[UA] Our modern mobile world

[Doug Stalker]

I'll add in some stuff from Australia that may not be relevant
elsewhere:


Liam Routt wrote:


> 
> 2. What sort of info about the calling party does a mobile phone have?
>      a) their number? any additional identifier?

Here you get their phone number if you pay teh $2 extra for caller id. 
(This is available on land-lines as well, using a caller-id unit that
sits between the phone and the wall socket)
However the other party can hind their number - either by dialling a
short number or turning it off in their mobile phone options. 

>      b) their location? even in general terms (USA, France, or Alabama?)
No, but you might get it from looking at the phone number.  Not sure if
caller id works with international calls.

>      c) what about for calls that are not answered?
Most will display missed call: and the number (if available from caller
id)


> 6. Ceasing service. How easy is it to cut off a mobile user through the
>    service provider (ie. authorities tell the company to stop A from
>    making any calls)?

Technically, it's very easy to flag a phone as stolen and block it.  In
Australia it's very hard to get done though, because if the provider
doesn' block it they can still get income from the stolen handset. (At
least thats my rather-cynical view of why it's so hard to get them
blocked)

There's talk here of implementing a national database containing a huge
list of stolen phone IDs (every GSM phone has a unique serial number
imbedded in it) but I'm not sure if it's being done.


> Anything else I should know? :)

If I was going to do something on a mobile I really didn't want tracked
I'd but a pre-paid phone kit, which doesn't require ID to get, use it
once and throw it away.  Then they know which phone teh call came from,
but the best they can do is track it back to the selling store and get a
description of you from the salesman.

 - Doug


-- 
_____________________________________________________________
  Network Operations Engineer - Big Pond Advance Satellite
 Ericsson Australia - Level 5, 184 The Broadway, Sydney 2000
  Ph: +61-416-085-390   Email: doug at satellite.bigpond.com

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