Phone cloning

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Phone cloning is the transfer of identity between one mobile telephone and another, generally for the purpose of making fraudulent calls, the bill for which would be sent to the victim as opposed to the perpetrator.

[edit] Technique

Phone cloning involves placing a computer chip into the target mobile telephone, allowing the Electronic Serial Number of the mobile phone to be modified. The ESN is normally transmitted to the cellular company in order to ascertain whether the mobile phone user is the legitimate owner of that phone. Modifying this, as well as the phone number itself (known as the Mobile Identification Number, or MIN) paves the way for fraudulent calls, as the target telephone is now a clone of the telephone from which the original ESN and MIN numbers were obtained.

Cloning has been shown to be successful on the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), one of the more widely used mobile telephone communication systems^[1]. There are various methods used to obtain ESN and MIN, the most common are to hack the cellular company, or 'sniff' the cellular network.

[edit] Effectiveness and legislation

Phone cloning is outlawed by the Wireless Telephone Protection Act of 1998, which prohibits:

knowingly using, producing, trafficking in, having control or custody of, or possessing hardware or software knowing that it has been configured to insert or modify telecommunication identifying information associated with or contained in a telecommunications instrument so that such instrument may be used to obtain telecommunications service without authorization.^[2]

The effectiveness of phone cloning is limited. Every mobile phone contains a radio fingerprint in its transmission signal which remains unique to that mobile despite changes to the phones ESN or MIN. Thus, cellular companies are often able to catch cloned phones when there are discrepancies between the fingerprint and the ESN or MIN.

[edit] Notes