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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Nov 5th 2001 2:16pm





Bombarding Stolen Mobile Phones With SMS Messages

from the good-plan dept

Back in March we posted an article about Dutch police sending SMS messages to stolen mobile phones to annoy the crooks and to guarantee that they couldn't resell the phones. Apparently, the plan has been working very well as thefts of mobile phones are down drastically. However, the police may have to stop doing this program, because of the costs involved with bombarding the mobile phones with messages. There's also the legal question of whether or not this is actually legal. It still seems like a great idea to me.

2 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Interesting idea but.......

    identicon
    Doogie Brodie, Nov 6th, 2001 @ 2:16pm

    ..... So I steal a phone, take the sim card out, throw it in the nearest bin, and the police/ KPN waste a lot of time and energy SMS'ing to a SIM card which will not register with the network again to pick up the messages..........!?!

    The phone can then easily be sold on to someone who could buy a SIM only deal from any phone retailer.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: Interesting idea but.......

    icon
    Mike (profile), Nov 6th, 2001 @ 2:38pm

    No, I think that was the issue. They're working with the phone company to figure out the phone numbers of the phones even with the new SIM cards. They're not just doing it based on SIM. So, that's the "labor" problem they were identifying. Figuring out what the number is of the phone.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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