Current Affairs Technology.

The Government has come to know through Telecom Service Providers that approximately 2150 cases of misuse of mobile cloning through duplication of subscriber identity in different parts of country have come to their notice during 2009-10. Cloning of subscriber identity takes place by duplication of SIM (Subscriber Identity Modules) in GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and R-UIM (Removable User Identity Module)/ESN (Electronic Serial Number) & MIN (Mobile Identification Number in CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) Networks, which gives the subscriber an identity and telephone number.

Though, cloning of subscriber identity is difficult due to elaborate authentication and encryption mechanism used in mobile network, Government intends to monitor mobile cloning, through its fields units namely TERM (Telecom Enforcement, Resource & Monitoring) Cells, which are already carrying out activities of similar type

Mobile cloning is a method of copying a mobile phone’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) onto another phone, which allows the user of the cloned phone to make fraudulent calls, the bill for which is sent to the victim as opposed to the perpetrator. This method is also used to carry out anti social activities.

Phone cloning involves placing a computer chip  into the target mobile telephone, allowing theElectronic Serial Number of the mobile phone to be modified. The ESN is normally transmitted to the cellular company in order to ascertain whether the mobile phone user is the legitimate owner of that phone. Modifying this, as well as the phone number itself (known as the Mobile Identification Number, or MIN) paves the way for fraudulent calls, as the target telephone is now a clone of the telephone from which the original ESN and MIN numbers were obtained.

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 phone’s internal data (GSM phones do not have ESN or MIN, only an IMEI number.) There are various methods used to obtain ESN and MIN, the most common are to crack the cellular company, or ‘sniff’ the cellular network