The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
1–10 of 174 posts
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#2Couple of thoughts
> The combination of the ICCID and the IMSI basically tells the mobile network, “hey, this person paid for a plan.”
As far as I remember, the ICCID never actually appears in standard network messaging. It might be possible for the network to request it, but it's not part of a standard 2/3/4/5g attach.
The piece seemed to miss two major uses for the IMEI (or I missed it when reading), which were working around vendor bugs and allowing emergency calling.
Radio firmware and state machines have always had weird bugs, and even when it conforms to standards (some of which are extremely interpretable), does very weird things in the real world. Pre-smartphone, being able to update phone and radio firmware was extremely rare, so it was common for the networks instead to implement workarounds on a manufacturer or handset basis. Having a hardware ID that identified this was extremely useful.
GSM (and onward) actually supports a handset attaching to a network, even without a SIM card, for the sake of emergency calling. It needs some form of unique identifier for this to work. As much as it could (potentially, entirely redefining the stack) generated UUIDs, it makes some sense for these unique IDs to persist across roaming/sessions/reboots.
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#3The fact the IMEI is generally not editable seems like a massive privacy hole.
Just let people edit it. Then I can be someone new every day and nobody can track me.
Mac address randomization does that for wifi. Now do the same for mobile networks.
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#4You can use https://github.com/srlabs/blue-merle if you want to change your IMEI
>The blue-merle software package enhances anonymity and reduces forensic traceability of the GL-E750 / Mudi 4G mobile wi-fi router ("Mudi router")
>Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) changer
>Media Access Control (MAC) address log wiper
>Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID) randomization
>MAC Address randomization
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#5The fact the IMEI is generally not editable seems like a massive privacy hole. Just let people edit it. Then I can be someone new every day and nobody can track me. Mac address randomization does that for wifi. Now do the same for mobile networks.
I really want mobile networks to accept their role as dumb data pipes. I should be able to just provide a password or certificate and connect. No IEMI, no SIM.
And while we are at it stop tunneling my data back "home" when I travel. I don't want increased latency.
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#6If someone knows your IMEI can they track you?
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#7The fact the IMEI is generally not editable seems like a massive privacy hole. Just let people edit it. Then I can be someone new every day and nobody can track me. Mac address randomization does that for wifi. Now do the same for mobile networks.
Only if you also change your SIM every day.
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#8The fact the IMEI is generally not editable seems like a massive privacy hole. Just let people edit it. Then I can be someone new every day and nobody can track me. Mac address randomization does that for wifi. Now do the same for mobile networks.
There is no privacy concern, really, as this is unique to the device, not subscriber, and only shared with the network operator, who obviously already "tracks" the subscriber through the SIM
, which contains the subscriber identifier (IMSI).
On the other hand, the IMEI in principle makes tracking and disabling of stolen devices easy.
By the way, in the UK it is actually an offence to change the IMEI [1]
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#9The fact the IMEI is generally not editable seems like a massive privacy hole. Just let people edit it. Then I can be someone new every day and nobody can track me. Mac address randomization does that for wifi. Now do the same for mobile networks.
Only if you also change your SIM every day.
As a man who currently has 13 esims in his phone...
Re: The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number
#10The fact the IMEI is generally not editable seems like a massive privacy hole. Just let people edit it. Then I can be someone new every day and nobody can track me. Mac address randomization does that for wifi. Now do the same for mobile networks.
You can, but it is not that easy and you also need to change your IMSI.
https://invisv.com/pgpp/ for IMSI (not available worldwide)
https://github.com/srlabs/blue-merle for IMEI, a nice guide written by them explaining how it works https://raw.githubusercontent.com/srlabs/blue-merle/main/Doc...
You can follow this thread for more info https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/cell-towers-tracking-net...