Chipping involves dismantling a mobile phone, soldering in a small Integrated
Circuit ( an IC or 'Chip' ), putting the phone back together and that's
it ... free phone calls for life.The chip interferes with the phone's operation, in a controlled way, regularly
fooling it into thinking that its credit balance has been restored when no
money has been spent at all.
Chips are available, and widely advertised, for just a few pounds and can be
installed in a phone in just a few minutes by a suitably capable person.
Software which needs to be blown into these chips is available, in some
cases freely, over the internet. The programmers which blow the chips
are equally easy to obtain or build although this, rather complex stage, is
usually unnecessary as most chips come ready blown.
Instructions to carry out chipping on a variety of phones is clear, concise
and simple; there are even step-by-step, colour diagrams available, again,
sometimes free of charge, which show how to do it on the internet.
For the less technically minded souls, there are plenty of people and shady
businesses who will do the whole installation of a programmed chip for less
than the price of a cheap top-up card.
When most people hear of chipping, their first thought is not, "Will I be
defrauding my supplier out of money ?", but, "How much does it cost ?", "Does
it work ?", "And will I get away with it ?"
Chipping does work, I've seen a demonstration of it; the Philips C12 phone is
a pretty run-of-the-mill phone and is easily chipped.
The hardest part is soldering four wires from the chip to a surface mounted IC
on the phone's controller board and putting the phone back together.
For under a tenner; a phone which runs forever without costing a penny.
Well not quite ...
Chipping is not a magical art which has been kept hidden from the mobile phone
manufacturers and telecommunications companies. They too have access to the
internet and are well aware of what's been going on and how it's done; I'm
sure they've even done their own chipping to see if it works and have taken
the chip's software apart to see how it does its thing.
It is probably true to say that chipping has been going on for a long time and
the phone companies have been slow to respond, voice their disapproval or take
action against those who chip their phones, but that is all changing.
As chips have become more widely available, and certainly a lot, lot cheaper,
the cost to the mobile phone operators has escalated. Where they may have
been prepared to see a small volume of their income trickle away, illegally,
this is now a substantial amount and the flow needs to be halted.
Although the operators are pretty cagey about how they detect chipped phones,
there are quite a number of plausible scenarios which do not involve rocket
science or interrogation of the phone itself.
The phone operators hold the ultimate ace up their sleeves; all mobile phones
have their unique identitifiers, the phone number is one, and the identity of
the phone is passed to the base station whenever a call is made.
It is therefore a simple matter to monitor all calls made from every mobile
phone, determine the call duration and calculate the costs incurred. It's no
more complicated than the systems used to bill customers for their residential
and business phones.
Keeping track of all credits purchased for that phone allows them to easily
determine when more calls have been made than have been paid for.
Once they think you've chipped your phone they can instruct all the base
stations to refuse to accept your calls and refuse to route incoming calls to
you or instruct the phone to disable itself.
Because there may be a delay until credits purchased appear on various computer
systems it is possible that, at times, a mobile phone user looks like they're
using credit not paid for.
Phone companies have erred on the side of caution, allowing a rather large
overspend to arise, for fear of taking action against a customer who has done
nothing wrong.
By improving their computer record keeping systems; the phone companies are
able to keep closer tabs on credit purchase and usage and are able to reduce
the amount of overspend allowed and thus limit their loses where fraud is
taking place.
With non-business customers, using specific tariffs, being the most prolific
users of chipped phones, the problem of wrongful disconnection has become much
more palatable to the phone companies and they can now almost ensure that they
do not suffer financially.
Whereas, a few months ago, a user of a chipped phone could save more money
through unpaid calls than that paid for the phone before it was
disconnected and had to be thrown away, the opposite is now the case.
It is now unlikely that the value of free calls will come anywhere near the
cost of the phone and its chipping before the fraud is detected and the phone
disconnected.
In purely financial terms, chipping just isn't worth it.
The Philips phone I saw chipped succesfully was deactivated and disabled by
BT Cellnet within a week; 50 GBP of high technology rendered useless and
unusable.
And the costs can be much more than a junked phone.
Whilst the phone companies aren't losing out, and may even be making money as
50 GBP, and more, phones are abandoned after a tenner's worth of unpaid for
calls, they still see the making of unpaid for calls as theft and the chipping
of phones as attempts to defraud and they may take legal action against users
of chipped phones to recover their losses.
And that's quite easy to do as you must register the phone with them when you
buy it to get it enabled for use; you probably gave them your real name,
your real address and possibly even your bank account details.
Whilst it would appear that most phone companies are not, presently, taking
legal action against those who have chipped their phones, as they have limited
or mitigated their losses involved, they are targeting those who are supplying
and installing chips and those who provide the information on how to do it.
The phone companies are almost certainly going to be interested in finding out
how and where you got your phone chipped and they may well be pushing you to
hand over this information in return for not bringing a prosecution against
you.
And there's nothing to stop them bringing a prosecution anyway, even if it is
just to recoup a few pounds; it'll send a message, loud and clear, to anyone
still thinking about chipping their phones to think twice about it.
And do you want to be saddled with a criminal record for fraud or deception
which may be hanging over you when you look for your next job ?
The Future
The people who have worked out how to chip mobile phones are either very clever
indeed or have been working with insider information, whatever, it is incredible
that the workings of a mobile phone can be so easily altered in such a way.
The motives of the people who have released the information on doing the
chipping is hard to determine, especially as the information is often given
away freely.
Presumable, like nearly everyone else on this planet, they want to get
something for nothing, are making a protest about the high costs of making
mobile calls and the profiteering of the phone companies or just want to
show how clever they are and get the acclaim for their skills.
No matter what their motivation, it is almost certain that the phone
manufacturers will have learned from their mistakes and will not make it so
simple for the Hackers ( who do it for fun and enlightenment ) and
the Crackers ( who do it for profit or to cause damage ) in the future.
Chipping has been a short lived, but highly profitable for some, craze which
will soon be coming to an end.
Phone companies will be using monitoring systems to detect fraud as it happens
and manufacturers will be making it harder to commit the fraud in the first
place.
And you can bet that, unless we're lucky, the phone companies who have lost
money through chipping will be recouping any losses, and costs needed to combat
fraud, through higher phone purchase costs and more expensive phone calls.
Chipping Satellite Decoders, Cable Decoders and DVD Players
The situation with chipping satellite and cable decoders is exactly the same
as with mobile phones; the attempt to get something for nothing.
The risks involved in chipping these decoders is a lot less than with mobile
phones; these are usually receive only devices which don't talk back to a
base station or the service provider so they don't know what you've done at
your end and what you're seeing which hasn't been paid for.
Cable decoders are riskier than satellite decoders because they are hard wired
back to their bases and information can be sent both ways; it is entirely
feasible that the units can be interrogated to determine what is being watched
and may even have special modes which allow chipping to be determined.
Manufacturers of both have realised that they are at risk of chipping and there
are systems in place which will limit the length of time a particular
modification may have. This makes chipping no harder to do but much more
annoying, needing to be frequently updated.
Most chipping of satellite decoders is done by a smart card; a small,
electronic credit card which slots in the front of the decoder. Programmers
and software for these cards, and the cards themselves, are becoming widely
available for a couple of pounds albeit for other intended purposes.
The ability to chip satellite decoders is therefore likely to become more wide
spread in the next few years but the effect on the broadcaster's revenues is
likely to be limited as digital services make the older systems, which can be
chipped, redundant.
Digital transmission will also mean a change in cable decoder design and it is
likely that chipping in this area will also be a short lived phenomena.
Chipping DVD video players is a different kettle of fish.
When DVD video was invented, it was decided that every disk and player would be
Region Coded; this means that disks from a particular region can only
be played on a player coded for the same region.
The official purpose is for copyright protection, which translates into
studios who produce films protecting their ability to maximise their profits.
American mainline films, the most likely to also be released around the
world, are often released earlier in America than elsewhere, sometimes a year in
advance, and it is not uncommon that a film is being released on DVD in the
US before it even appears in some countries.
The fear is that people will prefer to buy the film on DVD from another country
rather than wait until it appears in the cinemas in their own. Although I much
prefer to see a film in a cinema, I cannot disagree with what they are saying.
When the cost of a family going to a cinema outstrips the cost of a DVD it makes
financial sense to buy the latter. It makes even more sense when one has to buy
the DVD anyway if the film is to be seen again. And why not watch a film on DVD
three months before it comes to your local cinema, if it appears there at all ?
It is well known that books and other items can be purchased abroad and
imported for a lower cost than from local sources; purchasing DVD's is unlikely
to be any different.
The loss of profits at the cinema and in local markets is what Region Coding is
about, not theft or fraud and this is what makes chipping DVD players entirely
different to other forms of chipping.
Chipping phones, satellite and cable receivers is about theft, obtaining
something which hasn't been paid for; DVD chipping is about being able to see
something which has been legitimately paid for and legally belongs to the
purchaser.
And of course, no one will ever know you've chipped your DVD player so it would
be hard for them to find you have and do anything about it. Not that they'd have
any real morally justifiable reason for stopping you modifying a player you own
so you can watch a disc which you also own, in private.
I fully support the manufacturers and producers of DVD's doing everything they
can to prevent piracy of their products but I can't condone them deliberately
attempting to distort the global markets which exist today.
If inter-continental DVD sales do have an effect on their profits then they
must address the issue at its root, not attempt to fudge restrictions with
Region Coding which can be overcome by chipping and quite often by turning
the player into a test or demonstration mode anyway.
When I buy my DVD player in the UK ( Region 2 ) I will make sure that it will
at least play disks from the USA ( Region 1 ) for no other reason that if
disks released in the US aren't available in the UK or contain more material,
or unedited material, and I am allowed to legitimately buy and import them,
then there is no reason that I shouldn't be allowed to play them.
