Technique

Phone cloning involves placing a computer chip into the target mobile telephone, allowing the electronic serial number

Electronic Serial Number

Electronic serial numbers were created by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to uniquely identify mobile devices, from the days of AMPS in the United States from the early 1980s. The administrative role was taken over by the Telecommunications Industry Association in 1997 and is still...

 (ESN) 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

Mobile Identification Number

Mobile identification number refers to the 10-digit unique number that a Wireless carrier uses to identify a mobile phone. A MIN is a number that uniquely identifies a mobile working under TIA standards for cellular and PCS technologies. Mobile identification number (or MIN) refers to the 10-digit...

, 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 code division multiple access (CDMA) but rare on the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), one of the more widely used mobile telephone communication systems. However, cloning GSM phones is achieved by cloning the SIM card contained within, not necessarily any of the phone's internal data (GSM phones do not have ESN or MIN, only an IMEI number.) There are various methods used to obtain the ESN and MIN; the most common are to crack the cellular company, or eavesdrop on the cellular network.

Effectiveness and legislation

Phone cloning is outlawed in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 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.

The effectiveness of phone cloning is limited. Every mobile phone contains a radio fingerprint

Radio fingerprinting

Radio fingerprinting is a process that identifies a cellular phone or any other radio transmitter by the unique "fingerprint" that characterizes its signal transmission. An electronic fingerprint makes it possible to identify a wireless device by its unique radio transmission characteristics. Radio...

 in its transmission signal which remains unique to that mobile despite changes to the phone's 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.

See also

• Subscriber Identity Module
  Subscriber Identity Module
  A subscriber identity module or subscriber identification module is an integrated circuit that securely stores the International Mobile Subscriber Identity and the related key used to identify and authenticate subscriber on mobile telephony devices .A SIM is held on a removable SIM card, which...
  
  
• Dual SIM
  Dual SIM
  A dual SIM mobile phone is one which holds two SIM cards. Initially, dual-SIM adapters were made available to use in regular mobile phones to allow them to contain two SIMs, and to switch from one to the other as required. This combination is called a standby dual-SIM phone. The first Dual SIM...
  
  
• International Mobile Equipment Identity
  International Mobile Equipment Identity
  The International Mobile Equipment Identity or IMEI is a number, usually unique, to identify GSM, WCDMA, and iDEN mobile phones, as well as some satellite phones. It is usually found printed inside the battery compartment of the phone...
  
  
• Sim Cloning