Imei Change for Pixels

de0u

ans I guess another way to check would be trying to flash GrapheneOS to the device. If it's not an extremely good simulation of a Pixel, either the flashing will fail or the device will be bricked -- most likely permanently.

Perhaps there is a Pixel IMEI editor in the wild... perhaps somebody paid somebody in a Pixel factory to manufacture a run of devices with bogus IMEIs... many things are possible in theory.

de0u

FaberCastell My understanding is that Graphene does not facilitate changing Imei, and I had assumed it was not possible...

It might indeed not be possible. In theory a batch of Pixels might have been built with bogus IMEIs at a legitimate factory. If so, changing IMEIs after manufacture might still not be possible. Or it might require a special software tool that has been leaked. It's not clear what the situation is.

FaberCastell would it not be a worthy inclusion if it is possible?

Opinions may differ. My understanding is that the GrapheneOS project hopes to convince various government authorities that Play Integrity is unfairly banning legitimately secure GrapheneOS devices. Because IMEI editing is illegal in many jurisdictions, I can easily imagine that the project might not want to be on record as enabling IMEI editing.

Please note that I do not speak for the GrapheneOS project.

ans

In my opinion the device's imei was changed through either a tool that did not tampered boot integrity or it could have been changed through some physical tinkering.
Moreover later this weekend I would check the boot integrity thoroughly and inform you guys.
Moreover the phones are original in my opinion. I will check it by connecting to graphene flash tool but I won't flash it as it is not mine.
As a graphene user myself I can confidently say it was an original not a replica.

DeletedUser87

how do you know the IMEI was changed?

ans

DeletedUser87 My government provides a web portal to check duties and it was not of a pixel it was of some lower end phone and showing tax of a few dollars instead of few hundred dollars.
I think each manufacturer have a unique prefix for their devices and it checks from that.

DeletedUser87

ans I don't know, maybe they just lied in their customs declaration and no one checked? It's pretty hard to change IMEIs, that would be publicly known by now I would think. What happens if you enter the IMEI on Google's Pixel repair website?

ans

DeletedUser87 currently don't have access to device, will give update this weekend.

PaulDavis

The problem is that there might now be duplicate IMEI out there, and if you had a legitimate, and expensive, phone, you wouldn't want it blocked because the networks had caught up to the fakes and issued a shut down command.

ans

PaulDavis They probably break the other device.

ans

In my opinion the factory tools have been leaked, through which they change the imei. The device is same to same to a normal pixel just the imei is changed.

grapheneosenjoyer1233

ans Did you try and flash grapheneOS on it, i have the same phone and want to try oit grapheneOS.

ans

grapheneosenjoyer1233 I am Currently using graphene os on a similar pixel 6. Everything works just there is a warning in graphene in a notification that says that your phone is in engineering prototype not all security features would be available. But it is working so fine for me.

grapheneosenjoyer1233

ans you can still call and stuff right, the imei chamge remained?

ans

Yeah the imei remains changed

grapheneosenjoyer1233

I have a pixel 7 cpid so i could try it

ans

grapheneosenjoyer1233 yeah absolutely

schweizer

Almost certainly the IMEI is saved by a software tool in the factories. Not unlikely in a write-once-only memory. The factories are not Google-owned afaik.

So if there are countries that grant a tax reduction when the imei is in a certain format it is not unlikely they produce special phones in the factories for those markets. And Google may tolerate this without talking about it.

Thus I see no proof that the IMEI was altered. It may well be a country specific adaption for duty purposes.

subsonic7691

I can confirm that these devices exist and have even flashed GrapheneOS on one of them which worked like a charm. Even the Auditor app flagged no issues. These IMEIs are changed by flashing the device partition after rooting the device (they can be unrooted and their bootloader can be locked after the process is done). Here's a git repo I found which explains the process in more technical depth.

hobbitus

I wonder whether anyone tried to use the AT +EGMR=1,7,"IMEI_1" and "AT +EGMR=1,10,"IMEI_2" command after dialling *#7465625# or ##3646633##

Does GOS installation or update rely on IMEI for hardware information?
(IMEI provides hardware information about phone, check e.g. https://meidata.net/)

My interest in changing IMEI is to increase anonymity.

It is easy to match any anonymous SIM, such as cash PAYG or silent.link, with KYC SIM service on the same phone as both IMEIs are linked together. Arguably, changing one IMEI may help only if the SIMs are not used at the same time. It would be easy to figure out user identity if both SIMs are frequently, or all the time, at the same location.