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

[mikeb]

Dear friends, recently I have submitted the IMEI changing info to the PinePhone Wiki - see below! Unfortunately, we are having a disagreement with another Wiki contributor who has reverted my edits without having a prior discussion. My point of view:

Unfortunately, I noticed that "IMEI check and change" has been reverted for the reason "Illegal wiki contents removed". Please tell, "illegal" - in what country? I.e. PINE64 is a Hong Kong company, while a Pine64 wiki website is hosted in Slovakia, - and I can't any info that changing IMEI in either Hong Kong or Slovakia is illegal, or at least posting the "how-to" information about this. And what isn't forbidden - is allowed. For the majority of countries (not taking some totalitarian ones into account), changing IMEI is as legal as changing the MAC address which has been allowed to stay.

Since a "pinephone change imei" seems to be a popular Google request - it's even more popular than "pinephone change os"! - I'd like to preserve this information for the public usage. If, to be able to do that, I need to re-word/extend the warning about the possible legal issues (something like "please check the laws of your country before doing that") - please let me know.

At the same time I understand this advanced information is probably not suitable for the main PinePhone page. Please tell what's the more appropriate place in your opinion - PineModems, PinePhone_Software_Tweaks or PinePhone_FAQ#Modem ?

However, I didn't hear any valid reasoning in response: the only reply I got in regards to this - is:

Please don't re-add information regarding the IMEI on the wiki.

Personally I believe that information should be free - and, if someone would like to change IMEI of his PinePhone for privacy reasons, it's better if he/she learns this info from a trusted place such as PinePhone Wiki and with a warning accompanying this message. And you - do you believe that this information is OK for a Wiki?

== AT commands ==

A list of documented AT commands can be found in the document-link-here from Quectel. In example, to show the current IMEI number:

Code:

sudo su
atinout - /dev/EG25.AT out.txt << EOF
> AT+EGMR=0,7
> EOF
cat ./out.txt # to see the IMEI

Also, there are certain undocumented AT commands. In example, to change the PinePhone IMEI number to a valid newIMEI one:

Code:

sudo su
atinout - /dev/EG25.AT out.txt << EOF
> AT+EGMR=1,7,"newIMEI"
> EOF
cat ./out.txt # should output OK

Then use AT+EGMR=0,7 to see if IMEI has been changed successfully, - and, to see that IMEI change is persistent: shutdown a phone, remove a battery, press a power button to discharge the motherboard, put a battery back, turn on the phone and run AT+EGMR=0,7 again.

Such a command has to be approached with caution: although in the majority of countries changing IMEI by itself is not illegal (or at least not prosecuted unless you are doing something malicious using this capability), still a cellphone service provider may ban your IMEI and/or phone number if it sees two cellphones with the same IMEI being used simultaneously. So it should be done with common sense: in example, if you don't want your cellphone service provider (or the governmental/commercial entities it could be supplying with information) to know that you have replaced your old phone, you could change the IMEI of your PinePhone to be identical to your old phone's, just avoid using them simultaneously or at least don't connect them to the same provider.

Further undocumented AT commands found by the developer megi, who reverse-engineered parts of the modem and its firmware, can be found on megi's website here.