Pinephone IMEI changing info: do you think its OK for a Wiki?

[wibble]

It doesn't really matter what you or I think as we're not the ones potentially exposed to risk by publication. If you're sure it's legal then publish the information yourself. If Pine don't want to risk it I'm not going to fault them for it.

[Zebulon Walton]

How can you be certain you are not changing your IMEI to someone elses IMEI number when you change yours  ?
AND
Using someone else's IMEI number is definitely illegal !

Very simple, at least in my case. AT&T sent me a new flip phone to replace the old one that they deactivated. If I need to change my Pinephone's IMEI I would simply use the one from the new flip phone. (I know someone else is not using it because it is sitting in its box in the bottom of a drawer with the battery removed.)

[zetabeta]

i decided to vote re-wording.

there should big warnings about possible legal problems, even you owned the code. even with allowed jurisdictions, it still could be used for illegal purposes, like interference and using other codes.

also, command is undocumented, thus not officially supported. this may not mean legal issues but other issues. device manufacturer may not like using these commands.

[biketool]

The information is not illegal, but a warning is warranted that it may be illegal and users should seek legal advice as well as warning about voided warranties etc.
Cover it with warnings and then allow to be published.
warnings
1- only using the IMEI of a device you own
2- it may be illegal in your jurisdiction
3- it might cause your phone to be disabled and permanently removed from the network(heh, then IMEI hack it again!)
4- what else??

since we are warning people
5- no murder
6- no stealing
7- no comitting crimes /s
etc

This is a powerful tool but most pinephone users are, almost have to be, the top few .01% of users and almost already have to understand what the IMEI change does.
Let's not pretend that pine64 stuff is consumer electronics, this is hard bleeding edge hacker toys, just publish it already.
override the ban

[lot378]

No, there is never any legal reason or necessity to change the IMEI number on any cell phone or the PinePhone. However, the basis of simply having the knowledge of how to change the IMEI on the PinePhone is fine for education/research and it certainly can be documented in the Wiki. Anyone who has worked on the Quectel modem code has discovered this information anyway, the same way Megi did. There is an edge case of restoring the original IMEI number to the phone, for whatever reason the modem lost the original number.

[bcnaz]

Part of that number tells the carrier the modem information, so they know how to handle your signal.

But if your new number happens to match a different brand that could cause the modem to not function properly...

hit or miss, it may work ?

[tllim]

Perhaps ask Luke or TLLim  ?

Good idea! Now I will share a link to this thread to them in a PM and ask their opinion

I don't think we should posting IMEI changing info at wiki site. This possible can get the PinePhone project into unnecessary legal issue.

[mikeb]

I don't think we should posting IMEI changing info at wiki site. This possible can get the PinePhone project into unnecessary legal issue.

Has anybody got a legal issue or DMCA request for openly providing such a (not-classified no-NDA) technical information?

+ I think the Wiki platform (of the PinePhone project in this case) cannot be held responsible for the submissions of 3rd party users like me, otherwise a Wikipedia would have been shut down long ago. Or, if I post the illegal/top-secret info on Facebook, it's me who will get a legal issue and not Facebook

---

It doesn't really matter what you or I think as we're not the ones potentially exposed to risk by publication. If you're sure it's legal then publish the information yourself.

Well I published it by myself: although on a Pine's platform - a platform is not responsible for the user activities (see my post above). So it'd be me who would get into trouble if any.

Our opinion matters since:
1) it could be based on some research: i.e. I checked and saw no law forbidding such info at the countries where the Pine resources are hosted
2) it affects the outcome of our dispute, since - in the really unlikely event if we get an external DMCA request - it's the community who polices itself.

Currently 11 people voted in favor of this releasing info, and there's 1:1 regarding the moderators (evilbunny:tllim)

---

There is an edge case of restoring the original IMEI number to the phone, for whatever reason the modem lost the original number.

Great idea! If this info wouldn't pass as the IMEI changing instruction, it could still be re-worded & preserved as IMEI restoring one - of course with a big warning "NOT to use the IMEIs other than what's written on your modem, doing so may get you a legal issue". Indeed: once I've personally encountered a case where a botched firmware upgrade on an Android phone turned its IMEI into all zeroes and then it couldn't call anymore until I restored it. So there's at least one perfectly legit use-case

[wibble]

We're not talking about a copyright issue, so nobody will be getting DMCA takedown requests over this. The only reason the DMCA is relevant (in my not-a-lawyer opinion) is that it exempts service providers from liability for content posted by 3rd parties under certain circumstances. Even that only applies in a US court, although Europe has a similar provision. Other jurisdictions disagree, and have taken action against much larger companies for user provided content. Wikipedia is a poor example - they have relatively deep pockets and influential friends, and even that didn't stop them getting blocked for a while in the UK (domain blocked as a provider of child porn due to a Scorpions album cover.)

[AwHereWeGoAgain]

Im not entirely educated on the matter however I personally can see a benefit for this info being available.  Having many old bricked android smart phones at my disposal (I collect them for experiments) I would have a decent collection of legitimate IMEI's that should not interfere or cause trouble with pinephone since they dont boot anymore.  Additionally, I have most of the sim cards and phone numbers of these phones so I could easily contact the carriers and reactivate the sim card avoiding aforementioned issue involving multiple phones with differing numbers ETC.  Why would I want to do this?  Many carriers as we know do not officially support pinephone and we have to go through some roundabout methods to get our pine phones activated.  For example, the most common issue is that many people must first activate their sim in an android device, then place their sim in the pinephone.  We have also seen several carriers who are obviously against the idea of using a custom linux device on their network use measures to stop the previously working pinephone from connecting to their network any longer.  Two examples I could use is Straight Talk and Visible.  Straight talk worked for several hours without issue after activating their card in an android then placing it in the pinephone.  After that I got a audio message when trying to place calls to place the sim card back in the original device to restore service.  (It is very likely that the different IMEI's played part in this)  I suspect Visible  also uses similar tactics to keep unwanted phones off the network although I have not been able to prove it.  With something like this, I could easily test that by using the IMEI of one of my old bricked Visible phones and placing the sim in the pinephone and seeing if it worked.
Anyway, just food for thought. I personally think that this information should be available.  Yes, the legal issues should be mentioned and a list of do nots should be posted so someone doesn't unknowingly do something illegal.  As for others who could use this knowledge for evil, true there are always those people out there but should that stop us from knowing?