Privacy

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IMEI concern grapheneOS (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Is it a good enough solution for IMEI tracking to use an alternative device to provide a hotspot connection?

This approach appears to protect any new device that hasn't inserted a SIM card from being identified.

But I'm not sure how much information is carried to the second device by using hotspot.

Is this a good solution so far? Should I try to spoof IMEI?

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[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The main goal here is to keep my device's IMEI number private, so that it appears to the service provider as if my phone has never used cellular data. By hiding the IMEI, the provider won’t be able to associate the device with me when I use it solely on public Wi-Fi such as in a café, or be able to track me with IMEI if my IMEI number is leaked by some service or app that I accidentally used. They might see that a new device is connected, but they won’t be able to identify that it belongs to me.

Now that I think of it twice I think you got a point Solely connecting to WIFI doesn't seem to leak my IMEI number. But I'm not sure what else will except for using SIMs.

I guess I just don't like the idea that a persistent number could be used to identify me.

Though I'm still curious about:

May I also ask how much information is carried to the second device by using hotspot? By this I meant the phone with IMEI will be able to know my device name, but what else? Will the phone with IMEI also be able to know the device model?

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

deleted by creator

[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

thank you for the clarification!

changed my device name!

I cannot find any reliable source that says personal hotspot can see the device model connecting to it, would be really great if someone could clarify this here.

But, some wifi access points can detect your device model anyways. My Xfinity gateway will show my Phone’s name and what model of phone I have.

I believe this is true as there is browser plugin for spoofing device model