What is my ESN????

[kccasey]

I had User ROMEO69 asking me the following:

Hey, I'm trying to get a esn# for the phone that you have, I don't even need all the #'s, only the first 7, I can come up with the last 4. Thank you on advance...
http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif


Well it's obvious on how to find the ESN and everything, but why would someone ask me for my ESN?The user just joined SU today, so that was another reason that I was suspicious about the PM. If there is anyone that can tell me why someone would ask such a question.

[TexasJulie]

Whoops. Didnt read the whole post. From what I understand, I think you can tell where phones were manufactured according to the ESN.... but I would be more the leary to give that information out. ESNs are used for activations and stuff... so yeah, consider it a PIN number. LOL

[MoonDog]

Every cell phone is supposed to have a unique factory-set electronic serial number (ESN) and telephone number (MIN). A cloned cell phone is one that has been reprogrammed to transmit the ESN and MIN belonging to another (legitimate) cell phone. Unscrupulous people can obtain valid ESN/MIN combinations by illegally monitoring the radio wave transmissions from the cell phones of legitimate subscribers. After cloning, both the legitimate and the fraudulent cell phones have the same ESN/MIN combination and cellular systems cannot distinguish the cloned cell phone from the legitimate one. The legitimate phone user then gets billed for the cloned phone's calls.

[macaddiict]

If you're not looking to sell the phone (I didn't see a post in the Trading section by you) then definitely don't give him the ESN. MoonDog describes the system well, but there are also security measures put in place that aren't being mentioned. Having the ESN/MIN combination to your device would not let someone use your phone on AT&T Wireless' TDMA system - and I'm certain Sprint has equal or better security precautions in place.

On AT&T's system, when you activate your phone an Authentication key is sent to the phone. Just once. Just when the device is activated. No one can see it - Customer Care can't, Tech's can't - no one. If something comes up with the A-key you send the customer to a special department who resets it and sends a new one. What this was is a secret password that was encrypted - that way when your phone powered up and sent it's ESN/MIN info to the towers it would encrypt it according to the A-key inside your phone. Your phone would basically send a bunch of garbled junk to the tower that no one could un-garble without the A-key. The tower would pass the information through the system and if everything was validated then your phone would then be registered on that tower.

If a device tried to send the ESN/MIN combination without the proper A-key, the system automatically flagged the account and placed certain restrictions on it immediately.

Sprint may use the same thing (since so much is similar when it comes to cell phones) or something similar, but in other words just giving them your phone number (MIN or MDN) and ESN shouldn't allow them to make calls on your account. I don't even think it is possible on Analog anymore without proper authentication. Anyone know?

Either way - unless you're planning to sell the phone to the guy I wouldn't give out the ESN for any reason.

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