Pubdate: Mon, 16 Apr 2001
Source: West Australian (Australia)
Copyright: 2001 West Australian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.thewest.com.au
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/495
Author: Nick Miller

PHONE SECURITY CRACKED

DRUG dealers and organised criminals are benefiting from the failure of an 
international system which was supposed to have made mobile phone theft 
pointless.

A new study has found that mobile phone theft is increasing even faster 
than the rapid increase in phone ownership.

The director of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and 
Research, Don Weatherburn, said stolen mobile phones were much sought-after 
by criminals such as drug traffickers.

As a result, the number of unarmed robberies committed to get a mobile 
phone had more than trebled in the past three years, the bureau's study found.

Mobile networks can use the unique International Mobile Equipment 
Identifier number built into every digital phone to block stolen phones 
from making or receiving calls.

But the mobile phone industry group, Australian Mobile Telecommunication 
Association, admitted last week that the identifier number system was 
useless for this purpose because technologically savvy thieves could change 
the number.
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MAP posted-by: Beth