howto get your cell phone serial number

Post author By n3wjack
Post date July 30, 2006
8 Comments on howto get your cell phone serial number

I just came across this bit of info, which is quite interesting and useful in the unfortunate event your cell phone would get stolen. Using your cell phones serial number you can have your network operator block the phone the next time it logs on to the network. Even when the petty thief uses a different sim card in the phone, it will not unlock, rendering the phone useless to the thief.

Nice!

Your serial number is usually printed somewhere on your original packaging, but in case you have a second hand phone, or ditched the packaging, there’s a way to extract it from your phone by entering the following code:

*#06#

Quit easy isn’t it? The serial number should now appear on your screen for you to write down for safe keeping. I’m not sure on how many phones this code works, but it seems to be working on all the major brands so far.

If you happen to know any more of these cell phone hacks, feel free to post them in a comment. I’m always interested in tricks like that.

8 replies on “howto get your cell phone serial number”

Unfortunately it is. I read about that some time ago, apparently these serial numbers are not hardwired into the phones, but are stored in rewritable memory, so someone with the right tools can change the serial number into whatever number he wants, and thus unlocking a blocked phone.
Pretty shitty innit?

Is it possible to change the serial number of the cell phone?

That would block your number/sim card only. So if the theif replaces the sim card with a new one, which they will, they can still keep using the phone. By using the serial number you can also lock them out of the phone completely, so they can’t fence it, or use it themselves.