[kictanet] Stolen phone blocking - A short story about CA vs MNOs

[Ali Hussein]

Ndugu Washington

Let me give you a short (very short) Kenyan story:-

Waki Advance...Nasisi tuna Advance.

End of story. :-)

*Ali Hussein*


Tel: +254 713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>




Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
organizations that I work with.


On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 12:17 PM Odhiambo Washington via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Once upon a time, when your mobile phone got stolen, you'd report to the
> police who'd issue you with their famous "Police Abstract".
> You would present that form, together with proof of purchase of your
> mobile phone to your preferred MNO - Safaricom, Kencell, etc who
> would then verify your identity and ownership of the said phone and
> proceed to BLOCK it from being used.
> During those days, the MNOs used to have a central shared database of all
> BLOCKed phones and those phones would be rendered almost
> useless unless unBLOCKed. It was possible to recover your stolen phone
> then - should a buyer of a BLOCKED phone end up at one of the MNOs offices
> to ask
> why "their phone" wasn't working.
>
> *Las cosas cambiaron.*
>
> These days, when technology has advanced, if your phone gets stolen, the
> MNOs don't block it.
> The last time I had such an unfortunate incident, Airtel told me that they
> no longer block such phones because when stolen, the thieves go to some
> crooks who
> then write a new set of IMEIs to the phones, which then keep on being used
> by the new owners.
> However, if I needed that form to show that the MNO blocked my phone, I
> can get it :-(
>
> Now, it seems that crooks beat CA to their game, or who was it who had
> control/supervision and enforcement of this process???
>
> And me here in my naivety was thinking that with the advancement
> of technology and regional integration in EA, the CA of KE, CA of UG, CA of
> TZ, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi
> would come together and ensure compliance from the regional MNOs, such
> that a phone stolen in EA Region becomes unusable due to the MNOs sharing
> the BLOCKage database.
>
> End of story. Not sure it was short as initially intended.
>
> CA, are you listening?
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
> Nairobi,KE
> +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223
> "Oh, the cruft.", grep ^[^#] :-)
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