A foolish bill

Waste of money in this country

Why? My work relate to a cellphone company.
The person sitting next to me had her phone stolen. So the first thing you do is have your phone blacklisted, right? Being in the job she is, she can view her phone on the network. A month later she noticed that the phone is unblacklisted...So she calls the company again and say: BLACKLIST IT dammit. Guess what a few weeks later its again unblacklisted...
Criminals can EASILY unblacklist a stolen phone, and make any calls they like.
A fancy database wil NOT prevent crime if the people working with the database is the problem.
 
I agree completely with the article - the whole concept is rubbish.

But - I assume the 25 digit number they're talking about is the IMEI number? Because you certainly don't need to 'dismantle' your phone to get at that. Makes the article seem just a little bit less credible, which is a pity because they make some very good points.
 
Well this is patently stupid. What is happening about the law that says the networks have to have everyones' name and address? Is that the same bill/law ( from that article it would seem so, but I thought it was already law )?
 
IMEI is just a number stored in memory. It can be changed on most phones using special software. Newer phones use special memory which can only be written to once.

Do you really think a criminal would give the real IMEI number to the authorities? No, they would just print another and stick it on the phone...
 
Cathryn said:
I agree completely with the article - the whole concept is rubbish.

But - I assume the 25 digit number they're talking about is the IMEI number? Because you certainly don't need to 'dismantle' your phone to get at that. Makes the article seem just a little bit less credible, which is a pity because they make some very good points.
Click to expand...
I expect it is the lunacy bill that requires removing each phone's battery and recording the IMEI on the sticker normally under the phone's battery, and wasn't there something about the SIM card's serial number as well in a previous draft of this daft bill?
andres101 said:
IMEI is just a number stored in memory. It can be changed on most phones using special software. Newer phones use special memory which can only be written to once.

Do you really think a criminal would give the real IMEI number to the authorities? No, they would just print another and stick it on the phone...
Click to expand...
Yep, all true.

Besides the fact remains that there are so many stolen phones in SA, that are still in active circulation [read: still being used] that any criminal or terrorist would be more likely to buy a stolen phone after having entered the country, this idiotic bill seems to come from a lofty political place where the prevailing lack of thought is that SA is this pristine place where cellphones never get stolen and foreigners entering the country via airports must be suspected terrorists and should have their phones strip-searched...:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
I used to work at a place where tsotsis would come up to you and offer you a phone. Half the time when you switched it on, the phone didnt even ask you for a pincode.

That got me thinking. That act's just that. An act. Any serious criminal, take for instance cash-in-transit heists. they dont use their own cars, they go hijack one quick. Not so farfetched that they would start hijacking their comms that way as well.
 
Gru said:
I used to work at a place where tsotsis would come up to you and offer you a phone. Half the time when you switched it on, the phone didnt even ask you for a pincode.

That got me thinking. That act's just that. An act. Any serious criminal, take for instance cash-in-transit heists. they dont use their own cars, they go hijack one quick. Not so farfetched that they would start hijacking their comms that way as well.
Click to expand...
I could be wrong, but AFAIK it is 'virtually' impossible to change a phone to bypass a SIM card's PIN code, it is however possible to tell the SIM card to not request PIN code verification, which is probably what you were seeing in action.
 
ic said:
I could be wrong, but AFAIK it is 'virtually' impossible to change a phone to bypass a SIM card's PIN code, it is however possible to tell the SIM card to not request PIN code verification, which is probably what you were seeing in action.
Click to expand...

Yeah. If the person was lucky and only on PayG they'd use up all his airtime. I feel sorry for the contract subscribers tho. They must have gotten a few hefty bills.

We used to take the phones from them, and take it to the cops. We stopped after one idiot cop tried to charge us with being in possesion of stolen goods.
 
I'm personally glad to see the government clamping down on honest people.
What's more important than preventing people that don't commit crimes to commit crimes.

I hope they consider a bill that attempts to prevent criminal's from committing crimes too. Since allot of them will probably become serial killers now. I mean, if you need a phone you need a phone, why not kill 1 person a month to make sure your covered.
 
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