Mobile Phone IMEI question

BigAkita

Hi,

I've been looking at buying mobile phones on eBay and one thing concerns me and I'm hoping a smarter person than me can help. I keep reading about IMEI numbers and people wanting to check them.

Is the IMEI anything more than a serial number? Could I buy a phone a then the person i brought it from can then access it remotely or on-line and read my texts, us my credit or anything else bad as they have access to my IMEI number. It may sound silly question but I use my phone to store a lot of private information (pin numbers, computer passwords, family pictures etc).
Can someone give me the full sp on this issue and if it is something to worry about.

espresso

It is a unique number that each handset has, see here for the full sp.

Cavey

BigAkita wrote: »

Is the IMEI anything more than a serial number? Could I buy a phone a then the person i brought it from can then access it remotely or on-line and read my texts, us my credit or anything else bad as they have access to my IMEI number. It may sound silly question but I use my phone to store a lot of private information (pin numbers, computer passwords, family pictures etc).

From the WP page as it I am too lazy to re-write it...

Wikipedia wrote:

Unlike the Electronic Serial Number or MEID of CDMA and other wireless networks, the IMEI is only used to identify the device, and has no permanent or semi-permanent relation to the subscriber. Instead, the subscriber is identified by transmission of an IMSI number, which is stored on a SIM card which can (in theory) be transferred to any handset. However, many network and security features are enabled by knowing the current device being used by a subscriber.

So no, knowing the IMEI does not give them access to your data. It is purely a number sent to the network to identify what handset you are using (which allows them to minimise the re-sale of stolen phones and enable/disable network features such as MMS or video calling depending on the capabilities of your phone).

BigAkita wrote: »

I've been looking at buying mobile phones on eBay and one thing concerns me and I'm hoping a smarter person than me can help. I keep reading about IMEI numbers and people wanting to check them.

If you are suspicious about people asking this, don't be. The buyer is being cautious as the source of the phone on ebay is not exactly known. For example, if I have an expensive phone and "lose" it, I could claim from insurance for a replacement. When it arrives I sell the "lost" phone on ebay and make £200 BUT when it arrives the buyer finds the phone has been blacklisted and is therefore useless.

However, as with most good things there are ways to check on the internet. If you get the IMEI for a phone and plug it into a page which queries the database you can tell if a phone has been registered as lost/stolen.

For example, my old phone (Motorola V500) has the IMEI 354450001085652 and shoving it into a page to look up the number on the IMEI blacklist (such as this one) shows it isn't stolen and you can check the IMEI actually belongs to the handset using a page such as this page (which confirms it is a V500).

This isn't perfect, you still have to trust I don't have two handsets, give you the working number and sell you the blocked handset, but then the IMEI on the handset you receive wont match so you can appeal to ebay...

Anyway, feel free to try it out using my IMEI.