Stolen Cellphone Databases Switched On In US

alphadogg writes "U.S. cellphone carriers took a major step on Wednesday toward curbing the rising number of smartphone thefts with the introduction of databases that will block stolen phones from being used on domestic networks. The initiative got its start earlier this year when the FCC and police chiefs from major cities asked the cellular carriers for assistance in battling the surging number of smartphone thefts. In New York, more than 40 percent of all robberies involve cellphones and in Washington, D.C., cellphone thefts accounted for 38 percent of all robberies in 2011."

Comments

Welcome

[ledow]

Welcome to the 21st Century.

The EU has had this for over a decade.

Re:Welcome

[jonbryce]

The NFC chip is powered by an induction coil in the reader. In London, the Oyster card is a pre-paid NFC card that can be used to access public transport. There are similar systems elsewhere in the world, including some US cities. We also have some NFC credit cards in circulation, and some places that take them, such as McDonalds, though they are not yet in widespread use.

Re:Welcome

[Anonymous Coward]

You can and I used to have a phone reprogrammed to give me a random IMEI each time I started it. It's just harder to change IMEI and there are also laws against it.

Re:Welcome

[dougmc]

Regardless, what if someone typos your ESN over another. How does one prove they should not be on the list?

Simply calling the carrier and telling them it's your phone and you did not steal it would probably suffice.

If you bought it on craigslist or ebay, then it probably is stolen, and maybe the police will take it off your hands and return it to the rightful owner.

If you bought it new from the carrier and somebody just fat-fingered the ESN, you'll just show them the receipt (or your carrier will provide proof) that you did buy it and it's not stolen and they'll fix it. It may be that only phones purchased new from the carriers will be so entered anyways, so they're not likely to make such mistakes (as they'll have a record of exactly what phone you bought and have been using.)

Certainly, I would not expect thieves and people who know they have stolen phones to contact the carriers about their phones being disabled (as it's a good way to go to jail), so anybody who contacts them and says the phone wasn't stolen probably could be reasonably trusted. The only exceptions will be people who bought used phones -- and in that case, the serial numbers and ESNs could be verified and if it's the stolen phone, return it, and if not, fix the database.

Re:Why

[ArcherB]

The cellphone is less of the cost than the service.

Because they can sell the phone at just below "off contract" prices. Remember, the cost of cell phones if you purchase them outright is about 2-3x what it is if you buy them on contract. If you are on contract and lose your phone, the replacement is full price. Or, people can buy these phones and use them on non-contract networks that tend to be cheaper since they usually don't offer phone discounts.

Great! Until....

[Anonymous Coward]

Carriers decide to start using the exact same technology to block users from re-selling used phones.

38% of crime

[girlintraining]

What I don't understand is why that much crime is going uninvestigated. Why aren't there dedicated law enforcement units working in major metropolitan areas to recover these phones? In most jurisdictions, they are valuable enough to qualify the theft as grand larceny. What's more, each cell phone has a built-in tracking device accurate to within a few meters, and have microphones and cameras built in! These aren't exactly difficult crimes to solve.

Re:38% of crime

[Psyborgue]

They are. It takes time to catch the small fish and work your way all the way to the top. A huge cell phone theft ring was broken up in the DC area last year. YMMV but some police jurisdictions are actually trying to combat this.

Re:Why block them?

[QuantumRiff]

That is a ton of "man hours" for the police to track someone down for stealing a $100 device. In most states, they can't prove the current holder of the phone stole it, so the best they can do is confiscate the stolen goods. By making them not work at all, it should make the market for stolen phones dry up..

Re:So it begins..

[lederhosen]

In Sweden you need to report the phone stolen to the police before blacklisting it. Works like a charm. No problems what so ever.

Re:Why block them?

[Firehed]

Unsubsidized smartphones easily cost $600+, which constitutes grand larceny (often a felony) in most states.

I agree that the current holder of the device is probably not the person who stole it, but over a few data points it probably wouldn't be terribly difficult (yet) to track it back to the original thief, what with everything being location-aware these days. That said, you're right - if we just shut the devices off immediately, the desire to steal phones should drop to nearly zero overnight.

Wrong: IMEIs are no longer unique

[stephanruby]

The new database blocks the IMEI number, a unique identification number in the cellphone akin to a VIN (vehicle identification number) in a car. The ID number remains with the cellphone no matter what SIM card is used.

10% of IMEI numbers are not unique according to British Telecom. That being said in the UK at least, if your phone gets blocked by accident, there is a procedure to get it unblocked - so all is not lost for you.

Re:Why block them?

[mrquagmire]

Do you really think cops give two sh*ts about a stolen cell phone? Or stolen anything for that matter? Have you ever had anything stolen? Unless the thief literally falls into their laps, I guarantee they're not going to do anything about it.

Re:Why

[Skynyrd]

I sold an iPhone 3s for $175 on eBay, just after the 4s came out. I was due for an upgrade, so I sold my old phone.

I would get the same $$ if I stole yours and sold it. The cost of the service is irrelevant the the thief, as long as he can get good money for a stolen phone.

Re:Great! Until....

[localman57]

What do they care? They'd rather you bring in your old phone than buy a new one, because they subsidize the cost of the new phone. A carrier's favorite customer is the one who's still using his original iPhone 1. Still paying for a data plan, using relatively small amounts of data, and they paid off the subsidy a long time ago.

Re:IMEI blacklist

[Andy Dodd]

The US didn't start using this blacklist until a few months ago.

I'm not sure why TFA says "Wednesday" - over on XDA, people with corrupt IMEIs started complaining 2-3 months ago.

(On Samsung devices, if the EFS partition gets corrupted, it'll be regenerated with a "test IMEI", which all European carriers block but US carriers allowed until recently. The test IMEI is blacklisted. Some shady characters were intentionally corrupting TO the test IMEI to prevent AT&T from detecting their device as a smartphone and all started whining when their hack caused their device to be 100% blocked as stolen.)

They do care

[Powercntrl]

Carriers want you to sign a new two-year contract. They also aren't entirely thrilled that you can get an inexpensive second-hand phone and activate it on a prepaid plan. T-Mobile already does block a phone's IMEI if the the original owner abandoned their account with an unpaid balance (a matter that should be left to collection agencies, not handled by blacklisting a phone). Worse, T-Mobile is known to block a phone after it's already been sold and is in use by a new owner who had no way of knowing the previous owner didn't make good on their final bill. There's a whole thread about this on HowardForums.