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Mobile tracking
Mobile tracking
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:07 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1)In reply to: EU adopts data retention by rmayr
Parent article: EU adopts data retention
Unfortunately, GSM phones have a unique serial number which is tracked along with the information from the SIM. So it is trivially easy to tie together activity using multiple SIM cards on the same handset.
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Mobile tracking
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:20 UTC (Wed) by rmayr (subscriber, #16880) [Link]
True, but IMEIs can also be changed if you know what you're doing (or justuse cheap throw-away phones the same way as the SIMs). My point is that
even that part of the directive will not catch professionals.
Mobile tracking
Posted Dec 14, 2005 18:29 UTC (Wed) by tgb (guest, #745) [Link]
True, but it's also trivial to change the IMEI number (the unique serial number) as I understand it. In the UK most independent mobile phone shops offer "unlocking" services and from a discussion I had with such a shop owner a few years ago, the cables and software they use allows them to change pretty much anything on the phone.
If someone wanted to protect themselves to the point of buying prepaid sim cards regularly, they could replace their mobile, e.g. via ebay, regularly too (it's just an example, I can see that given enough transactions then purchases could be linked together too...).