MTN: Crime good for you.

Johand

Johand

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Isn't it ridiculous that biggest supporter of crime is also one of the biggest companies in South Africa?

The cellphone operators have the biggest tool in the history of crime prevention - yet they do not use it. MTN is to blame specifically.

Why don't blacklisting work?

Blacklisting doesn't work because most cellphone thefts in Cape Town is done by drug addicts. Drug addicts goes to their dealer with the cellphone which the dealer then resells in Nigeria on his drug run.

You may ask me how do I know this? My phone was stolen last week and I traced (with some help from friends in high and low places) it to a drug dealer. He laughed me off - and told me that I can buy my phone back for R250. When I told him my phone was blacklisted he told me he'd just sell it in Nigeria.

I dare MTN to release figures of how many blacklisted phones from South Africa is running on their network in Nigeria.

Furthermore I think interconnections between networks should force a agreement over blacklisting of handsets.
 
It is even worse than that. Apparently the cellphone companies have the ability to permenantly disable the phone (wont ever work again in any country). But they basically just dont do it.

It is also aparently pretty easy for them to trace a phone (at no cost to themselves). There was a kidnapping last year in joburg (IIRC) where the police asked MTN or Voda to track the phone. They did it after a while, and presented the SAPS with a R100 000 bill.

Bloody crooks.
 
MTN have a tool that Maps out (geographically) where blacklisted phones are, where they have been.. *AND* what SIM cards (ICCID) have been inside the handsets...
 
It took the government to force them to blacklist phones.

They have a ton of information about phones. If there is a highjacking they can actually see which phones were in the region. On the second hijacking these data can be correlated. Do that for a couple months and the police will get big arrows to the chop shops.

Same with cash-in-transit heists.

I'm not a big supporter of big brother - but a lot of these things can be done statiscally and independently.


The networks should realize that crime is their problem as well - they have the responsibility to help the citizens of this country. They shouldn't be forced to do these kinds of things. They shouldn't present the police with bills after dragging their feet with requests. The networks should be ready with the data BEFORE the police needs to ask (obviously some a court-order must be obtained before data identifying individual subscribers are released) - but they can say to the police that they correlate some cellphones to some crime incidents.

Of course the problem is not the cost to the network but the loss of income because the stolen cellphones would not be used on their network anymore.

The networks in our countrywill most probably buy the crooks ammunition to shoot police officers if they thought it will increase their bottom line.
 
I'm shocked!

sorry, no contribution, just wanted to subscribe to this thread and keep track of it.
 
Well, i agree and the new "regulation" that force prepaid customers to register their id etc when buying a sim card, will increase crime, as when someone wants to use a phone for evil deeds, he will kill to get some phone, in order to be able to use the phone, without it being traced to him. I believe, waht was said, that mobile networks should be more involved in crime fighting, is no less than right, networks should stop wasting money on sponsoring sports teams etc and put the money to good use
 
Well - the regulation is something that was not very well thought through. It is a bunch of nonsense and will actually increase crime.

The government should think things through. Jail the CEOs of the big companies - and put through law that forces networks and service provides to have:

1) Call centre for policemen where they can track a specific phone for a limited period of time with no information that personally identify the subscriber. Paper work is to follow each request to prevent abuse - each police officer has to have a unique login into the system.

2) A "clean room" where statistical information around crime areas can be analysed without compromising identities or personal information about subscribers.

3) A system in place to give rapid answers (1-3 hour turn around time) to court orders.


4) An external auditor to make sure that the system is not abused.

Our networks pay low enough licensing fees and they can sponsor the whole thing - although they should not run it (and neither should the government). A not-for-profit company might be the best idea.
 
I don't know about MTN and Cell C, but Telkom at least have complained to the government that enforcing these sorts of things is too costly to them, and unfair. They say that the taxpayer must pay for this sort of stuff.

And once, in an incredible show of arrogance, Telkom told the Justice department that complying with one of the proposed laws was unfair to Telkom as the costs of telephone calls and faxing would have to be born by Telkom, and this was just too expensive.
 
It would be brilliant if you could have an international barred/blacklisted cellphone database that could cover SA, other developing countries & Europe... as most of the phones in Nigeria are stolen from SA/UK.... buttttt... IMEI numbers can be re-programmed... with relative ease. Blacklisting is based on the IMEI number. So its all pointless... we will just make life a little more difficult for the criminals.


Johand said:
Isn't it ridiculous that biggest supporter of crime is also one of the biggest companies in South Africa?

The cellphone operators have the biggest tool in the history of crime prevention - yet they do not use it. MTN is to blame specifically.

Why don't blacklisting work?

Blacklisting doesn't work because most cellphone thefts in Cape Town is done by drug addicts. Drug addicts goes to their dealer with the cellphone which the dealer then resells in Nigeria on his drug run.

You may ask me how do I know this? My phone was stolen last week and I traced (with some help from friends in high and low places) it to a drug dealer. He laughed me off - and told me that I can buy my phone back for R250. When I told him my phone was blacklisted he told me he'd just sell it in Nigeria.

I dare MTN to release figures of how many blacklisted phones from South Africa is running on their network in Nigeria.

Furthermore I think interconnections between networks should force a agreement over blacklisting of handsets.
Click to expand...
 
BradDC said:
.... buttttt... IMEI numbers can be re-programmed... with relative ease. Blacklisting is based on the IMEI number. So its all pointless... we will just make life a little more difficult for the criminals.
Click to expand...

I agree that it is possible - and I know that some of the cellphone repair centres in Africa do exactly that. But it is still possible to prevent it:

a) IMEI numbers also identify the type of cellphone.
b) A list of IMEI numbers is available from the manufacturers.
c) The same IMEI number cannot appear at two places at the same time.

Taking this information and applying it to a model will mean:

a) Any cellphone type that does not match its IMEI number is reprogrammed and therefore suspect.
b) If the capabilities of the phone does not match its IMEI it is suspect.
c) If the same IMEI numbers appear in two places at once it is suspect.


Of course doing these types of checks is not possible in real-time without a significant technology budget. But it is possible to do it in scheduled batches. A phone that needs to be reprogrammed once every three months will not sit well with the guy that actually buys the phone.

But better yet - as with vehicle registration - phones needs to be checked at borders. South Africa really needs large x-ray equipment on it borders (like the ones on the US/Mexico border). Won't happen soon however. But it is cheaper to invest in something like that instead of doubling the size of the police force.
 
RE tracing imei numbers, i cant see what the huge costs to that will be, as it is simple to write a program, using a variety of programming languages which can automatically track these things, and the program would be easy to design for the it ppl of the netwotrks(i take it they got their own it teams, but i doubt it some times) as they already know the system,, once the software is implemented i can not see what the HUGE costs will be for the network operators
 
The cost will be maintaining it and administrating it. However - they already have the cost of the interception and this can be combined.

Of course the big sticking point is privacy and misuse. If that problem can be solved there is no way this should go ahead.

I don't have a big problem with them spending as much as R50 mil each a year. It is small change for them and R200mil/year will buy a lot of crime fighting power. Especially if you factor in the amount of money they make through the use of stolen cellphones, SIM card replacements (err why can I buy a prepaid simcard for R1,99 but it cost R170 to replace a stolen one -- and the standard response will be IT IS THE SERVICE PROVIDERS. Of course my service provider is MTN SP :-) their net loss through crime is much lower than R50 mil a year.

For all I care the consumer can pay R10/year - 84c/month tax for the purpose of a comprehensive cellphone crime fighting center. Of course it should be payable by the networks and they can choose how they get it from their customers. But it should be capped at 84c/month customer. And the amount they should pay the government should be calculated from their advertised subscriber base numbers.
 
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Maintaining and admin will not be much, once the software is in place, using current tech, it will not be too hard or too costly to do...

BUT THEN AGAIN, maybe they make too much money from stolen phones (new sims, new phones etc) to care
 
All handsets that are blacklisted in South Africa cannot operate on another local network, but may be used on an international network. This is as a result of the fact that South Africa and many other countries to date do not use the GSM Association's CEIR common EIR) which would ensure that all blacklisted handsets, stolen in SA would not operate in other countries and vice versa.

MTN believes the implementation of the CEIR could assist the process. Note however that the CEIR has to be used be all of the GSM operators, failing which, widespread cross-border trade in stolen handsets will remain. Hence, this issue is an industry matter that needs to be addressed at an inter-operator level.

MTN South Africa takes the issue of cellphone blacklisting very seriously and has initiatives underway with Business Against Crime, The South African Police Services (SAPS) and other operators to stem the rising trend and protect customers.

A campaign is underway to educate consumers on the do's and don’ts and the process one needs to undertake when blacklisting a cellphone. Media activities are planned within the next month.

MTNDD
 
Yeah right.

I dare MTN to release the number of handsets blacklisted in South Africa currently on their Nigerian network.

I would also like to know the number of cellphone thieves caught through active involvement by MTN or any other cellphone network.

The fact is that the only reason the networks are co-operating with blacklisting is that the government forces them to. The whole "grey-listing" scam of a few years ago have shown just how much the networks really care.

Everytime the government tries to put in place a system to reduce crime through cellphones the operators complain. Yet I have still to see them take initiative for ANYTHING.

The fact of the matter is that cellphones are used in almost every other criminal activity in the country. Stolen cellphones help fuel the drug market for example.
 
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