Do you know how to clone a cell phone? Are you receiving exorbitantly high phone bill that doesnt match your mobile phone usage or somebody used you for letting them send lewd messages or for making obscene calls??? If yes then its time for you to realize that your mobile handset has been cloned.

What clone phone refers to? Cell phone cloning is a technique wherein secured data from one cell phone is transferred into another phone. The other cell phone becomes the exact replica of the original cell phone like a clone. As a result, while calls can be made from and received by both phones, only the legitimate subscriber is billed as the service provider network does not have a way to differentiate between the legitimate phone and the cloned phone. The cloner can set the options to ring his phone when you make a call and you will have no idea that the cloner is listening from his own mobile. He can read text message, phone book entries, look at pictures etc. Also he can dial phone numbers from their phone and a whole lot more. Though communication channels are equipped with security algorithms, yet cloners get away with the help of loop holes in systems. So when one gets huge bills, the chances are that the phone is being cloned. Millions of cell phones users, be it GSM or CDMA, run at risk of having their phones cloned.

Are you searching for how to clone a cell phone? Lets start, cloning is the process of taking the programmed information that is stored in a legitimate mobile phone and illegally programming the identical information into another mobile phone.The culprits clone and get access to your phone using softwares that are easily available, once the software is installed they just need the unique IMEI number of the phone and they can digitally imprint these numbers on any of the phone they want. Once this is done they can send messages, make calls to anyone and the person whose phone has been cloned will be held responsible. Weve described method toclone phone.

FOR CDMA: Cloning involved modifying or replacing the EPROM in the phone with a new chip which would allow you to configure an ESN (Electronic serial number) via software. You would also have to change the MIN (Mobile Identification Number). When you had successfully changed the ESN/MIN pair, your phone was an effective clone of the other phone. Cloning required access to ESN and MIN pairs.

FOR GSM:- 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 phones internal data. GSM phones do not have ESN or MIN, only an IMEI number. GSM SIM cards are actually copied by removing the SIM card and placing a device between the handset and the SIM card and allowing it to operate for a few days and extracting the KI, or secret code. Cloning has been successfully demonstrated under GSM, but the process is not easy and it currently remains in the realm of serious hobbyists and researchers.

FOR CDMA:- If PIN and ESN are known, a mobile phone can be cloned in seconds using some softwares like Patagonia which is used to clone CDMA phones. FOR GSM:- However, if the accused manages to also clone the IMEI number of the handset, for which softwares are available, there is no way he can be traced

Each year, the mobile phone industry loses millions of dollars in revenue because of the criminal actions of persons who are able to reconfigure mobile phones so that their calls are billed to other phones owned by innocent third persons. Many criminals use cloned cellular telephones for illegal activities, because their calls are not billed to them, and are therefore much more difficult to trace. This phenomenon is especially prevalent in drug crimes. Drug dealers need to be in constant contact with their sources of supply and their confederates on the streets. Traffickers acquire cloned phones at a minimum cost, make dozens of calls, and then throw the phone away after as little as a days use. In the same way, criminals who pose a threat to our national security, such as terrorists, have been known to use cloned phones to thwart law enforcement efforts aimed at tracking their whereabouts. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) estimates that financial losses due to cloning fraud are between $600 million and $900 million in the United States. Some subscribers of Reliance had to suffer because their phone was cloned. Mobile Cloning is in initial stages in India so preventive steps should be taken by the network provider and the Government.

Unfortunately, there is no way the subscriber can detect cloning. Events like call dropping or anomalies in monthly bills can act as tickers. But some points mentioned below can help you.

The mobile phone seems to be moving at impossible, or most unlikely speeds. For example, if a call is first made in Helsinki, and five minutes later, another call is made but this time in Tampere, there must be two phones with the same identity on the network. Reactions include shutting them all off so that the real customer will contact the operator because he lost the service he is paying for, or tearing down connections so that the clone users will switch to another clone but the real user will contact the operator.

The best way to prevent you simcard or mobile phone from being cloned is to use Authentication feature. Authentication is a mathematical process by which identical calculations are performed in both the network and the mobile phone. These calculations use secret information (known as a key) pre-programmed into both the mobile phone and the network before service is activated. Cloners typically have no access to this secret information (i.e., the key), and therefore cannot obtain the same results to the calculations. A legitimate mobile phone will produce the same calculated result as the network. The mobile phones result is sent to the network and compared with the networks results. If they match, the phone is not a clone. IS AUTHENTICATION EFFECTIVE? Yes, for the most part. However, Authentication is the most robust and reliable method for preventing cloning fraud and it is the only industry standard method for eliminating cloning. The fact that it is standardized means that all mobile telecommunications networks using IS-41 can support Authentication. There is no need to add proprietary equipment, software, or communications protocols to the networks to prevent cloning fraud. IS MY PHONE AUTHENTICATION CAPABLE? If the phone supports TDMA or CDMA digital radio, then yes. Otherwise, it depends on how old the phone is and the make and model. Almost all phones manufactured since the beginning of 1996 support the Authentication function. The best bet is to check with your service.

Recently the Delhi (India) police arrested a person with 20 cell- phones, a laptop, a SIM scanner, and a writer. The accused was running an exchange illegally wherein he cloned CDMA based cell phones. He used software named Patagonia for the cloning and provided cheap international calls to Indian immigrants in West Asia. So its illegal to clone phone!

Anyways you people got the idea abouthow to clone a phone and what is cloning! Beconnected with movzio for more updates!

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What is Cell Phone Cloning - Everything You Need to Know ...