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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?"
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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
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.
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