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iPhone How can CL dealers factory unlock phones???

swoosh0217

swoosh0217

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 20, 2007
579
0
NW
How can some of these people factory unlock iPhones? Do they just call the carriers many times in a day until they get to a rep that will be kind enough to do it for them?

Reason I ask is because I just paid someone to factory unlock my 4S for $100 yesterday. He ask for my IMEI number and I gave him the money. He called me a day later and sent me the info via email. I restored my phone thru iTunes today and viola.

This is better than having to buy gevey sim and wasting all the trouble and money whenever theres an IOS update.
 
Most likely called up AT&T using his personal or business account and got the phone unlocked. A customer has a certain amount of unlocks they can do for an iPhone on their account.
 
I unlocked my phone today by using AT&T's customer service chat today and gave them my IMEI, restored my phone, and it said it was unlocked

Maybe he works for AT&T? Not really sure how else he'd do it cause the AT&T guy asked for a lot of info from my acct to verify who I am and what not
 
The grey market vendors have the ability to get IMEI numbers into Apple's whitelist server.
Most likely they are paying someone with that entitlement to enter the IMEIs
 
PsstGreek said:
Most likely called up AT&T using his personal or business account and got the phone unlocked. A customer has a certain amount of unlocks they can do for an iPhone on their account.
Click to expand...

I've heard this also, however just curious how does this work on phones that were just bought recently?

For instance, I'm on a family plan. I unlocked my 4 a couple weeks ago, because (I figure) the 2 year is up as I bought my 4 on the release day around June 2010. Did the chat with At&t and they unlocked it.

However if my family plan is allotted 5 unlocks, does this mean I can unlock my wife's 4s which was just bought like a few months ago?

Is it that it doesn't matter when you bought a certain phone, but rather how long you've stayed in a contract?
 
noiceT said:
I've heard this also, however just curious how does this work on phones that were just bought recently?

For instance, I'm on a family plan. I unlocked my 4 a couple weeks ago, because (I figure) the 2 year is up as I bought my 4 on the release day around June 2010. Did the chat with At&t and they unlocked it.

However if my family plan is allotted 5 unlocks, does this mean I can unlock my wife's 4s which was just bought like a few months ago?

Is it that it doesn't matter when you bought a certain phone, but rather how long you've stayed in a contract?
Click to expand...

To get the sanctioned unlock from AT&T your iPhone has to cycle the 2 year contract or if you pay the ETF.
 
PsstGreek said:
To get the sanctioned unlock from AT&T your iPhone has to cycle the 2 year contract or if you pay the ETF.
Click to expand...

I see, so these craigslist people either use grey market tactics, or they have a handful of phones on certain accounts (personal or business) that have passed the 2 year mark, but have not "cashed in" their unlock eligibility.
 
dhlizard said:
The grey market vendors have the ability to get IMEI numbers into Apple's whitelist server.
Most likely they are paying someone with that entitlement to enter the IMEIs
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure they pay a service in India, the UK, or whatever place has the tools to bruteforce the unlock server until the correct unlock key is generated for that particular IMEI. Two reasons the wait time varies is that and the high demand for such a service.
 
LandonDonovan said:
I'm pretty sure they pay a service in India, the UK, or whatever place has the tools to bruteforce the unlock server until the correct unlock key is generated for that particular IMEI. Two reasons the wait time varies is that and the high demand for such a service.
Click to expand...

This is incorrect.
There has never been a brute force attack that has been successful.
 
I'm amazed how it only took a day for this guy to unlock my phone. I was leery about giving him my money but I went to his place and I can see that he is running a computer, iphone repair shop in his garage. There's couple of customers that were there getting their computers repaired so I know he wont run away and take my $100.

The next day he texted me and said my phone is now unlock and gave me this instructions...

turn off phone> plugged tmobile sim> turn on the phone and plug the phone to the computer and start itunes.... I got an error 21 pop up message but I noticed my phone went thru Activation process. My phone rebooted like normal and restored my phone thru itunes and I got the "Congratulations" pop up screen.

I tried my sons tmobile sim and so as my wifes att work sim card and they both worked.

Whatever this guy did, I'm very impressed and well worth the $100.

5d43c551-1.jpg
 
dhlizard said:
This is incorrect.
There has never been a brute force attack that has been successful.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call it an attack, but trying to brute force the 15-digit NCK seems impossible now. I just thought they had a limited list of keys on Apple's server. Why can't they do it for iPhones that are lost or stolen? or maybe they can as long as they aren't used in the same country(or in some cases all of Europe).

I don't think there's a guy working for AT&T doing all the unlocks for a kickback. There has to be another side to it.
 
LandonDonovan said:
I wouldn't call it an attack, but trying to brute force the 15-digit NCK seems impossible now. I just thought they had a limited list of keys on Apple's server. Why can't they do it for iPhones that are lost or stolen? or maybe they can as long as they aren't used in the same country(or in some cases all of Europe).

I don't think there's a guy working for AT&T doing all the unlocks for a kickback. There has to be another side to it.
Click to expand...

There are many carriers the world over with the access to send in an IMEI number to Apple's whitelist server.
You need to think larger that just AT&T.
 
Tmobile has customer support people located in Australia and Philippines. Im just saying...
 
Must be different here in the UK as I bought my 4s from a guy when it was just a week old. Next day I rang the 3 network it was locked to and they unlocked it for £15 Took them a day to do it but they just text me and told me to plug into iTunes and it was done.
 
dhlizard said:
There are many carriers the world over with the access to send in an IMEI number to Apple's whitelist server.
You need to think larger that just AT&T.
Click to expand...

I thought each carrier had a different unlock code, i.e. AT&T US would be different from AT&T Europe and couldn't unlock the other's phones. I had a friend who bought an iPhone 4 in Switzerland and then had it locked to AT&T when he brought it back. I guess I vaguely recall foreign carriers unlocking other carriers' iPhones.
 
LandonDonovan said:
I thought each carrier had a different unlock code, i.e. AT&T US would be different from AT&T Europe and couldn't unlock the other's phones. I had a friend who bought an iPhone 4 in Switzerland and then had it locked to AT&T when he brought it back. I guess I vaguely recall foreign carriers unlocking other carriers' iPhones.
Click to expand...

Your IMEI is sent to the Apple whitelist server, the server then applies the unlock during an activation or following a restore.

If each carrier had their own unlock code, the jailbreak community would have learned those years ago.
Apple controls the unlocks via their IMEI based server system.
 
$100 is much

swoosh0217 said:
How can some of these people factory unlock iPhones? Do they just call the carriers many times in a day until they get to a rep that will be kind enough to do it for them?

Reason I ask is because I just paid someone to factory unlock my 4S for $100 yesterday. He ask for my IMEI number and I gave him the money. He called me a day later and sent me the info via email. I restored my phone thru iTunes today and viola.

This is better than having to buy gevey sim and wasting all the trouble and money whenever theres an IOS update.
Click to expand...

i just want you to say that you paid a lot. i can just do it in $50. so if anyone of your friends want factory unlock you can ask them to contact me
my emai- svik911@gmail.com
 
Maybe I'm naive and don't understand something. But isn't this as easy as someone giving me their IMEI number. Me calling/online chatting ATT and saying I just bought this phone off CL/eBay/wherever and ATT unlocking it for me? At least that's the route that seems easiest to me having done that process with my own phone that they unlocked.
 
Which phones can be factory unlocked? I have verizon, any chance of that being factory unlocked? Gevey has been a royal pain in my arse!
 
Grumpy232 said:
Which phones can be factory unlocked? I have verizon, any chance of that being factory unlocked? Gevey has been a royal pain in my arse!
Click to expand...

Yes, but CDMA unlocking only allows the use of International sims in the sim slot, not any US carriers, so if you want a truly unlocked phone which can use any GSM sim, stay away from CDMA iPhones (Sprint or Verizon).
 
dhlizard said:
Yes, but CDMA unlocking only allows the use of International sims in the sim slot, not any US carriers, so if you want a truly unlocked phone which can use any GSM sim, stay away from CDMA iPhones (Sprint or Verizon).
Click to expand...
Not true. My Verizon unlocked phone works on TMobile network. Needs tweaking but works. Got my daughters Verizon phone to work fine on our Tmobile, SMS and MMS, now just need to tweak mine the same way I tweaked hers, grrrrrr.
 
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