love to shoot off and let the world know their opinions without even knowing the facts or anything about the issue or even before RTFA
Yeah, FUCK AT&T. I had a Tilt (HTC TyTn II) stolen from me. They would deactivate the SIM, but not the phone itself. Then, they could tell me that my phone was on the network but not where. Thanks for making such a big market for stolen phones, assbags.
The article sadly doesn't seem to point the Government efforts to provide the non IMEI mobiles with a valid IMEI number. For the last few monthes, a person could have taken their el-cheapo Chinese phones to a designated centre and get a genuine IMEI number 'installed' on the phone for a sum of INR 199 [USD 4]. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Chinese-mobile-handsets-to-get-Indian-identity/articleshow/5286535.cms
7-8-9-10-0
Since I live here, I can shed some more light on what's actually going on:
1) Knock off Chinese handsets sell at ridiculously low prices compared to the original phones (yet some have pretty innovative features). For eg, I saw a knockoff of the Nokia N73 about a year ago with TV out and support for dual SIM cards. It ran some Chinese imitation of S60, and had all the usual features- camera, bluetooth, infrared, wifi, and cost about 6000 Rs. (about $130), compared to an original Nokia N73 that cost about 12-13k Rs. at the same time. Quality-wise these phones are quite dubious, they can fail at anytime and/or ship with exploding batteries. They're usually popular among the poorer sections of society (mobile phone penetration is VERY high in India- you will find people living in slums in Bombay/Delhi who don't have proper sanitation, but still have a mobile phone of some sort).
2) As others have mentioned- our mobile market is much freer than the US- operators don't have any say in what phone you use, call rates are the lowest in the world, incoming calls/SMS are free by law. Switching service providers is a breeze, just get a fresh connection and pop in the SIM you want.
We also have prepaid SIM cards- so if you're visiting here, you can just buy one for about Rs. 300 ($6) and use it, and pay as you go. These have also been used by terrorists in the past- so now you have to show proof of ID and fill out a form before getting one. (Foreign tourists would have to show their passports).
3) Counterfeit IMEIs are a royal concern for legitimate customers- if an IMEI is blocked it also blocks legitimate users. Also, if your IMEI is being used by a terrorist, it puts you under unnecessary suspicion and subject to inquiry as well.
4) The concept of privacy is alien to a large part of the population. Part of it is cultural, growing up in joint families, living in crowded tenements, and the general gregariousness with which 2 perfect strangers will end up discussing family matters during a long journey.
We don't have anything as influential as the EFF in the US, and no one among the educated middle class raised any concerns over the current National ID card being proposed. Many in fact have welcomed it, thinking it will help secure the country against terrorism. This is far more insidious and has more potential for abuse than enforcing use of an IMEI.
and finally, the old proverb- 'Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity' is quite valid for the Indian govt.
Given the above, especially #2 and 3, it's a fairly sensible move to block counterfeit IMEIs and phones that lack them.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
Precisely. This is intended for surveillance and squelching dissent, not for fighting "terrorism".
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
They're cutting off service to people using pre-paid cards if they do not identify themselves. Link in Spanish: Los clientes de móvil de prepago tendrán seis meses más para identificarse
Set your phasers on "funky"!