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An Easy Way To Curb Smart-Phone Thieves, In Australia
First time accepted submitter xx_chris writes "Cell carriers can and do brick jail broken cell phones but they won't brick stolen cell phones. Except in Australia. The Australians apparently have been doing this for 10 years and it reduces violent crime since the thieves know they won't be able to sell the stolen phone. The article points out that cell carriers have a financial disincentive to do this since a stolen phone means another sale."
If a phone is stolen, they get another sale. If the phone is unusable after being stolen, it's less likely to be stolen, so there are fewer thefts and fewer sales.
It's my understanding that they don't really brick the phones, all of the networks just block the phones by IMEI number based on a common database.
It will continue to work outside Australia. Phone theft still occurs here.
In argentina, there are a lot of "grey stores" that change the imei number of any cellphone in a few hours. If it can be done here...
I've lived in two of those cities and never been mugged. I'm not saying they aren't dangerous, but it's not a part of every day life.
You don't have to have been mugged to have violence be a part of everyday life. There are many parts of my city that I refuse to go to at night, because it's known to be dangerous. There are other parts that I avoid even in the daytime for the same reason. There are many nice ethnic restaurants in those areas that I'd like to go to but in general, I don't because I don't want my car broken into or to be mugged myself.
I read this and went "this is news?" Then I read the supposition that nobody outside of Australia does this and I lost it. I vote this the stupidest article in many months.
I thankfully have never had a phone stolen, but my mother and several of my friends have. The carriers range from AT&T to Verizon to T-mobile to Sprint to Boost mobile, to Orange and O2 in the UK. Universally, they called up the carrier and the IMEI number has been blacklisted, or the equivalent for Sprint/Verizon/CDMA phones. Banning the IMSI, which is tied to the phone, makes it useless since it is no longer more than an iPod Touch (or equivalent Android device). Those bans are effective within a country, since they share lists with each other. One of my friends has actually gotten her phone back when the guy went to the local T-Mobile store and tried to buy a prepaid SIM and it didn't work. The store called the police from the back room and kept the guy busy, and they came and picked him up. Apparently it's policy for them since it happens pretty frequently.
This is all in the backwards US, with our relatively small GSM contingent. In other countries it's clearly much easier, since there's just a list.
Finally, Wikipedia talks about this like it's old news. It's literally in the third sentence of the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMEI#Blacklist_of_stolen_devices
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I understand that muggings are violent I just wonder how much bricking stops your typical mugger from still wanting your wallet and how much it stops opportunity theft when someone sets there phone down and walks away from it for a moment.
The problem with stealing a wallet is that it might turn out to be empty (and if you flash your wallet around so others can see it's contents, you're an idiot). As soon as you see someone's phone you know what it is and roughly how much you can get for it. If it's a good phone that you can easily get some money for then you might take the risk of robbing the owner. If you know you won't get anything for it because a stolen phone will be bricked before you can sell it, you won't.
Nobody is saying it will stop all violent muggings, just that it does make a difference.
It sounds like the carriers have an incentive to brick stolen phones, not a disincentive as the summary states. If a stolen phone results in another phone sale (to the person who's had their phone stolen) this doesn't sound like a disincentive to me.
Don't underestimate the cell phone carriers - if such a stolen phone registry were to be implemented in the USA, the carriers would make sure that all off-contract phones got put on the list automatically, eliminating the used phone market. They'd justify it with some reason like "to prevent fraud" or "old phones cost too much to support on our network" -- kind of the same reasoning they use to justify high ETF's that still cost over $100 one month before the contract ends.
If a phone is stolen, they get another sale. If the phone is unusable after being stolen, it's less likely to be stolen, so there are fewer thefts and fewer sales.
Exactly. This is why there are consumer protection laws; yes, I know, more laws = big government, but that's not always bad. In cases like cell phone carriers where there are precious few choices and very little difference among the choices there are, having a law requiring the service provider to brick the customer's property at the customer's request only makes good sense.
All this is is a list of blacklisted IMEIs that's shared between most (not all) carriers. The phones are still perfectly functional when used in other countries with compatible UMTS/GSM frequencies, and on carriers that don't use the IMEI blacklist.
Some carriers do subscribe to the IMEI blacklist but take so long to update it that they might as well not. I'm looking at you, Vodafone.
Not only can stolen phones be sold overseas, but it's pretty trivial to rewrite the IMEI on many phones. This is a disincentive to casual theft, but not much more.
This has been happening for YEARS and you notice now? I think it is, plain and simply, a bug in Slashdot. It even happened to me once (posted in one thread, and comment appeared in unrelated thread)
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because both the SIM and IMEI of the phone itself get logged. If the police or a secret service of some sort later starts looking for you, they will search for either one. Also, phone taps are usually issued on the person and all their known IMEI, SIM and landline calls. This means that in case of a tap, you'll want a phone that can't be associated to you in any way.
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You know what you're supposed to do when you find a phone, right?
You know what you're supposed to do when you find a phone, right?
Write a submission to Slashdot saying it might be an iPhone 5 prototype cleverly disguised in an old Nokia case?
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The plan does not come with a free phone. The plan comes with a phone that you make payments on built into the connection payments contract. After you phone is stolen you must continue to make payments and it is up to you to organise a replacement phone. http://help.telstra.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17260. If you choose to buy a second hand replacement phone then you should go here http://www.amta.org.au/pages/amta/Check.the.Status.of.your.Handset to make sure it is not stolen. Of course you can pay extra, for premium care ie handset insurance policy and they will replace a stolen phone.
Note that is an internationally registered numbered so phones are bricked in all countries that co-operate.
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The electronics are not shot. The article is misleading. They do not brick it. They blacklist the IMEI and that does not allow the phone to make calls in a given network. The phone works fine. That is done in a lot of countries - for example in mine. There are two ways around this - basement phone repair workshops that change the IMEI for a few bucks (model specific, can't be done with all phones) or exporting the stolen device. In my country the border is always less than 250km away, Australia is a bit more isolated so this might be a little more difficult there. Anyway - the phone isn't bricked, they do not have some magical killswitch, electronics are not shot.
what tripe!!! all the above is done in AU.
A blocked IMEI can still call 112 the international emergency number as well as 000 the local equiv of 911.
Each carrier keeps a local copy of the stolen register and updates regularly and the phone IMEI is then blocked ***at registration*** to the network not on a per call basis if it is used at all.
One thing Au has over the US is only 3 networks and not a patchwork of carriers, this makes things rather easier.
The AU example if I remember correctly was a Govt. mandated requirement, ie. do yourselves or we will make it law.....
You know what you're supposed to do when you find a phone, right?
cheekyboy is a dickwad and a thief. But, if you find a phone, don't give it to the police. They will probably do nothing. The two times I've found phones I've texted someone ("Dad") in the contact list, explaining the situation and how the owner can meet me in person. One of the times I even got a very nice finder's fee from the obviously well-off owner. The other one was a crappy phone which belonged to a student, so I declined the offered (nominal) compensation.
Both people were surprised and happy. It cost me very little effort, and I hope that someone will do the same for me if I should ever lose my phone.
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