We've gotten pretty far off topic, but I've written or been interviewed for
a good number of articles in consumer (i.e. Nuts & Volts) and industry trade
magazines regarding cellular cloning. The whole "RF fingerprint" stuff has
been discussed for three years to pretty much no avail. TRW started it off
with their "PhonePrint" press release back then, bragging about leveraging
their military and spread spectrum experience, the quietly sold the whole
thing off to a small company in the East Bay somewhere, I believe. Back
then, Pac Tel Cellular (now AirTouch) was field testing it in Southern
California and it was supposed to be working great. It's been a few years
and So. Cal. is still a huge hotbed of fraud, so it couldn't have worked
very well.
I think that real-time analysis of customer calling patterns is what will
eventually help save the day, now that carriers are becoming 'connected' to
each other. Ultimately, manufacturers who adhere to the FCC regulation
requiring that the circuitry that delivers the ESN be encrypted and
protected from tampering should provide the biggest boost to deterring
fraud. But now, comapnies like Motorola who have (or had) built-in firmware
routines to enable field-changing the ESN (and clearly violating the FCC
rules) are contributing to the problem big-time.
Since I pointed out Motorola, I should also note that Moto was the first
cellular manufacturer to set up an investigative division with the sole
purpose of assisting and educating law enforcement officials and agencies
regarding cloning.
Anyway, I'm digressing way off topic. Sorry...
Damien Thorn