kevin@snoid.cray.com (Kevin Bluml) (02/07/91)
A 'what if' question: As a new cellular user the thought comes to mind: What if my phone is stolen? I know I'm to contact the company ASAP to get my number disabled, but can the phone still be used some other way? What I'm wondering I guess, is cellular theft a problem, or are they almost unusable once stolen due to the systems in place to check (ESN, others?). My guess is that's a dream world, and anybody with a soldering iron and a friend can bypass that stuff, but I'm not sure. Thanks, Kevin V. Bluml - Cray Research Inc. 612-683-3036 USmail - 655E - Lone Oak Drive, Eagan, MN 55121 Internet - kevin@cray.com UUCP - uunet!cray!kevin [Moderator's Note: When your ESN goes on the inter-company negative listing, that should end the problem. As you point out, some people can change the ESN, but it is not a trivial matter for most folks with the phones manufactured in the last couple of years. The phone's worth to a buyer of hot merchandise goes down quite a bit when it cannot be immediatly used as is, and most with disabled ESN's can't be. But cellular phreaks all know that every cellular carrier has certain phone numbers on their switch which for one reason or another are flagged to *ignore* or not check the ESN. Why? Well, consider a Radio Shack dealer with dozens of cell phones for sale and a single cellular phone line given to him for free by the carrier to use in demonstrating his products: how could he take a phone off the shelf, put a battery in and let a prospective customer test it out if he had to have a phone line to cover every ESN in the place? All the cellular companies give free demo phone lines to their dealers. Program *your* phone to one of those numbers and you'll make free calls too, without regard to your ESN. The cellular carriers also keep several phones around the office; in customer service; for use by their technicians at work, etc. They want to be able to grab a phone (from several laying around all on the same phone number) and use it ... again that being the case you can't very well check the ESN, can you? Then there are the lines used for temporary assignment to roamers. ESN's aren't checked on those lines either. PAT]