Hello there,

I would like to purchase a 2nd hand iphone 3Gs and I dont know the seller. He's imported it from Australia (im in europe) and its supposed to be practically new and factory unlocked at a tempting price. I dont get an invoice or anything like that. Well now I know that Australia enforced IMEI blacklisting through all their networks, so it would be tempting for someone to sell a stolen iphone over here.

long story short:

1. Is it possible to fake the IMEI # that will be shown in the iphones menu or upon pressing # 06 # ?

i remember ziphone doing something like that..

2. how to tell if an iphone is unlocked by software, lets say a) without access to any other tools b) with internet access

3. For activating a 3gs, it needs to be connected to itunes and one is prompted to register the phone, so what if the phone has been registered to someone else and/or someone else's itunes account?

thanks

It's not possible to change/fake imei on a 3G or 3GS

Australia does sell iPhones factory unlocked they are not cheap at just over aud$1000 for the 32gb 3GS

The most accurate way to test if an iPhone is factory unlocked is to try and restore it with original apple firmware and then use a sim card from a different carrier.

There are files you can check on the phone, but really this generally requires you to be jailbroken to see this filesystem. You might be able to get these files out of an iTunes backup but I would need to check this.

It seems Apple relies on the carriers to blacklist and block phones.

thanks. what about the registration with itunes? Is that of any particular importance?

Originally Posted by funkyfingerz

3. For activating a 3gs, it needs to be connected to itunes and one is prompted to register the phone, so what if the phone has been registered to someone else and/or someone else's itunes account?

thanks

If it is truly factory unlocked, the registration will just be for the iPhone, not for a mobile phone plan.

The iPhone registration is just for an ITMS account, if you already have such an account enter your existing credentials in instead.

Otherwise, if it is not factory unlocked, you are looking at hacktivation which bypasses all this anyway.