The days of mobile are numbered!

Come June 30, 2009 will be the last day of using a phone with a phony IMEI No. With that the usability of the phone will also cease to exist. According to the technology calendar, year 2008 was the year of security lapse! A person could easily get a SIM card from a local retail outlet with a little cost of Rs. 15/- for a SIM and start using the phone in matter of few hours. No verification done! Pre or Post. That gave the Nov 26 attackers an added advantage. Simply with a fake ID cards, you have a fully functional cell phone with you. It seems, our country is keen on learning any lesson hard way. After the attacks, the national cellular operators have taken up the task of customer authenticity/ verification. The solution is not that simple. There are many people living in the city who come from remote villages. They buy prepaid cards as they are very convenient. No hassles of bills! Most of them live as tenants, or share a room with other colleagues. How shall such verification be done? The attackers take the advantage of this loop hole to plan attack. Phone Operators now-a-days do call and verify the details. But is it fool-proof? There are no physical verification of address except in case of MTNL Mumbai. The problem does not end here. With the flood of China made phones at utterly cheap rates, it is attracting the price conscious customers like a house flies to the sweets (or shit). But the bug here is, most china made phones have an illegal IMEI no. IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity No.) is a unique 15-digit code implanted in handsets when they are manufactured. It help security agencies track terror suspects and for locating the missing ones! Keeping national security in mind, DoT Dept of Telecommunications, in October 08 asked operators to discontinue the services to handsets that do not have IMEI no. or having a fake number. But the so called last date has been postponed three times and June 30, 2009 is finally decided to be the D-day. You can check the IMEI no. by typing *#06# from your handset keypad. To verify if the number is genuine, Just type a SMS "IMEI" (w/o quotes) followed by a space followed by 15 digit IMEI number and send it to 53232. You will get the SMS describing the legality of handset! Now what if the IMEI number is fake? Soon there will be 1600 Genuine IMEI Implant centers that will be opened across Indian cities. All you will need to do is carry a valid ID card, driving license or voter's card to such center and with Rs. 180/- plus tax and 30 minutes of time the IMEI number will be changed to a valid, legal, no-issues number. Check the number before the days of mobile get numbered! O.A.K.