Much Ado About mobile phone security

Losing a mobile phone in Nigeria is creating a handful of stress for telecom consumers, with no hope in site, either from the operators or device manufacturers, reports REMMY NWEKE.

Dateline:

Dateline was Lagos, Friday, March 15, 2013 by exactly 1.30am Elozo Nna walked into his bedroom from the sitting room where he had been finalizing touches for a breakfast session same day, but needed to book an online ticket for next week Thursday meeting for the spouse in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Behold, he saw an unusual scene; one of the bedroom windows that was permanently locked was opened and because the spouse has been inside sleeping, he thought the window was opened by her. He also saw one of the spouse’s phones on the floor, while still connected to the charging extension.

Invasion:

Extremely tired, he simply returned the phone to where others were also being charged after setting the wake up alarm for himself. Five hours later, a neighbour who normally goes to work very early discovered that one of Elozo’s bedroom window-net had been torn and alerted Elozo’s family who realized that the intruder carted away approximated six mobile phones, including two high-end smart phones, notably, Nokia Pureview 808 and Nokia C6-01.

Both phones where used as part of the official work-tools and where bought with the believe that they have an F-Secure Anti-Theft and Anti-Virus pre-installed, which were subsequently activated with the hope that no matter what happen the phones could be tracked. As a result of which Elozo was not perturbed because he somewhat knew the kind of mobile phones involved, mostly those two for mobile office, aside one Nokia Asha with dual Subscriber Identification Module (SIM), one ZEN mobile phone also with dual SIM facility, one Samsung Galaxio and Ericsson as well as a Nokia 2690.

Police Report and Court Affidavit

On the realization of the what happened to his household with the thieves carting away six phones, Elozo and the spouse dressed up and headed to the Police Station just about 200 metres away from his abode, where he registered the incident to a Police Sergeant, who wrote down his report on a half-torn exercise book.

When he finished and wanted to leave, the Police officer told him that this is morning and in fact, he was the first to come that day and should clear the way by blessing them with some goodies. Realising what they request was all about, he asked the wife if he had some money, amounting to N300, which was handed over to the officer and they left with the hope of returning for the Police Extract after getting sworn Court Affidavit at the Federal High court, Ikeja GRA, Lagos before returning to the station.

At this stage, Elozo thought that the journey of recovering the lost six mobile phones was near, but did not realize that the journey has just begun.

On return to the Police Station, Elozo was puzzled when the Affidavit was presented to the officer in charge, who without mixing words requested him to drop something for the “byz” before he could be directed to the Admin Officer in charge for the signature and collection of the Police Extract, which eventually was reluctantly settled at N2,000, about $20.

Journey to SIM Replacement:

After the collection of the Extract, the next step was retrieval of SIMs and the first place of call was Airtel’s office at Ilepeju suburb, since both Elozo Nna and the wife use same network as their primary lines.

At Airtel, Elozo’s SIM was recognized as a premium user, even as both had extra lines from same network. However, this was not the reason for any special attention as they queued like every other person until it got to their turn.

At the end of the session at Airtel Customer Care Centre, they were asked to pay N200 for each of the replaced lines, thus amounting to N800 and were told that the lines will be up by 6pm same day, that was, about three hours time later.

So, they headed to Etisalat Friendship Center at Isaac John, Ikeja GRA and after listening to Elozo, an attendant cross examined him and requested to be given a few minutes to attend to the issue of replacing the SIM, which cost was N100.

In less than 10 minutes later, the Etisalat’s attendant beckoned on Elozo to come forward and handed him his new SIM pack, informing him that he could start using the replaced SIM immediately.

By 3.55pm, Elozo’s family has recovered some SIMs and based on the route proximity, the next and nearest to them was Glo Mobile at the International Airport Road, hence they headed there, via the Mobolaji Bank-Anthony Way

New SIM versus replacement:

At the Glo Mobile office, forms where presented to the Elozos and they spent 10-15 minutes filling the barely visible forms for the two Glo lines involved.

They were directed to attendants, who after wasting much time with a supposed senior manager consequent to initial acceptance of Elozo’s form, came out to announce that the systems were down and solicited their return on Saturday. This was immediately rejected because Elozo had other pressing engagement outside town that weekend.

So, the return date was agreed to be Monday and on penultimate date, the Elozos revisited Glo shop and after much ado, the replacement SIMs were ready and they were charged N600 each. On prompting why the cost was N600, the attendant explained that N200 was for SIM replacement and N400 for airtime.

Despite the fact that Elozo argued that he had enough airtime on the line, the attendants insisted that N600 is the cost for SIM replacement, with the hope that the lines will be up in 24 hours time.

And the journey headed to yet another mobile operator, MTN’s office at Fatayi Atare, with customer tag 309 and a small form which took about five (5) minutes to complete Elozo was called up and the wife was attended to by another agent.

At the end, they were asked to pay the sum of N550 each for SIM card replacement of N100 and airtime of N450.

From barely visible forms to sorry, try again:

However, 24 hours later, the Glo lines were reading “SIM not supporting MMS. Contact your operator,” and this lasted for another 24 hours.

One reason why Glo line was very important to Elozo was because it was used as a trusted number for the high-end Nokia smartphone with Airtel line. This means that for the security of the smartphone, especially F-Secure anti-theft to work, the Glo SIM must be life.

Unfortunately when the SIM came up, a test message was sent via the network as directed by the anti-theft security guidelines, but the response was “Sorry, your SMS cannot go through. Please try later. Thank you.” Incidentally this SMS was systematically returned nine times without the solution to the anti-theft instruction to simply locate the phone before further actions could be taken.

Disappointed by F-Secure anti-theft solution:

Further investigations by DigitalSENSE Business News revealed that the implications of the aforementioned could be that either the Nokia’s F-Secure anti-theft feature was not working or the network of the trusted number was inept.

Efforts at getting the Nokia Pureview 808 remotely located for possibly administering some security treatment failed as the Airtel operatives said categorically that they are not trained to block stolen phones even if you have all the requisite court and police declarations and that their job ends with SIM replacement.

Even some reputed Nokia customers at its online Nokia Users’ Forum in response to DigitalSENSE Business News inquiry was advised to report the stolen phones to the police.

According to information available at Nokia’s Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) the victim is to contact their network operator immediately to block SIM cards. And to block the Nokia device, owners will need the hardware International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) so as to prevent it being used in the operator’s network with any other SIM cards, though Nokia noted that not all operators provide this service of blocking device.

IMEI on GPS could change the game:

IMEI is a unique 15-digit code used to identify individual mobile phones, used usually to identify Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) consisting of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) as well as Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) mobile phones.

Very often, the IMEI is printed inside the battery compartment of the phone, but could also be displayed on-screen on most phones by entering *#06# on the dial pad, or alongside other system information in the settings menu on smartphone operating systems.

Conversely, the mobile manufacturer added a caveat, that Nokia customer support does not have the possibility to block the SIM card or the device, or track a stolen device. But to minimize the risks caused by the theft or loss of the device, there are some security features which Nokia customers could enable in their devices.

Don’t forget this code:

Pointing out that if your Nokia device supports phone auto-lock or security key-guard, customers were advised to turn it on, stressing that the phone cannot be accessed without entering a correct lock code. So, when enabling the autolock feature, it is important that customers change the default lock or security code (12345) to their own lock code and “don't forget this code.”

Also, some Nokia devices support remote locking and if one has enabled the above feature, tendencies are that when a pre-defined text message is sent to the device, it could be locked remotely. The device, Nokia said, is then locked if it is switched on and has your SIM card in it.

The above was what Elozo did that returned response “Sorry, your SMS cannot go through. Please try later. Thank you,” via a trusted number’s network.

Also, in response to the posting on the Nokia Users’ Forum concerning “Nokia Purview 808 - Blocking a stolen phone” the moderator replied thus, “Report your phone stolen to the police and the network you were using. The network will block it. You cannot do anything yourself.”

This position was reaffirmed by Mr. Izzat Kittaneh, director, Business Management and Pricing at Sony Mobile, Middle East and Africa, who said that most smartphones now come with one of security or another, but the fact remains that no mobile phone manufacturer will force network operators to implement this solution by blocking any phone set.

Conclusion:

For an industry observer, the caveats by Nokia is belated because the impression people, especially those buying high-end smartphone like its Pureview 808 is that the device has anti-theft solution pre-installed.

The question now, the observer noted is what happens to a Nokia device or any other anti-theft device when they are stolen and the thieves remove the SIM, can’t the Global Positioning System (GPS) be used to remotely track and block such a device which IMEI number is still intact with the customer.

The much advertised anti-theft on mobile devices, especially Nokia seems to be a just a marketing gimmick. And one wonders why those staff at Slot, a local Nokia reseller gave all the hopes that something must be done and a response to be send to the affected customers given phone line after presenting evidences of ownership?

Additionally, the supposed anti-theft initiative by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) with NetVisa seems to be in comatose, as officials fail to comment on this as at the time of filing this report.

It is hoped that such anti-theft initiative should, as matter of urgency be resuscitated to save Nigerian telecom consumers from the agony of spending so much on phone only to loss same to a thieve, which will also discourage smartphone thieves in the society.

 

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