Mobile Phone: Crime, Theft and ‘Location Data’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,889292,00.html
Nicked and useless
Police are clamping down on attempts to reprogramme mobiles, but with most stolen phones heading overseas, a global approach is necessary, writes S A Mathieson Thursday February 6, 2003. The Guardian
At midday on Wednesday last week, more than 30 police officers raided the Matrix mobile phone shop on Alum Rock Road in Birmingham. About 10 officers entered the shop, followed by two experts from mobile network Orange.
The officers found one mobile plugged into a computer running software capable of reprogramming the handset. Under the Mobile Telephones (Re-programming) Act, passed in October, altering a phone’s serial number can lead to five years in prison and an unlimited fine. The West Midlands force believes this is the first significant action under the new law.
By checking mobiles’ 15-digit serial numbers – also known as international mobile equipment identifiers (IMEI) – over the phone with staff at T-Mobile, police found three handsets reported stolen. They seized mobiles, laptop computers, software and other electrical equipment for forensic IT examination.
Two men were arrested on suspicion of theft, handling stolen property and reprogramming mobile telephones. They were later released on bail, to reappear before police in a few weeks. Officers had been visiting mobile retailers across the West Midlands, warning them of the law banning IMEI changes.
“There aren’t that many places that reprogramme them (mobiles), and they have to be widely known to make money,” says Inspector Steve Rees. That makes them difficult to hide. The new law was passed to support the central equipment identity register, which opened on November 1 and holds all the IMEIs of stolen and lost phones in the UK.
It was used by the West Midlands officers to check which mobiles were reported stolen. Previously, such a phone could be barred by only three operators, and only on that network. By changing the removable subscriber identity module (Sim) chip, the handset could easily be used on one of the others. But now, a phone reported stolen or lost to one network will not work within 24 hours on any.
The aim is to make stealing mobile phones, which the Home Office says are involved in 28% of robberies, a nearly pointless crime. Handset manufacturers agreed in 2001 to introduce phones with hard-wired IMEIs, but it will take time before everyone has one. Existing phones hold the IMEI on a rewritable Eprom chip, hence the new law. But there’s a problem.
“We don’t believe that people know that network providers are able to stun a mobile phone and make it useless,” says Detective Chief Inspector David Walker of the West Midlands police.
He adds that street crime in the force’s area fell 23% between April and January, but that it can fall further – if the message gets across. So next month, the industry is funding a £2 million advertising campaign called Immobilise. Possible slogans include “If it’s nicked, it’s knackered.”
“We’ve got the most powerful anti-crime mechanism you can imagine,” says Joe Garner, marketing director for mobile phone retailer The Link, who is helping set up the campaign.
“The under-30s are our target audience,” says Jack Wraith, executive secretary for the mobile industry crime action forum (Micaf). Teenagers are disproportionately the victims of mobile phone theft, he explains, and under-30s are more likely to forget their phone in a pub, club or restaurant. Publicity should help. The Metropolitan police publicised the database in London late last year, and “there has been some impact” on the number of thefts, says Detective Superintendent Steve Gwilliam. But why has it taken so long for a central blacklist to appear? Two of the networks, Orange and T-Mobile (as well as Virgin Mobile, which uses T-Mobile’s infrastructure), have been blocking phones through IMEI numbers since they opened in 1994.
The other two, Vodafone and O2 (formerly BT Cellnet), had no blocking system – to the annoyance of other networks. “Until BT Cellnet and Vodafone see fit to upgrade their systems, the solution to the increasing problem of mobile phone theft will remain largely unsolved,” said Virgin’s Richard Branson in January last year. “Vodafone got a kick up the pants,” says David Nunn, editor of Mobile magazine, which is involved in the Immobilise campaign.
However, “its attitude over the past nine to 12 months has been excellent. It was the first to come aboard the Immobilise initiative.”
“It was partly to do with subtle differences in the technology,” says John Cross, head of corporate security for O2 UK. “These gave Orange and One2One [now T-Mobile] additional functionality that we didn’t have.”
Cross adds that the IMEI tracking was for business reasons. Vodafone and BT Cellnet had many handsets connected by third-party airtime resellers, whereas Orange and One2One sold directly, using the IMEI to ensure only their phones were used on their networks.
“It was as much about controlling the handsets connected to their network, than anything to do with theft,” says Cross. The networks now stress they are working together. The blacklist only works within the UK. Jack Wraith, from Micaf, says that industry executives met representatives of European countries late last year at the Home Office, and discussed expanding the database to other countries.
O2’s John Cross says the Dublin-based GSM Association, an international club for network operators, was chosen to run the blacklist so other countries’ networks could join easily. He adds that O2 is looking at bringing in its other networks in Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Netherlands and Germany. But this will take time. UK-based Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile operator, with networks in 28 countries, says it has no schedule for getting its foreign networks to use the Dublin database, although its Australian subsidiary started IMEI blocking on December 31.
“We’re looking at putting together a global register, and we’re certainly looking at implementing this in other countries,” says spokeswoman Libby Pritchard. “However, we have more of a problem here than in other countries.”
But this could undermine the UK blacklist. O2 tried to track several hundred lost phones through their IMEI, and found that 80% were not on any UK network, although some may have been thrown away. A problem is that the biggest markets for stolen phones are thought to be in eastern Europe and China.
“The places where a stolen phone is most likely to end up are the most unlikely to get involved in this scheme,” says Joe Garner from The Link. However, the industry and police hope that the UK-only scheme will at least hit opportunistic and small-scale robbers, who commit most street crime.
When a phone is reported stolen, it is not always switched off by the network: instead, it can be greylisted. It continues to work normally – although calls are not charged to the customer’s account – but the network tracks the location of the user.
“If the police are particularly interested in gathering intelligence, then we do something that ensures the phone isn’t immediately barred. We don’t do anything that impacts on the loser [of the phone] ,” says John Cross, at O2.
Location data is a contentious part of the infor mation generated by a mobile. The base stations used to make calls are held by networks for at least six months, but are not available in an intelligible form to customers, as I found when requesting such data from Orange under data protection law (see “You can ring, but you can’t hide” – Guardian 29 Nov 2001).
The same happened when Nottingham photographer Alan Lodge asked O2 for his location information. However, police, spies and other state investigators can obtain this data when investigating crime. Mobile phone base stations have a range of up to 22 miles, but this can fall to a few hundred feet in cities where stations are close together.
A process called triangulation can provide much greater accuracy. Imagine drawing circles representing distances, obtained through measuring the time delays in radio signals, around the location of at least three base stations. If the distances are accurate – and they can be thrown out by nearby tall objects – the circles should intersect. “The picture I’ve had is that triangulation is something companies can turn on when they need it,” says Richard Cox, a forensic telecoms engineer and court expert witness.
“I believe it’s a feature the government expects the companies to be able to activate on a per case basis.”
Cox says that he has been involved in cases where triangulation has been used. Rather than just being recorded when a call is made or received, this data can be gathered constantly. He is surprised that tracking is not used more often.
“If someone steals a phone and it’s blacklisted, he will bin it and steal another, possibly injuring someone. If it’s greylisted, he will think it works, but then there’s a knock on the door.”
“The technique is there, but I don’t believe it’s considered resource-effective,” replies Micaf’s Jack Wraith of tracking through triangulation. He adds that it can be used for more serious crimes, but has risks. “It sounds like a good way of doing it, but we would only have to kick the wrong door down_ The technology can’t say it’s in flat 45a on the third floor.”
Marked
· If your phone is lost or stolen, contact your network immediately. It will be barred within the UK.
· Mark your handset with ultraviolet ink: the police can trace you through just your house number and postcode.
· The IMEI serial number can help trace a phone. You can find it by typing *#06# into most handsets, or by looking behind the battery.
· If offered a working second-hand phone, bear in mind that blocking takes up to 24 hours, but changing the Sim, or an unblocking code, will not help.
· Don’t use your phone in crowded areas, or where you feel unsafe.
Comments to online.feedback@guardian.co.uk
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This is the article that set me off on some of this ……
You can ring, but you can’t hide Thursday November 29, 2001. The Guardian
Our mobile phones track every move we make, but we’re entitled to see their logs. S A Mathieson went on a lengthy search for his
Tracked: the call record. More than half the population of this country carries a tracking device. Its records can be accessed by police officers, intelligence authorities, customs officials and Inland Revenue inspectors. Crimes, unpaid taxes or government dues can be investigated using this information. The data is held for several months: in some cases, for several years.
We carry these devices voluntarily. They are called mobile phones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,608434,00.html
SA Mathieson`s webpage: http://www.samathieson.com
His Article Portfolio: http://www.samathieson.fsnet.co.uk/SAMathieson/portfolio.htm
previous blog entries …. the story of trying to get this data, so far
‘Location Data’ associated with the use of a mobile phone
http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_14_tash_lodge_archive.html#79031925
