Bought a 3GS with JB and ultrasn0w... HELP !

[Gurruwiwi]

Hi all!

Long time hackintosher (shhhh)

First time Iphone jailbreaker. I had non JB 3GS last year but I was robbed, but yesterday I found a great deal on a local internet sale. Well, ''great''... cheap, no invoice or box... I kind of regret 'cos of the invoice... but life problems left me broke but due to a new job I absolutely NEED good GPS navigation right now, and working as telecom saleman I absolutley need the *bling bling* factor - it was quite urgent and the price was damn good. So good I now feel like an idiot in anticipation of a remote carrier lock for a stolen phone.. - in ALL HONESTY the guy seemed very very credible, we had a great chat about how divorce can cripple anyone's finances... he was urgent to sell too.

So I ended up buying a 3Gs running 4.0.1 and ultrasn0w unlock.

I went against ''good advice'' 'cos I am a JB and unlock newb, so instead of reseting the phone, restoring my old iphone backup and JB again, I went ahead and did a straight restore from backup, and everything seems to be running just fine!

Got a couple of questions...

is it possible to change the IMEI of the iphone, or protect myself if it is stolen?

is it possible to determine original carrier without resetting the phone?

Is there anything else I should be aware of, like, if you bought an iphone in such manner, what kind of thing would you check for? Cos I know there are things like SHSH and lots of other things that I dont know exactly what they, etc. - many different hacks and stuff that I have no experience with...

Thanks!

 

[crystus]

Changing the IMEI of a phone is illegal worldwide. There was only one program that was able to do that and it has passed into history. There was mention on another forum of a site that you would be able to put the serial number in and it would tell you what carrier it was assigned to but I am unable to find it.

 

[Gurruwiwi]

Illegal? Really... oh... didn't know that. I thought the IMEI was the code responsible for locking the phone to a specific carrier, so when you changed it, it was like ''not assigned'' so you could use any SIM card... so maybe I thought, restoring, JB'ing and applying ultrasn0w might do that trick...

I mean, that is what people do with all sort of phones like nokias etc...

It would be wonderful to find that site! I've tried googling but found nothing...

thank you though !!

 

[myzhi]

No. IMEI tells what type of the phone it is, ie whether is an iPhone, Droid and so on. Unlock is what allows you to use on different carriers. They are different things.

 

[Gurruwiwi]

dont want to argue of course, and the iphone is totally different machine, but I've had dozens of nokias, when I wanted to unlock them I just had to change the IMEI... I've done it a dozen times!

The iphone obviously is a different league, but the principle is there anyways. Isn't through it that carriers remotely block phones?

 

[myzhi]

Once again, IMEI is the phone's unique identification. And, yes, carriers use it to block the phone, whether because it's lose, stolen or etc. People only change IMEI to make it look like another phone. In the past, when it was possible with iPhone 2G, ATT charges $30 for Iphone unlimited plan and $15 for non smart phone. Thus, people would illegally change their IMEI to make carrier network think the iPhone was non smart phone, and thus, they can get / use the $15 plan. But, once again, that doesn't unlock the iPhone.