I'm currently working on an application where the code uses the device IMEI number as a variable to store something in the DB. We need to see what device the reading originated from.
ie:
String IMEI = telephonyManager.getDeviceId();
However, I'm not sure how this will behave on phones without network access, such as a wifi only tablet. Will is return a unique value? Will it return null?
I know there are alternatives to using IMEI, and I don't need any explanation on what alternative values I can use. I only need to know what will happen when I call this on a phone with no network access. Please do not provide suggestions on alternative IDs or anything other than what I have asked. I appreciate you taking the time to read this question.
Thanks,
-Mark
You get null.
Just ran into this on an app I wrote 3 years ago, and only just converted to tablet format. I had forgotten we were using IMEI (against the advice you and I both received ;-) ) and we started sending a whole bunch of null device IDs to the server.
Sadly it took a whole lot of network logs before I tracked it down to that little hack.
Related
This is my code
TelephonyManager mTelephonyMgr =
(TelephonyManager)context.getSystemService(Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE);
String sDeviceID = mTelephonyMgr.getDeviceId();
String sSimSerial = mTelephonyMgr.getSimSerialNumber();
String sSimlineNumber = mTelephonyMgr.getLine1Number();
with the help of this i want to read user phone number from his/her SIM card i also add READ_PHONE_STATE permission in manifest file. Eclipse showing no error in my code but still i get nothing in the end. Is there anything wrong with my code?
See this thread for more information on this issue. Specifically, the below comment on the accepted answer:
Actually, not so perfect. Last time I tried this method, it reported the phone number that my phone originally had, before my old mobile number was ported over to it. It probably still does, as the Settings app still shows that defunct number. Also, there are reports that some SIMs cause this method to return null. That being said, I'm not aware of a better answer. – CommonsWare
It seems that getting a user's phone number is not as simple as asking the OS to hand it over, for reasons beyond the control of the developer. An alternative is to populate whichever field you need with the number the OS gives, but also let the user edit the phone number in case the OS is wrong.
Android provides the following method to determine the network operator:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/telephony/TelephonyManager.html#getNetworkOperatorName()
However even the documentation specifically says:
Returns the alphabetic name of current registered operator.
Availability: Only when user is registered to a network. Result may be unreliable on CDMA networks (use getPhoneType() to determine if on a CDMA network).
The problem is that we need a reliable way to detect the carrier so we can identify the traffic source. Has anyone had a similar problem and if so, what is the best solution?
My phone is on Verizon Wireless. On a daily basis, I drive through areas where my phone is roaming and/or has poor reception. Using scripting layer for android, I will log the results of calling getOperatorName() once every ten minutes over the next week.
There is another method that might work in the android.telephony.cdma api. The documentation there is missing the reliability disclaimer. You would only get a Network ID instead of a name. Unfortunately, this requires API level 5 instead of 1 if that matters to you.
Logging the results of the getOperatorName() method yielded nothing special. When I had no service it consistently returned null and when I had service it consistently returned "Verizon Wireless." I'm sure that's not very helpful.
Edit: Addition and correction.
Added - Explanation of link
Corrected - API level 5 not 17
Edit 2: Test results
I am currently looking for a solution for this problem as well. According to this thread one could use CdmaCellLocation.getNetworkId and CdmaCellLocation.getSystemId. Since there are no CDMA networks in Germany, I am unable to check if this works...
You think maybe this was one precurser to Google pulling cdma support? Play within the frameworks or find you another playground is what I hear Google saying. Well that and the fact that carrier apps burned into roms have at times left gaping holes in security.
As to a possible answer to your question... from where are you able to pull info? APN settings might tell you or an assert to a known carrier line in build.prop could pull the info I might need for example. (I do the hobby roms). Then again if you physically inspect a phone, the carrier is usually branded ;) From what vantage are you pulling the info?
Rob
I'm trying (wondering if it's even possible) to write an app, that would change the network selection mode automatically, based on some criteria. E.g. change the network operator from Vodafone to T-Mobile (assuming that the SIM card registration will succeed, but I'm not worried about it atm)
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any way in the API to do it. Anyone has any idea?
I assume, since it's not in the public APIs, there might still be a way to do it, if the phone is rooted. Is that true? If so, where should I look?
Thanks in advance
Sorry but you can't.
You can have a look into the TelephonyManager .
You can know the current operator: getSimOperator(Name) / getNetworkOperator(Name).
You can also check this thread saying "I learn that for the sake of security there aren't any public APIs to manage this so the only option is to send the user to the system PreferenceScreen within my app."
How about using android.telephony.CarrierConfigManager? I read about it on https://developer.android.com/reference/android/telephony/CarrierConfigManager.html and it seems to allow you to change alot of carrier-specific parameters, although the app must be signed with the certificate that has a matching signature to one on the SIM, so it can usually only be implemented by the carrier issuing the SIM. See also https://source.android.com/devices/tech/config/carrier.
I havent found an actual method to actively switch carrier, but if anywhere, I'd expect it to be there.
I'm implementing an way to unique identify the device.
The architect send me the following specs:
devices with Wifi + 3G: IMEI Code
devices Wifi only - MacAddress
Both needs also the Manufacturer + Model for complete the id.
My questions are:
How do I get the IMEI from the device?
How can I get the Manufacturer and Model from the device? (I see theres some constants on Build class for it, but don't know where to use them)
Theres devices with 3G only?
How can I know if the device is wifi only, wifi+3g or 3g only if exists?
Also, suggestions for unique identifiers are available.
PS: I'm already able to get the MacAddres through WifiManager.
You can use the TelephonyManager getDeviceID method. This should return IMEI or MEID. For build information you can see android.os.Build and android.os.Build.VERSION. Also, if its about uniquely identifying your application installs, you may want to go through (and/or show your architect) the developer blog post on Identifying App Installations
How to get IMEI can be found in this question: How to get the device's IMEI/ESN programmatically in android?;
MANUFACTURER and MODEL can be retrieved from android.os.BUILD class.
Theoretically, yes, there might be devices without Wi-Fi but with 3G. But I haven't seen any.
If getSystemService(WIFI_SERVICE) returns null, then there is no Wi-Fi.
android.telephony.TelephonyManager.getDeviceId() gets you 'the IMEI for GSM and the MEID or ESN for CDMA phones'.
Build.MODEL is a static field, so you can just use it like that, so long as you've imported android.os.Build first.
Quite possibly.
You could try calling Context.getSystemService(Context.WIFI_SERVICE) and seeing if it's null, although I suppose it's possible that the service might still exist even if there's no wifi (in such a case, I would expect checking the wifi to return DISABLED.)
These questions have plagued Android developers for a while, see Is there a unique Android device ID?
The Android development team has tried to address these concerns directly in their blog here: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/03/identifying-app-installations.html
In answer to your last question: just test for null when querying for SIM/MAC/Whatever and then act accordingly. It's been reported that there are cases where MAC will return null; see my first link.
I'm working on a client-server Android application and trying to figure out how to identify different phones/users to the server unambiguously. My first attempt would be to use the phone number on the SIM card. Although now that I think about it, how common is it these days that your phone number changes when you e.g. change carrier? I guess it depends from country to country etc.
Anyway, I've been trying to figure out, since I don't have actual Android phones, how to change the phone number of the emulator phone to simulate different users. Is it possible or should I just think about alternative ways of identification?
The android_id is supposed to uniquely identify the device, however, it has been noted that the id can be changed if you know how Spoofing android_id
import android.provider.Settings.System;
String android_id = System.getString(this.getContentResolver(), System.ANDROID_ID);
In the emulator, the android_id does not have a value, so you will need to put a debugging routine in to assign a value yourself.
However, if you want to identify the user, and let the user access your service from different devices with one user id you are better off assigning them a user id and having them authenticate to your service using this user id as their credential. This would let them use their id's on many different devices, unless you used it in conjunction with the android_id (and the android_id wasn't spoofed) then you could limit them to one device.
You should use the number present by the emulator. Eg. usually first emulator that is running has number 5554, second 5555, and so on.
You can use these numbers to make calls, send text messages from emulator to emulator. This, I think, simulates different numbers/users for your purposes.
The SIM card info is hard-coded into the emulator-arm and emulator-x86 binaries. Changing the phone number (MSISDN) is detailed at the end of this blog post: new link, web archive
The SIM card stores the phone number with each 2 digits swapped. So (the first 7 of the phone number) 1555521 becomes 515525%d1 in the binary. While a little tedious, patching it for each test isn't the end of the world. You could also use sed:
cd path/to/android-sdk-linux/tools/
cp emulator-arm emulator-arm.backup
sed -i 's/515525%d1/816745%d3/g' emulator-arm
That will change the number to 1-876-543-[PORT NUMBER]. Details on why are in the linked blog post.