Man where do you live? Noone in this world I know would sell you such information unless they are ultimately stupid. Companies keep access logs, and leak can be identified in less then a minute.
And for what? A price of a hendset? Come on.

Discussing about moral & law reasons serve no purpose I think. If it is not legal on your country, or if you really really trust your government (sounds stupid, anyway..) and you don't want to be anonymized, so do not change your IMEI. But not all ppl wants to change their devices' IMEI number are criminals Personally, I prefer to be anonymous. Not because I'm a criminal or a threat to anyone (Because I'll dominate the World. mwahaha--) just because I think I have rights to have a private life, with private information. And my mobile device -which bought by me. It was not free, or given as a gift by government- should not be a collar for me. But, like I said, It is matter of choice. I prefer to be anonymous, I LOVE being anonymous and I don't think It is reasonable to trust anyone (police,government, you name it) that much.

So, It's better to not discuss why to do it. Since I own this device, I think I have the right to customize or change any parts of it.

About how to do; I think it is not that important even if it's written on HW, It can be possible to emulate it on-the-fly. (like WiFi MAC address, which already mentioned)

IMEI writing is only illegal in certain countries.

The IMEI is stored in a non-writable block on the N900. It's most definitely possible to modify it, provided you have the right tools.

True.

But it completely undermines the discussed goal - anonymity. Because anonymity requires a change on-a-fly, without visiting some lab with equipment. If you change IMEI once you are not shielded by anonymity, phone is localized/bind to your SIM card soon after that.

So, if people insist on discussing this topic then they have another reason...

I think that we should not stop :-)

This thread is just starting to get interesting. I think that it is quite important that this kind of discussion goes on about things like changing imei codes on phones.
At least in democratic countries the law is basically just a written expression of what is commonly accepted to be right or wrong in the community.
I think that therefore it is you and I who ultimately decide in our democratic communities (read countries) what is illegal and what is not.
As we all have noticed already while reading this thread; changing imei codes is illegal in some countries and legal in others - doesn't that alone make you wonder why is that?

I wouldn't want to be tracked by an imei code (or by any other means). Unfortunately I don't have any choice in my country at the moment. I think that this is wrong and that this is something that needs to change in the future.

propelli

You don't need to write that location to change the IMEI. What you need to do is change the firmware code that reads the IMEI.

It is true too.

Just decrypt the checksum capability and it could be OK to change firmware.

Why da hell would you want to change your IMEI anyways?! I can only think of negative outcomes.

Plus, isn't it like trying to change a MAC address? I don't think it's possible... Maybe you could spoof some sites/individuals, but your IMEI should never change.

Changing your MAC address is trivial, and has no real impact beyond your nearest router (cablemodem, wifi router, etc.) On top of that, it isn't illegal.

You right, and changing IMEI usually has one goal - sell stolen phone. Actually, it is required before selling a stolen phone because old IMEI can be blocked pretty fast and phone can be useless.

It is like changing car VIN - without it it is impossible to register a stolen car.