: In many jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and many parts of the EU, altering an IMEI is a criminal offense . In the US, while the law is more nuanced, it is often treated as fraud if used to access a network or hide a stolen device.
Every time the iPhone communicates with a cell tower, it broadcasts its hardware IMEI. Changing the number in iOS settings does nothing to alter this transmission. The network always sees the real chip. ziphone imei change
Crucially, early versions of ziPhone included a feature that could to the device’s baseband (the chip that handles cellular communication). This was not a permanent hardware change but rather a temporary software patch that fooled the carrier’s network into thinking the phone had a different identity. : In many jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom
Some users believe changing the IMEI to one from a different carrier will unlock the phone. Unlocking is a server-side command from the original carrier. Changing the IMEI will not remove a carrier lock; it will just make the phone unable to activate on any network because the new IMEI won’t match Apple’s activation records. Changing the number in iOS settings does nothing
This was a deliberate IMEI change. It was a glitch .