**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Thu Apr 20 03:00:03 2017
Apr 20 03:55:20 <Vajb> is it possible to mess with the android phone if i know the imei?
Apr 20 03:55:36 <Vajb> my gf got her phone stolen.
Apr 20 03:57:01 <DocScrutinizer05> for authorities yes. For you: no
Apr 20 03:57:59 <DocScrutinizer05> there are apps for that, but you obviously need to have them installed _before_ you lose access to the device
Apr 20 03:58:31 <Vajb> ok. I would just have remotely copied memory card photos...
Apr 20 03:59:18 <DocScrutinizer05> even then nowadays each thief slightly smarter than an amoeba knows to shut down stolen phones immediately and reflash then before powering up to the system
Apr 20 03:59:40 <Vajb> but i guess that smart thief would change imei as a first thing
Apr 20 03:59:54 <DocScrutinizer05> if possible yes
Apr 20 04:00:02 <Vajb> exactly my thought...
Apr 20 04:00:11 <DocScrutinizer05> a regular requirement for FCC approval though is an immutable IMEI
Apr 20 04:01:01 <DocScrutinizer05> let alone often it turn out after approval that manufs did a poor jib on ebsuring this property
Apr 20 04:01:18 <DocScrutinizer05> job on ensuring*
Apr 20 04:01:29 <Vajb> at least it was job of a pro. We didn't realize anything until phone was needed.
Apr 20 04:04:47 <DocScrutinizer05> the only decent theft protection is a BT dongle paired to device, which makes both the phone and the dongle yell an alarm as soon as they don't see each other
Apr 20 04:05:45 <Vajb> hmm is it cheap?
Apr 20 04:06:01 <Vajb> tho it wont help much in a crowd
Apr 20 04:06:02 <DocScrutinizer05> such dongle? not sure
Apr 20 04:06:30 <DocScrutinizer05> well, it depends. You want to make sure the range is <3m
Apr 20 04:07:06 <Vajb> and with a short range u will phase errors i suppose...
Apr 20 04:07:39 <Vajb> erm face*
Apr 20 04:07:41 <DocScrutinizer05> and some alarm tones are clearly more effective than others. Like shouting "I'm getting stolen!!! <police siren> I'm getting stolen!!! <police siren> ..."
Apr 20 04:10:52 <DocScrutinizer05> constantly taking and uploading videos of both front and rear cam is also a good action to take when alarm goes off
Apr 20 04:11:55 <Vajb> yes..
Apr 20 04:12:04 <Vajb> it's just too late is too late
Apr 20 04:12:12 <DocScrutinizer05> yep
Apr 20 04:12:31 <DocScrutinizer05> retroactively you only can set the IMEI on blacklist
Apr 20 04:12:31 <Vajb> now i'd prefer the thing Blade had in his sword :p
Apr 20 04:13:35 <DocScrutinizer05> https://imei24.com/blacklist_check/
Apr 20 04:13:49 <Vajb> will do that
Apr 20 04:16:06 <DocScrutinizer05> do it immediately, odds are the thief was even more stupid than an amoeba ;-) So Police and carrier could cooperate to spot the location where they took the device to and tried to clean it
Apr 20 04:18:37 <DocScrutinizer05> often your carrier also has a "locate my phone" service that works even without any app on the phone, but will usually send a notification SMS to the phone about the fact it's been located. The web interface spots the device to some maybe few 100m radius precision as long as the SMS can get sent
Apr 20 04:20:37 <DocScrutinizer05> didn't check http://trendblog.net/how-to-track-your-lost-android-phone-without-tracking-app/
Apr 20 04:23:09 <Vajb> yeah police asked imei when we made report, but who carries his imei with him while holidays? Not us for sure.
Apr 20 04:31:18 <DocScrutinizer05> check last link, it has a lot of good info for android
Apr 20 04:31:46 <DocScrutinizer05> I was wrong, I blame my ignorance about how bad android actually is
Apr 20 04:31:49 <Vajb> yup i will
Apr 20 04:32:44 <DocScrutinizer05> actually seems there's a damn lot of ways to locate your phone even without a particular app installed
Apr 20 04:33:17 <DocScrutinizer05> depending on how sane you configured your device and google account
Apr 20 04:34:12 <DocScrutinizer05> get all the info you can, this way. Then provide that info to police, don't expect them to know about such methods or even just bother to use them
Apr 20 04:35:05 <DocScrutinizer06> and even if they know, they have no access to your google account
Apr 20 04:35:26 <DocScrutinizer05> and even if they know, they have no access to your google account
Apr 20 04:38:05 <Vajb> will have to read up, since we changed google password immediately when we realized it is stolen
Apr 20 04:38:24 <DocScrutinizer05> the article says that doesn't matter :-)
Apr 20 04:38:24 <Vajb> so no access to that account from that device
Apr 20 04:38:59 <Vajb> hmm will have to dig more when i get back home
Apr 20 04:39:18 <Vajb> shame that it has been many days...
Apr 20 04:39:49 <Vajb> she lost it at saturday
Apr 20 04:40:31 <DocScrutinizer05> ohmy, then the device is either already cleaned and IMEI changed and sold, or discarded when you can't change IMEI
Apr 20 04:41:21 <DocScrutinizer05> all you can do is help law enforcement
Apr 20 04:42:10 <DocScrutinizer05> so when the thief takes next device home, police has evidence it wasn't the first time they did
Apr 20 04:42:36 <DocScrutinizer05> won't help you though
Apr 20 04:43:19 <DocScrutinizer05> I'd still get the IMEI blacklisted
Apr 20 04:43:24 <Vajb> yeah
Apr 20 04:43:31 <Vajb> will do that
Apr 20 04:43:37 <DocScrutinizer05> call your carrier about how to do that
Apr 20 04:44:08 <Vajb> we were on holidays so wanted to ignore the fact till we got home so...
Apr 20 04:44:31 <DocScrutinizer05> they also might be able to save your device/IMEI last locations from location server records
Apr 20 04:45:13 <DocScrutinizer05> not very precise but still may help
Apr 20 04:46:00 <DocScrutinizer05> they might be willing to keep those records infinitely when you allow them to do so, and hand then out to police on their request
Apr 20 04:46:16 <Vajb> does it matter that we were on different country?
Apr 20 04:46:23 <DocScrutinizer05> err yes
Apr 20 04:46:34 <Vajb> so roaming...
Apr 20 04:46:37 <DocScrutinizer05> makes things almost hopeless
Apr 20 04:46:53 <DocScrutinizer05> but still, ask your carrier
Apr 20 04:47:44 <DocScrutinizer05> and check your google account like explained in the URL linked above
Apr 20 04:48:23 <DocScrutinizer05> "nice" thing about android: it stores pretty much everything "in the cloud"
Apr 20 04:50:11 <DocScrutinizer05> the agencies' wet dream
Apr 20 04:50:33 <Vajb> yes, if u have cloud enabled
Apr 20 04:51:56 <Vajb> think my gf was thiefs wet dream. No device log, no system password, just lousy pin at the sim
Apr 20 06:34:10 <Zungo> whoa
Apr 20 18:56:30 <Vajb> DocScrutinizer05: ok did what we could, but device hasn't been connected since it got lost. So not much luck except now we know exact last location and can announce it to police. Thanks for ur help.
Apr 20 19:10:12 <KotCzarny> are you 100% sure she didnt just lost it?
Apr 20 19:17:50 <Vajb> yes
Apr 20 19:19:11 <Vajb> well if u wanna be presice device is actually just lost, since we don't know where it is...
Apr 20 19:19:24 <KotCzarny> :)
Apr 20 19:19:37 <KotCzarny> and you dont have any proof someone stole it?
Apr 20 19:20:14 <Vajb> not apart that it wasn't in a zipper pocket where it was put
Apr 20 19:21:53 <Vajb> but im quite certain that mobile technology hasn't advanced to point where it can open zipper and walk away :)
Apr 20 19:22:24 <Vajb> tho that's what something being mobile means...
Apr 20 19:22:40 <KotCzarny> how do you open zipper pocket and take it out without knowing otoh?
Apr 20 19:23:17 <Vajb> i wouldn't know
Apr 20 19:23:34 <Vajb> wasn't my phone, wasn't my pocket
Apr 20 19:23:40 <KotCzarny> oh, and close it too probably
Apr 20 19:25:05 <Vajb> oh just now i realize that we should have asked sherlock, since we were at london
Apr 20 19:27:13 <KotCzarny> good idea
Apr 20 19:29:50 <Vajb> well only thing i know for sure is that she doesn't have that phone anymore and im amazed that that could happen since there were times when i could hardly tell where the hand stops and phone starts
Apr 20 19:30:27 <Vajb> but now i must rest, puzzled. Good night.
Apr 20 19:30:35 <KotCzarny> nite nite
Apr 20 20:30:27 <bencoh> :(
Apr 20 22:07:32 <sixwheeledbeast> Ideal environment for pickpockets, crowded tourist areas. If it was switched off when you realised it was missing it's most likely been stolen.
Apr 20 22:16:18 <sixwheeledbeast> I think the only way of tracking your phone would be through your google account but I am no expert.
Apr 20 22:18:08 <sixwheeledbeast> Android Device Manager within the Google Account should have IMEI and ways of locating it if powered on?
Apr 20 22:46:15 <DocScrutinizer05> https://www.preining.info/blog/2017/04/systemd-again/
Apr 21 02:38:50 <Vajb> sixwheeledbeast: that's what we tried, but device hasn't been connected to account since lost and for some reason it isn't showing IMEI there at all.
**** ENDING LOGGING AT Fri Apr 21 03:00:02 2017