UK widespread mobile Phone tapping

A member of the PSNI, an old friend, told me this week of widespread mobile tapping using the IMEI number. The numbers after the forward slash corresponds with the times of tapping..can anyone enlighten me further? Most searches explain these additions as checksum numbers..


Is mister policeman telling porkies or has he been misinformed ?

Straw poll

enter

star hash 0 6 hash

your IMEI number should visible then look for the magic number after the forward slash



let me know what your number is after the forward slash.... why?.... I'm nosey

10 of my buddies had 0

2 of my buddies had 1

I had 5

not really a big problem for me I tend to lose phones every few months, I am sure my conversations are as interesting as watching paint dry and may in fact have been about paint drying.





Lots of threads prior about IMEI and some very interesting reading

www.abovetopsecret.com...


Under The Mobile Telephones (Re-programming) Act, you can be imprisoned for up to 5 years if you try and change your IMEI.

www.opsi.gov.uk...

Re-programming mobile telephone etc.
(1) A person commits an offence if—
(a) he changes a unique device identifier, or
(b) he interferes with the operation of a unique device identifier.
(2) A unique device identifier is an electronic equipment identifier which is unique to a mobile wireless communications device.

Wiretapping of journalists using IMEI
Turkey's daily Milliyet was wiretapped, says former deputy police chief
www.hurriyetdailynews.com...

Ok im into this kind of thing alot its technology what can i say....

Anyway i dont egt what you mean by the / thing, because if you type *#06# it just shows your mobile phones IMEI, i dont see any forward slah on my IMEI, but i can say with confidence that your phone itself would not be able to track how many times its been tapped.

But none the less im still confused.

reply to post by Ibex08


hmm so no forward slash ..why have you no checksums then? I am not sure I tried to push him for more info but he wasn't giving any.. need to ply with more drink no?

haha such a british tactic, if in doubt give them alcohol, but no I have no forward slah, IMEI's are usually in this format.

ww-xxxxxx-yyyyyy-zz

w = The group number of the company that made the phone (or something along them lines)

x = an addition to the above

y = something to do with the phone model

z = Check sum or SVN (Software version number)

Usually goes along them lines.

reply to post by BANANAMONTANA


Dear BANANAMONTANA

I have way big news for you.

All phone conversation are taped all email is tapped if you use it they are listening.

Have a look at this from the NSA

en.wikipedia.org...(signals_intelligence)

It is world wide they listen to everything and have court no one through the use of it or so they say.

Now this pisses me off how about you??


[edit on 7-8-2010 by MAC269]

reply to post by MAC269


They may tap it but i doubt they can tap it all, it would not be possible to tap all phone calls and record them for later viewing as that would take up ALOT of space and the man hours needed to run this kind of operation.

Yes email is possible and most likley happening, easily scan the email as it goes through an ISP for certain keywords and if it is flagged it gets copied over.

But phone calls, that is a bit too much to be honest.

reply to post by Ibex08


Dear Ibex08

Not only do they tap everything they do it world wide using acres of computer space. This is most likely what your TAX DOLLARS are being spent on.

Believe

Something else that pisses me off is your constitution forbids this to take place in the USA. So in theory anyway if you are in the US they can not do it to you but they do it to the rest of the world.

reply to post by MAC269


Yes i know they tap, but it would and does seem impossible to tap everything, due to th shear amount of data that would create.

and for the records im from the UK, i just can not get my head around the concept that they tap everything because it just seems impossible. I know it can be done when they want it to be done, but an operation that is 24/7 and logs everything.... I dont know.

I got /9

Would seem like an odd waste of resources to tap my phone though, I literally only use it to speak to my grandmother on. There are only three people who have my number, all of whom are family members.

this is not a big surprise coming from a country that spies on its residents with closed circuit cameras. i like to think of the uk as the worlds testing grounds for oppressive technology. if it works out in the uk they usually end up shipping it over here to america.

reply to post by Ibex08


Dear Ibex08

Where in the UK do you live?? Not the exact address obviously just the area.

Anyway take a ride on the M62 past Leeds I think and you will see a hole load of what look like over grown golf balls

en.wikipedia.org...(signals_intelligence) you should get the idea on this page.

All electronic communication goes through this place that is from Europe.

Yes you are right there is not one guy listening to every conversation.

It is all based on keywords but that means keywords in every know language. If they here bomb and president or other such things then you and I mean you are flagged for investigation.

Oh yes and one more thing the prime minister would have to ask permission of the US government just to enter the place.

It is very real they are listening and have been doing so for years.

Dan Brown wrote a good book about it called Digital Fortress.

Interesting you had 9 after the slash, have you ever had cause to ring the emergency services from you phone? maybe this is the key?

These numbers can't be random data, data if held does take up space so why the extras?
The policeman who told me is a family friend and not for hair bear stories.
curious anyway..

Nope I really don't use the phone at all. I don't like having a mobile (never have) because if Im not at home I dont care whether people can get hold of me or not, but my grandmother insisted I got one so she could call me (I normally only communicate via the net - email / skype / IM etc).

reply to post by MAC269


Yes i already know about this place, but how on earth could that hose communications for the whole of europe, that is just off the scale, surely if this was happening there would be a couple of hundred of these things scattered around europe, not just one that does it all because it would be overloaded, just think how many emails, text and phone calls are done in 1 minute in europe, and your saying it all goes here first.

Sorry i just cant get my head around it.