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US Carriers Finally Doing Something About Cellphone Theft
New submitter zarmanto writes "In a move that is so long overdue that it boggles the mind, the FCC and the four largest cellular providers in the U.S. state that they will be joining forces to combat cell phone theft. From the article: 'Over the next six months, each of the four operators is expected to put in place a program to disable phones reported as stolen and within 18 months the FCC plans to help merge them into a central database in order to prevent a phone from being used on another carrier's network.'"
Report your friends phone as stolen! Hilarity ensues.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Isn't it a bit overkill to use the USS Nimitz to do something about cellphone theft?
The long-overdue part is that the carriers will share this data so that one phone can't simply be switched to a different network (they have all already done this for their in-network phone database. However, given that most phones are only going to work when operating on the originally designed network anyway (given the patchwork of different standards and frequencies in use among the carriers) how many phone thefts is this really going to affect?
Long overdue, this technology has proven to reduce phone theft in places like Australia. Getting mugged for your phone is rapidly becoming very common in the US. There is a switch in every GSM system database designed for precisely this purpose. Its in the GSM specs. All these carriers are running the same call connection software. (Most of them are too clueless to have developed their own).
Why not turn it on WITHIN carriers in 45 days flat, and between carriers within 90 days? Some say there is money to be made by selling you a new phone, and the carriers were unwilling to forego that revenue stream. The thief (or the people who buy from the thieves) have to sign up for service, but they won't be buying any new phone with that service. Many also suggest that a good portion of the non-contract market is using stolen phones.
But turning this on is not hard. Carriers have been dragging their feet on this for decades.
The tinfoil hat in me expects the carriers to turn this into another way to make money, if not by charging a fee, then by using it as an excuse to not accept phones purchased elsewhere, or by insistin you bring your phone in for them to record the IMEI, and charging a fee to record it.
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You bet. You cell phone gets stolen you have a bunch of war jets over your head bombing you to kingdom come.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What timing! And here they're gonna be retiring the Enterprise soon.
I was hoping that a squadron of F-18s were on Combat Air Patrol just waiting to drop a laser guided bomb on the miscreant who had your stolen phone.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
If that were the actual reason, then it should follow that it would not ever get implemented in the USA. Except that it *IS*.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
For years, companies have been remotely bricking mobile devices that have been hacked. Why didn't these idiots do the same for devices that were reported stolen?!?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
People on Slashdot are actually saying that the ability of a carrier to brick a telephone remotely is a GOOD thing?
My, how times have changed.
Verizon Wireless, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile are joining forces
Anytime a corp tells me they want to help, experience(and corp law) tells me philanthropy is not even remotely their motive. When multi-corps start 'cooperating' for my benefit I get as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Besides being shocked that this is not already a standard practice, I'm going to predict the overhead for this stalwart effort is going to be too large to bear so some sort of profitable fix will follow...
A silver bullet to kill the used-phone market sure would help protect us, the customers, right?
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
I thought our aircraft carriers were for protecting abroad, not for domestic problems.... seems like bombing a cell phone thief is a bit drasti... OH. phone carriers. my bad.
A centralized government database of all cell phones with mac addresses, imei numbers and such. Should be even easier for them to do warrantless tracking of whomever they choose.
This sounds like a great idea. Keep a record of all ESN's that are stolen devices and make it so none of these can be used on any carrier in the country. This would go a long way to reduce the trafficking of stolen phones. However, there needs to be some rules on what constitutes a "stolen" phone.
1. Carriers should not be able to disable a phone unless the owner has reported it stolen. (I.e. They cannot list phones that are on unpaid contracts, without compensation to the owner of the phone.)
2. The database must be available to check if an ESN was reported stolen, and if it is, return contact information for the owner or his agent.
3. The ESN must be removable from the list, if the owner of the phone requests it.
4. A means of transferring stolen ESN's between "owners" or "agents"
Somehow though, I don't think this is what the carriers have in mind. My guess is that they want to stop folks from getting expensive phones cheap on contract, then dumping the contract and selling the phone for quick cash. Being able to disable the phone on all US carriers would make this much harder to do.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Actually, it is the unexpected opportunity for the, um.. higher powers to create a database of all cell-phone owners. Without it, you could replace the SIM card in your cell phone and nobody would know who makes the call. With the database in place they will know whose cell phone a particular call was made from.
I have worked at Sprint in their retail stores. We would blacklist phone serials if customers told us. Friends from that time migrated to Verizon and I've heard they do the same. So the ability has existed for a while. It's been up to the customer to say something.
And making sure a phone won't work on another carrier is only useful between T-Mobile and AT&T.
Verizon and Sprint maintain a DB of phones they've "approved" and will not activate a device that isn't on that list. You cannot take a Verizon phone and activate it on Sprint, nor vice versa.
While I'm sure this will help, I don't see it as having a huge impact here in the US, thanks to how the carriers do business.
No sig for you!!
Similarly, there needs to be a mechanism to UN-blacklist a phone. Quite often a phone is thought to be lost or stolen but then later turns up, is found or is returned by an honest finder, etc. Such phones need to be restored to usability.
Also the issue of transfer of ownership, and therefore transfer of the right to declare a phone "stolen", needs to be very carefully designed. Supposing I buy a used phone from CL or ebay. Somehow the ownership needs to transfer to me such that the seller CANNOT now declare that phone to be "stolen". However requiring that that newly sold phone be activated by a carrier to transfer ownership is NOT a good mechanism -- I shouldn't have to do that and it can cause all sorts of problems.
you can blacklist IMEI numbers and have been able to cince the Cellular ONE days of 1989.
And honestly I have no idea why the iphone, ipad and ipod could not be blacklisted as well. this would make the street value of the stolen i devices to go ZERO.
connect stolen ipad to itunes, screen change to black with red "STOLEN PROPERTY, call 1-800-555-1212 for more information" and it's game over for thieves.
For some reason none of these companies want to do this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... which is great fun, unless your phone happens to be lost under your bed/car seat/desk/etc...
It seems "good" when they disable phones reported as stolen.
But I think most people would think it's "bad" if they disable phones reported as downloading "stolen" (i.e. copyrighted) content.
I'd prefer they only be allowed to disable phones with a court order (regardless of the reason for the order). If police and courts want to streamline a way to get the court order to the carrier in the case of stolen phones (with adequate judicial review), then I'm all for it. But I don't want carriers to become part of the policing effort. And doing it with our support and without considering our rights - i.e. disabling a phone is the equivalent of seizing our property.
I can't tell if you're trolling or simply stupid. I'm desperately hoping the former.
I would have thought it was obvious that, since cell phones need to use the cell network to be cell phones, the cell network can block the phone, rendering it useless as a cell phone. Boomboxes require no such cooperation from a third party in order to work, so it's not feasible for them to do anything about it. This is more like if you had the ability to report your car as stolen, and then the plates wouldn't "authenticate" (against any cop who pulls them over for anything, or sees something suspicious and has the dispatcher run the plates).
Which, funnily enough, is exactly what happens.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
For only $14.95 per month per phone.
If that were the actual reason, then it should follow that it would not ever get implemented in the USA. Except that it *IS*.
By government edict.
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18 months to merge?
CREATE TABLE BLOCKED_CELLPHONES ( IMEI TYPE ANY )
There, hurry up and move this into production today.
Hmm... logical... efficient... reasonable...
You're fired.
Sincerely,
US cell carriers
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Your carrier probably knows the IMEI of the phone you used, especially if you bought it from them. And its on the invoice, and its on the box, and its on your on-line account. Really no reason not to have this number somewhere, but I suppose some people manage to lose all if those sources.
Still, it seems phone theft is still a big problem in the UK for some reason. Probably because I would wager the UK IMEI blocking system does not extend to the continent, and perhaps not to other carriers either. So stolen IK phones get send to France and work just fine there.
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The way I read it, the database only covers stolen smartphones. What about "feature phones"? Someone cleaned out the girl's locker room at my daughter's high school last year. My daughter didn't lose her phone, but something like a half-dozen girls did. Why not take a swipe at petty theft as well as robbery while they're at it?
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
is made in the present tense, not the past. Whether the government is forcing them to do it or not is entirely irrelevant to the veracity of your above comment. At best, it may *HAVE* been the reason... but you can't still correctly say that it *IS* the reason..
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
... they rely on something a little more sturdy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound-powered_telephone - OK it's a backup system, but still... this is military grade material, when was the last time you held a phone that could do some real damage if you were to hit someone with it...
Is the goal to get your cell phone back, or is it to make a database of criminals to track?
"Find my iPhone" led to big drug busts sometimes when stupid thieves nicked an iPad. Now that we can't use gps tracking devices on suspects, how can a big brother keep track of criminals efficiently.
My expectation: phone recoveries will not go up, but phone thefts will go down. The IQ of thieves arrested for phone theft will go down as well.
Perhaps you dont understand the difference between a carrier who shuts off service to your phone and one who disables your phone. Disabling is purely vindicative and I pity the person who has a 'stolen' phone miracously found or returned to them.. dead.
Good luck getting Verizon/ATT/TMO to unbrick it.
Shutting off service is what's being referred to as "bricking" here. The IMEI is blacklisted at the carrier. The phone technically works, just no network will authenticate it.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I bought a phone off ebay that was supposedly new and clean. I took it into a vzw store to register it, and they told me the ESN was coming back as stolen. At that point I asked if they could take the phone and return it to the person who had it stolen. "We don't get involved in these matters". Could they email them, call them, contact them? "We don't get involved in these matters". What if I call the police and give them the phone, will you give them the customer information so they can get them their phone back? "We won't help the police without a warrant".
What a bunch of fucking crooks. The only reason they "don't get involved" is because they make money selling a replacement phone. It should be criminal for them to refuse to notify the owner of the property that their stolen property had been recovered.
I am sure it's nothing a quick root can't fix.
No, seriously, the rest of the world (well, Europe, at least), has had cross-carrier stolen device blocking for well over a decade. So ... America is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the late 1990s?
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