IMEI Sensor

Hey guys, I'm trying to create a device that can pick up my IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number flying through the air.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

I'm trying to create a device that can pick up all the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers flying through the air

You could use a phishing net :wink:

sorry, not all, just mine. in a sense that means all but im just looking to have it identify my devices when they are in range.

What are you actually trying to do?

Your IMEI usually written inside your phone under the battery somewhere.

Catching it with some kind of phone radio, over the air, is beyond the power of the humble Arduino.

i'm looking to identify my devices on the Arduino side using the always on low-power identifiers my devices broadcast to the tower. It will have a list of my ids on a local server and the Arduino will act accordingly when one of my devices is within range.

Sorry, I have no idea how you would do that without some serious microwave RF engineering.

But you never know, someone may have done some clever cellphone hardware hack.

You could have a look at the APIs for Android and other phone OSs, but I would be really surprised if any of them expose the feature to listen to other IMEIs.

Hrrm, ok, thanks. Didn't think it would be that hard. As far as I know the information is unencrypted. I've seen devices for sale but never to the general consumer.

I guess the problem is that the phone isn't always broadcasting this id like I thought it was. It seems to only do this when trying to connect to a base station. This means I would need to create a device that masquerades as a base station, not impossible but a different problem then I originally thought.

I am moderately confident that I understand analog receivers operating at 'normal' frequencies, but when you get up to microwave frequencies, it all just gets a bit mad. All your wires become inductors capacitors are wires and all the normal transistors you are used to are orders of magnitude too slow.

You certainly can't just do things with a couple of transistors on a bread board and feed it into the Rx pin of your Arduino. Well if you do, I will be really impressed.

As far as I'm concerned it has far more in common with magic than the kind electronics I'm used to :wink:

Hrrm, right, thanks for the great info.

Do you have any other routes you might look into to achieve something similar to what I was trying to do?

Thanks!

If you just want to know that there are other cellphones around, then thats not too hard.

Circuits like this: http://www.circuit-projects.com/rf-radio-frequency-circuits/cell-phone-detector.html

I also designed a simple one for my next book http://www.dangerouslymad.com -- Chapter 9.

Whats the source requirement?

It needs to be able to distinguish device from device.

Could I do a similar form of identification if I turned on bluetooth on all of the devices and used that to determine what devices are near?