10 ms·

The 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 tra

The 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.

kevincox 3y ago
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.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  And while we're at it, how come if I have a phone without a sim I can't at least navigate to a carrier webpage to buy an esim? The phone could pop up a menu saying "Here are the available networks", and you pick one, connect and it says "Welcome to AT&T, enter credit card number here", and you type a number and hit OK and you're connected. Oh wait - just like Wifi!! Why are mobile networks so far behind?
  - btgeekboy 3y ago
    Kinda like this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_SIM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_SIM
- kbolino 3y ago
  How would a networking stack with no hardware addresses even work? The next hop needs a way to reach back to you, before you can negotiate anything fancy like passwords or certificates. Even IPv6 SLAAC starts with a hardware address.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    rand()?
    - kbolino 3y ago
      A MAC address is 48 bits and an IMEI is about the same entropy-wise. That's not nearly enough room to avoid duplicates (even SLAAC requires duplicate address detection, and IPv6 has a lot more bits to work with). You'd need a whole new layer 2 protocol, though to be fair you might be able to strip it down to just doing collision detection/avoidance and leave addressing up to layer 3 with IPv6, but that's not going to be any kind of backwards compatible or interoperable.
      - boznz 3y ago
        Surely the uniqueness is only required at the bottom end of the stack before the first 'router' ie the cell tower
        baby_souffle 3y ago
        > Surely the uniqueness is only required at the bottom end of the stack before the first 'router' ie the cell tower Not if you need to send a message to $thatUniquePhone. Over simplifying considerably, but if a land line places a call to a mobile, the "220-1234 calling for 220-7890" message enters the network. The `220-7890` phone number needs to map to the unique modem address so you can look up which tower the call setup data should be sent to. If - by sheer coincidence - I also have your MAC address and am attached to a tower 3 states away... which tower(s) do you forward the call setup data to?!
        vdqtp3 3y ago
        > which tower(s) do you forward the call setup data Whichever one has most recently communicated with the user in question (based on the credentials or certificate provided, in the original example)
        3y ago
- ixwt 3y ago
  > And while we are at it stop tunneling my data back "home" when I travel. Oddly enough, I found this to be a plus when I traveled to China for work. My data was unmolested by the Great Firewall of China. I was able to get on websites with my mobile data that I couldn't when using wifi in the hotels.
- techsupporter 3y ago
  > And while we are at it stop tunneling my data back "home" when I travel. I don't want increased latency. You might not, but a whole lot of customers who aren't as technically sophisticated did. When T-Mobile first started doing included international data roaming, they didn't tunnel back. That caused a lot of confusion from customers who didn't realize why stuff they expected to work, like checking their bank balance, didn't. (It also made throttling speeds a lot more difficult.) So to fix that, T-Mobile tunnels you back to a few endpoints in the States. Banking apps are generally happy, as are Netflix and Spotify. Most customers are happy because their phone "just works" the same as it "always has". For those of us who want to avoid the latency, we get a local SIM for data (if possible).
  - hunter2_ 3y ago
    This is interesting. I use Verizon Wireless from the US, and when traveling abroad on their travel pass (roaming), some large multilingual websites serve me the local language instead of English, on sites that serve me English when I'm at home. My browser (Accept-Language header) is configured for only English. I always decline location API browser popups. The only thing I can think of, assuming they tunnel as you describe, is maybe I first loaded the site from local WiFi instead of mobile data, at which point I was redirected (to a localized subdomain that doesn't redirect back) or got a cookie or something, which lingered as I continued without WiFi.
- jhoechtl 3y ago
  CB radio has you covered
gsich 3y ago
Only if you also change your SIM every day.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  As a man who currently has 13 esims in his phone...
mytailorisrich 3y ago
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] [1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/1
- toast0 3y ago
  The IMEI also allows a network operator to track a device across multiple sims. And I think it's also shared with roaming operators if roaming happens.
  - jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
    IIRC when you put a SIM into a new device for the first time, part of the tower auth includes the IMEI of the previous device you used it with also.
- NoImmatureAdHom 3y ago
  "There is no privacy concern, really..." Except for the network operator, who needs to track a SIM card not a phone, but who can track you across networks and SIM cards if he has the IMEI. There is no reason the IMEI needs to be stable. The network operator does NOT need to know who you are, even if you live in a repressive country that mandates tying ID to mobile phone lines. Get a SIM card in person and top up in cash, or use a virtual credit card, or pay in cryptocurrency for an eSIM, or get a subscription in a less oppressive country and roam. Invisv is a great suggestion.
- least 3y ago
  This is 100% a privacy concern if you're dealing with state level actors.
  - ale42 3y ago
ementally 3y ago
You can, but it is not that easy and you also need to change your IMSI. https://invisv.com/pgpp/ https://invisv.com/pgpp/ for IMSI (not available worldwide) https://github.com/srlabs/blue-merle 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/Documentation.pdf 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-network-surveillance/17880 https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/cell-towers-tracking-net...
hinkley 3y ago
I think I’m more concerned with the fact that the carriers know the IMEI of phones and claim that they can do nothing about stolen phones. That was the beginning of the end of my infatuation with the mobile space. I should have been well positioned for early retirement during the early smart phone gold rush but was just so put off by the Ma Bell feeling of the mobile industry that I had exited before most people had even entered.
- fencepost 3y ago
  I think I’m more concerned with the fact that the carriers know the IMEI of phones and claim that they can do nothing about stolen phones. Maybe once upon a time, but I'm pretty sure stolen devices can be blacklisted from networks these days.
  - nolan879 3y ago
    Carriers have been blacklisting IMEIs for at least 10+ years. Since phones tended to be carrier-locked back then you couldn't go to a new carrier without being in good standing to get your device's unlock code from the old carrier. Now that devices are available unlocked by default, it is probably harder since it would require carriers to communicate IMEIs?
    - ale42 3y ago
      Not sure, I think that there are international lists of stolen IMEIs. Maybe it's just in Europe, though.
      - wrboyce 3y ago
        ~15 years ago the blacklists were certainly shared within Europe, but there was an intercontinental trade of blacklisted phones from Europe to Africa (and, if memory serves, Asia).
    - hinkley 3y ago
      I looked it up. US Carriers were forced by the US government to start blacklisting them in the final months of 2012. They didn't do it voluntarily. Australia had been doing it since 2003. IMEIs have been around for 30 years? Everyone having a cellphone is still a relatively recent phenomenon, but according to Pew 80% of American adults had cellphones for several years already before carriers were forced to deal with stolen ones.
apienx 3y ago
SMS specifications include "Type 0" messages, also known as Silent SMS. These messages don't trigger any even on the phone when received, but they do send back an ACK that includes IMSI metadata. Silent SM, are literally defined in the RFC and primarily used to covertly track user locations without judicial oversight. GSM, SS7, etc. are massive privacy holes _by design_.
- ParanoidShroom 3y ago
  They are primarily used for configuring your visual voicemail lol. Stop the hyperbolic statements.
  - walterbell 3y ago
    Can they be disabled/blocked on the device, when not needed because the user has disabled "visual voicemail" with their carrier?
  - skyyler 3y ago
    https://www.heise.de/news/Zoll-BKA-und-Verfassungsschutz-verschickten-2010-ueber-440-000-stille-SMS-1394593.html https://www.heise.de/news/Zoll-BKA-und-Verfassungsschutz-ver... Not sure where you get your information, but these are routinely used by police to covertly track targets.
    - lmz 3y ago
      Just because they are routinely used for such does not mean it is their primary purpose.
      - skyyler 3y ago
        You’re kind of splitting hairs there, aren’t ya?
        lmz 3y ago
        No. The Internet is routinely used for porn but it is not its primary purpose.
breakfastduck 3y ago
they WANT you to be stuck with it because then they can track you no matter what
ale42 3y ago
Mobile phones are a massive privacy hole. Almost by definition. And smartphones 10 times more (or more, depends on how many apps you installed, almost all of them include some sort of trackers). IMEI is (almost) the last of my privacy problems.
lxgr 3y ago
Definitely don't let people edit it. iOS and Android don't allow picking your own MAC address for good reasons – people would inevitably pick 12:34:56, 00:00:00 etc. and cause problems for themselves and others. To increase privacy, either randomize it (but make it much longer at the same time to avoid collisions) and/or remove it from as many signalling contexts as possible and keep it as a device-local identifier only (which then probably also doesn't have to be unique across manufacturers).
hwbunny 3y ago
There were a lot of chinese made keiser phones that allows you to edit all the phone/sim related identifiers. Sadly they were discovered and rooted out of the amazon marketplace.

kevincox 3y ago

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.

londons_explore 3y ago
And while we're at it, how come if I have a phone without a sim I can't at least navigate to a carrier webpage to buy an esim? The phone could pop up a menu saying "Here are the available networks", and you pick one, connect and it says "Welcome to AT&T, enter credit card number here", and you type a number and hit OK and you're connected. Oh wait - just like Wifi!! Why are mobile networks so far behind?
- btgeekboy 3y ago
  Kinda like this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_SIM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_SIM
kbolino 3y ago
How would a networking stack with no hardware addresses even work? The next hop needs a way to reach back to you, before you can negotiate anything fancy like passwords or certificates. Even IPv6 SLAAC starts with a hardware address.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  rand()?
  - kbolino 3y ago
    A MAC address is 48 bits and an IMEI is about the same entropy-wise. That's not nearly enough room to avoid duplicates (even SLAAC requires duplicate address detection, and IPv6 has a lot more bits to work with). You'd need a whole new layer 2 protocol, though to be fair you might be able to strip it down to just doing collision detection/avoidance and leave addressing up to layer 3 with IPv6, but that's not going to be any kind of backwards compatible or interoperable.
    - boznz 3y ago
      Surely the uniqueness is only required at the bottom end of the stack before the first 'router' ie the cell tower
      - baby_souffle 3y ago
        > Surely the uniqueness is only required at the bottom end of the stack before the first 'router' ie the cell tower Not if you need to send a message to $thatUniquePhone. Over simplifying considerably, but if a land line places a call to a mobile, the "220-1234 calling for 220-7890" message enters the network. The `220-7890` phone number needs to map to the unique modem address so you can look up which tower the call setup data should be sent to. If - by sheer coincidence - I also have your MAC address and am attached to a tower 3 states away... which tower(s) do you forward the call setup data to?!
        vdqtp3 3y ago
        > which tower(s) do you forward the call setup data Whichever one has most recently communicated with the user in question (based on the credentials or certificate provided, in the original example)
        3y ago
ixwt 3y ago
> And while we are at it stop tunneling my data back "home" when I travel. Oddly enough, I found this to be a plus when I traveled to China for work. My data was unmolested by the Great Firewall of China. I was able to get on websites with my mobile data that I couldn't when using wifi in the hotels.
techsupporter 3y ago
> And while we are at it stop tunneling my data back "home" when I travel. I don't want increased latency. You might not, but a whole lot of customers who aren't as technically sophisticated did. When T-Mobile first started doing included international data roaming, they didn't tunnel back. That caused a lot of confusion from customers who didn't realize why stuff they expected to work, like checking their bank balance, didn't. (It also made throttling speeds a lot more difficult.) So to fix that, T-Mobile tunnels you back to a few endpoints in the States. Banking apps are generally happy, as are Netflix and Spotify. Most customers are happy because their phone "just works" the same as it "always has". For those of us who want to avoid the latency, we get a local SIM for data (if possible).
- hunter2_ 3y ago
  This is interesting. I use Verizon Wireless from the US, and when traveling abroad on their travel pass (roaming), some large multilingual websites serve me the local language instead of English, on sites that serve me English when I'm at home. My browser (Accept-Language header) is configured for only English. I always decline location API browser popups. The only thing I can think of, assuming they tunnel as you describe, is maybe I first loaded the site from local WiFi instead of mobile data, at which point I was redirected (to a localized subdomain that doesn't redirect back) or got a cookie or something, which lingered as I continued without WiFi.
jhoechtl 3y ago
CB radio has you covered

gsich 3y ago

Only if you also change your SIM every day.

londons_explore 3y ago
As a man who currently has 13 esims in his phone...

mytailorisrich 3y ago

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] [1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/1 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/31/section/1

toast0 3y ago
The IMEI also allows a network operator to track a device across multiple sims. And I think it's also shared with roaming operators if roaming happens.
- jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
  IIRC when you put a SIM into a new device for the first time, part of the tower auth includes the IMEI of the previous device you used it with also.
NoImmatureAdHom 3y ago
"There is no privacy concern, really..." Except for the network operator, who needs to track a SIM card not a phone, but who can track you across networks and SIM cards if he has the IMEI. There is no reason the IMEI needs to be stable. The network operator does NOT need to know who you are, even if you live in a repressive country that mandates tying ID to mobile phone lines. Get a SIM card in person and top up in cash, or use a virtual credit card, or pay in cryptocurrency for an eSIM, or get a subscription in a less oppressive country and roam. Invisv is a great suggestion.
least 3y ago
This is 100% a privacy concern if you're dealing with state level actors.
- ale42 3y ago

ementally 3y ago

You can, but it is not that easy and you also need to change your IMSI. https://invisv.com/pgpp/ https://invisv.com/pgpp/ for IMSI (not available worldwide) https://github.com/srlabs/blue-merle 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/Documentation.pdf 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-network-surveillance/17880 https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/cell-towers-tracking-net...

hinkley 3y ago

I think I’m more concerned with the fact that the carriers know the IMEI of phones and claim that they can do nothing about stolen phones. That was the beginning of the end of my infatuation with the mobile space. I should have been well positioned for early retirement during the early smart phone gold rush but was just so put off by the Ma Bell feeling of the mobile industry that I had exited before most people had even entered.

fencepost 3y ago
I think I’m more concerned with the fact that the carriers know the IMEI of phones and claim that they can do nothing about stolen phones. Maybe once upon a time, but I'm pretty sure stolen devices can be blacklisted from networks these days.
- nolan879 3y ago
  Carriers have been blacklisting IMEIs for at least 10+ years. Since phones tended to be carrier-locked back then you couldn't go to a new carrier without being in good standing to get your device's unlock code from the old carrier. Now that devices are available unlocked by default, it is probably harder since it would require carriers to communicate IMEIs?
  - ale42 3y ago
    Not sure, I think that there are international lists of stolen IMEIs. Maybe it's just in Europe, though.
    - wrboyce 3y ago
      ~15 years ago the blacklists were certainly shared within Europe, but there was an intercontinental trade of blacklisted phones from Europe to Africa (and, if memory serves, Asia).
  - hinkley 3y ago
    I looked it up. US Carriers were forced by the US government to start blacklisting them in the final months of 2012. They didn't do it voluntarily. Australia had been doing it since 2003. IMEIs have been around for 30 years? Everyone having a cellphone is still a relatively recent phenomenon, but according to Pew 80% of American adults had cellphones for several years already before carriers were forced to deal with stolen ones.

apienx 3y ago

SMS specifications include "Type 0" messages, also known as Silent SMS. These messages don't trigger any even on the phone when received, but they do send back an ACK that includes IMSI metadata. Silent SM, are literally defined in the RFC and primarily used to covertly track user locations without judicial oversight. GSM, SS7, etc. are massive privacy holes _by design_.

ParanoidShroom 3y ago
They are primarily used for configuring your visual voicemail lol. Stop the hyperbolic statements.
- walterbell 3y ago
  Can they be disabled/blocked on the device, when not needed because the user has disabled "visual voicemail" with their carrier?
- skyyler 3y ago
  https://www.heise.de/news/Zoll-BKA-und-Verfassungsschutz-verschickten-2010-ueber-440-000-stille-SMS-1394593.html https://www.heise.de/news/Zoll-BKA-und-Verfassungsschutz-ver... Not sure where you get your information, but these are routinely used by police to covertly track targets.
  - lmz 3y ago
    Just because they are routinely used for such does not mean it is their primary purpose.
    - skyyler 3y ago
      You’re kind of splitting hairs there, aren’t ya?
      - lmz 3y ago
        No. The Internet is routinely used for porn but it is not its primary purpose.

breakfastduck 3y ago

they WANT you to be stuck with it because then they can track you no matter what

ale42 3y ago

Mobile phones are a massive privacy hole. Almost by definition. And smartphones 10 times more (or more, depends on how many apps you installed, almost all of them include some sort of trackers). IMEI is (almost) the last of my privacy problems.

lxgr 3y ago

Definitely don't let people edit it. iOS and Android don't allow picking your own MAC address for good reasons – people would inevitably pick 12:34:56, 00:00:00 etc. and cause problems for themselves and others. To increase privacy, either randomize it (but make it much longer at the same time to avoid collisions) and/or remove it from as many signalling contexts as possible and keep it as a device-local identifier only (which then probably also doesn't have to be unique across manufacturers).

hwbunny 3y ago

There were a lot of chinese made keiser phones that allows you to edit all the phone/sim related identifiers. Sadly they were discovered and rooted out of the amazon marketplace.