IMEI Hack

[airphotos]

As many of you know, Motorola has utilities for changing the IMEI. I currently have a tracfone prepaid service where the account is locked to the IMEI of the piece of ghetto **** phone from tracfone. I'm wondering if I change the IMEI of say a V3, to the IMEI of my current phone, will I be able to use the tracfone service with the V3? Or does tracfone use some other security function than just locking the account's IMEI?

[airphotos]

Anyone tried this before? Or am I the first one who is going to try this and see if it works?

[luzer]

IMEI has nothing to do with Tracfone service, they use a custom made firmware which isn't available for the V3 ...

[biochemistali]

Originally Posted by luzer

IMEI has nothing to do with Tracfone service, they use a custom made firmware which isn't available for the V3 ...

which og the following boxes is the best one for chaning imei
1.mss4
2.smart clip.
3.ultimate box.


please luzer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[airphotos]

Originally Posted by luzer

IMEI has nothing to do with Tracfone service, they use a custom made firmware which isn't available for the V3 ...

No... it isn't about the firmware. The way Tracfone works is that it locks your account to a certain IMEI, the IMEI of the phone you first signed out with (the POS one provided by Tracfone). I tried putting my Tracfone SIM into a friend's V3, and it started fine, even displayed the correct number, so the SIM would deffinetly work in a V3. The problem is that Tracfone locks your account to the IMEI of your Tracfone phone, and if you try to connect with another IMEI, it doesn't connect to the network. Motorola has a utility for changing the IMEI, so my question is that if anyone had tried changing the IMEI of their phone to work with Tracfone, so you don't have to use Tracfone's POS phone. I'm guessing that this IMEI lock is all that Tracfone uses to make sure you don't use something that isn't one of their phones on the network, and as I said, hacking it with the Motorola app would make it possible for me to use a V3. So I was just wondering if anyone had tried it and gotten this to work, or if Tracfone uses something else besides the IMEI lock to decide which phones can or can't be used on thier network? Looks like nobody has thought about this before though.

[cingularv551]

tracfone does indeed use the cingular gsm network in much of it's coverage area. and their phones do have sim cards that will physically fit into other gsm handsets.

however, you need the tracfone firmware installed on the phone to read a tracfone sim card. a generic gsm handset will not work on their network unless the tracfone firmware is loaded onto it first. and as the other poster mentioned, tracfone firmware is only avaliable for low end entry level handsets such as the c139, c261, nokia 1100, etc.

if you want to use a razr, you'll have to change providers to get it to work. cingular has their own cingular branded prepaid system that doen't require a long term contract or any credit check. there are also various resellers of cingular service such as xe mobile and cool.prepaid that will allow you to any 850/1900 gsm handset on their network.

and as for the imei, the data is stored in the pds area of the phone and on bootup this is compared against the imei stored in the otp chip on the main board. if the two areas do not match, the phone will refuse to start. if you're fluent in assembly language, perhaps you could patch the firmware to ignore the data in the otp area and read it from the pds instead. the pds has a digital checksum on it, but there are already tools avliable that will calculate this for you.

[airphotos]

Originally Posted by cingularv551

tracfone does indeed use the cingular gsm network in much of it's coverage area. and their phones do have sim cards that will physically fit into other gsm handsets.

however, you need the tracfone firmware installed on the phone to read a tracfone sim card. a generic gsm handset will not work on their network unless the tracfone firmware is loaded onto it first. and as the other poster mentioned, tracfone firmware is only avaliable for low end entry level handsets such as the c139, c261, nokia 1100, etc.

if you want to use a razr, you'll have to change providers to get it to work. cingular has their own cingular branded prepaid system that doen't require a long term contract or any credit check. there are also various resellers of cingular service such as xe mobile and cool.prepaid that will allow you to any 850/1900 gsm handset on their network.

and as for the imei, the data is stored in the pds area of the phone and on bootup this is compared against the imei stored in the otp chip on the main board. if the two areas do not match, the phone will refuse to start. if you're fluent in assembly language, perhaps you could patch the firmware to ignore the data in the otp area and read it from the pds instead. the pds has a digital checksum on it, but there are already tools avliable that will calculate this for you.

What do you mean by it needs tracfone firmware installed on it to read a tracfone sim card. I already tried putting the card in my friend's V3, and it booted up fine and even displayed my tracfone number on the display. This is an ulocked and uncrippled cingular phone (The phone I would be getting would be an OEM not associated with any carrier, so it would be the same basically without the Cingular logos). That means something's going right. The problem comes with the phone actually connecting to the network. It searches for a the network, but doesn't "find" it. What I was saying was just change the IMEI of the V3 (using an app called SmartMoto that does it), to be the same as the IMEI of my Tracfone hand set, then both numbers will match, when the IMEI's are checked against each other, and the phone should connect to the network.

From what you say, it seems as though the IMEI checking is the only security the prevents you from using your own handsets on tracphones network, so if I get the IMEI's to match, this should work then. The unlocked and uncrippled phone that I inserted the SIM into booted just fine, so the only issue was just the IMEI checking, which apparently is defeatable by just changing the IMEI of the V3 to be the same as the IMEI of the Tracfone handset.

[cingularv551]

the data on a tracfone sim card is stored differently than on a regular gsm sim card. you need the tracfone firmware installed to register on the network using a tracfone sim card

using generic moto gsm firmware with a tracfone sim will result in the phone displaying "unregistered sim" and you being unable to make phonecalls

[m4f1050]

Ok, so lets say I have a V3 I can change it's IMEI but I have to make both chips have the same IMEI correct? I have a cingular (unlocked) V3 and I can use my T sim on it... What if I put my T's IMEI on the V3 what benefit do I get from that?

[hitibiti]

Originally Posted by m4f1050

Ok, so lets say I have a V3 I can change it's IMEI but I have to make both chips have the same IMEI correct? I have a cingular (unlocked) V3 and I can use my T sim on it... What if I put my T's IMEI on the V3 what benefit do I get from that?

man are serious !! post since 2007 and we are 2015 !!!