Dilemma of Cellular Phones: Lahore faces Rupture of Security Codes

A SPRAWLING but secret business is mushrooming in the Punjab metropolis, Lahore where all kinds of security locks of mobile phones are being broken by shopkeepers at cheap rates.

On the ground floor of booming Hafeez Centre, some of those dealing with cell-phones and related gadgetry and CDs have three separate shops with signs claiming to break any kind of code.

Atif Malik, narrating his perturbing experience in regard of code breaking said that he got a Nokia mobile set as a gift from a relative living abroad. He went to three different mobile service providers to get connection but in vain.

His phone, a Nokia, could not be connected. Meanwhile, he was told to get a GSM phone with a SIM. His phone as he was told was an AMPS, a system, which is mostly used in the USA and is being used sparingly by two service providers in Pakistan.

A brief look at the innards of the phone and the young chap sitting behind the counter cluttered with electronic gadgets and PC terminal used for code breaking told him that fixing the phone would cost him about Rs 300. Atif was told to collect his phone in three hours. After that he would just have to get connection.

Mobile phone owners usually use a security lock which locks up the keypad of the phone so that no unauthorized person can use it without the owner’s consent. Access to this security lock is through a PIN number. Most of the phones usually come with a default mechanism of a PUK lock which disables the phone if a wrong or erroneous PIN number is used to access the phone more then three times.
Only the manufacturers of the phone can open the PUK lock. A computer wizard Ahsan said that security codes on expensive mobile phones which are usually snatched or stolen are broken in the city centre.

“Once the security lock is opened and the original number washed out, the phone can be used as a new one by any consumer,” he added. Revealing the secrets of this trade, he explained that “Every mobile phone has a data port (PIN), which is a direct access point to the particular system of a phone.

What all these code-breaking operators do is to connect a data cable to a mobile phone and connect the cable to a PC. The particular programmes of software installed on a PC for this purpose take about three to four minutes to erase all the security codes from the software of a mobile deeming it ready for installation of new numbers and codes etc. Such phones are being sold at various places in the city.

The most commonly used system in Pakistan is the GSM. Only two companies in the country, Instaphone and Paktel provide AMPS service. In a phone using GSM, all users have to do is get a connection and insert the SIM in the phone. The SIM is programmed with the telephone number, address books, contacts and service particulars of the consumer.

The SIM is provided to a consumer when he or she buys a connection from one of the service providers in the country. SIM is usually interchangeable in the entire stock of GSM phone currently available in the Pakistani market. The AMPS phones don’t use SIMS so have to be taken to one of these shops where the codes are broken and the phones are made reusable by the one who carries it. That’s why its always more expensive to have the security code broken and a new number installed on an AMPS phone than a GMS phone with the local ‘code breakers’.

“No problem, we can break and fix any kind of security codes,” said a code breaker operating from an outlet in Hafiz Centre. Meanwhile, when the cell phone of a friend got stolen he was amazed to know that his girl friend received a number of obnoxious calls on her mobile.

It was much later that a mobile phone expert told him that the security code he put on his phone to lock it so that unauthorised persons could not use it was broken very easily. And whoever holds his phone now can use all his record saved in the phone. The usual charge for this service is about Rs 100 to 150 only.●