Indonesia’s black-market phone prevention plan bricks a whole bunch of handsets Indonesia's cellphone registration scheme – an effort to protect local manufacturers, boost the tax base, and ensure consumers don't end up with dodgy products – appears to have run aground. The nation's plan was hatched in 2019 in response to the scourge of black-market handhelds imported into Indonesia by folks with little …
My rule on tools: Purchase the correct tool once.
I'd rather spend $100 on a good (if minimal) socket set, than I would $19.95 on a "197 piece chromed vanadium tool set with fitted case" ... You gets what you pays for. Unless you like shelling out perfectly good coin for the same tool again. And again. And ...
BUT WAIT! If you order now, we'll DOUBLE your order! That's right, TWO 197 piece chromed vanadium tool sets with fitted cases, and TWO free first-aid kits, each valued at £70!!! (Just pay separate shipping and handling. All major credit cards accepted.) Operators are standing by, so CALL NOW!
Generally, the first time I buy a thingA I tend not to shell out for the premium product - it may not be obvious to me what the "best" make of thingA is, I may find out that after all I hardly ever use the thingA, it may be I decide that a different sort of thingA would have been better. Then, if it turns out that I *do* need a second thingA, because the first is (or was) useful - but crap/broken/etc - I know now that spending good money on a decent version of the thingA makes sense.
Still, as ever, everyone is entitled to decide on their own strategy. There is, after all, a certain pleasure at having a high quality thingA in the toolbox, even if you never have reason to use it.
That's my mistake, then - I keep Thing1 and Thing2 in my toolbox and everytime I open it I end up having to rebuild the house.
But if you break ToolA1 before Job1 is complete, you'll have to spend the time and energy to purchase ToolA2. It gets worse if your cheap ToolA1 manages to screw-up a part (or parts) of Job1, thus necessitating their replacement. And worse yet, it'll give your nearest and dearest one more thing to bitch at you about.
Shirley you'd have been better off purchasing a properly made Tool the first place?
I know a professional mechanic who has the opposite idea. The first time he buys a tool, he buys the cheapest that will get the job done. If it breaks, the he replaces it with MAC or SnapOn. As such that means he has a socket set with two SnapOn ratchets, several SnapOn 10mm, 13mm, 15mm and 17mm sockets, and the rest are cheap chrome vanduim.
He told me it also has the advantage that if a bolt rounds off, he has no hesitation about hammering one of the cheap sockets over the head and welding it on.
When it comes to tools, buy at Bunnings. Buy the cheapest brand. If it is usable but breaks after a while, take it back and get it replaced. If it is completely useless, take it back and upgrade to a better brand.
I have had Bunnings staff tell me to do this when I ask which brand I should buy.
Seems to me that the nearest Bunnings is in Kerikeri, North Island. That's an awfully long drive when I need to replace a busted 17mm socket to fix my tractor when we are in the middle of harvest[0]. I think I'll stick to purchasing proper sockets that won't break in the first place.
[0] When harvesting silage/earage for a neighbor, we'll typically run the combine and three trucks simultaneously. That's 4 people getting paid, waiting on a busted socket. Do the math(s), even if purchased a trifle closer than clear across the Pacific, diagonally.
No professional I know would think it OK to break a client's equipment. I strongly suggest you find a new mechanic, one who has proper tools which won't round off bolts in the first place.
Remember, YOU might be the owner of the first bit of kit that he uses one of those broken-by-design tools on. If he rounds off (for example) an oxygen sensor, you'll not only have to wait for him to replace his tool, you'll also have to wait on the part for your car (and it'll be on 6 week back-order, it always is). Who is going to pay for the rental/hire car, so you can get to work? It sure as fuck won't be the guy who is too tight to pay for proper tools!
Fucking cowboys give us all a bad name ...
So maybe they did use Excel after all.
Some of the project managers heard about that newfangled xlsx format, that it doesn't suffer the limits of the old xls format... 2 + 2 = 69 and off they went. Outstanding! We'll have this done in a week! Trebles all round!!
I get that travelers landing at their airports will find their own handsets have become wifi-only? Or have the authorities exempted foreign-registered SIMs from the scheme?
Okay now in the after-Corona it's not the right time for tourism, but when it's possible to travel again I think I wouldn't mind a week or two in Bali...
IMEI doesn't have a "country code", so suspect this is achieved via "if the attach request contains a foreign SIM (per IMSI), don't bother with enhanced IMEI checks. If the attach request contains a domestic IMSI, request equipment authentication"
The signalling for attaching to the network contains optional messages to query either or both (or none) of the IMSI or the IMEI.
Simpler... Where does the HLR tied to the IMSI is located ?
Since the IMSI is part and parcel of the first packet sent by a mobile when it tries to connect to a network, if the IMSI is not in a local operator HLRs, it has to be foreign. ( and then the network will look for the HLR to get all the nice and relevant informations like whom to send the bill to [ at least through which opearator ], if nobody say 'It's Mine' then the network don't register the IMSI and the phone is a brick. [ that way blank SIM cards are worthless until they are 'Activated' [ aka Registered in an HLR ]. )
It may well depend on the network architecture. Back in the day when I last looked at this sort of thing there was a concept of a VLR that had partial network coverage, going back to the HLR for anyone it didn't know about. Equally, it may well be in the first NAS message into the core network (for a new UE), but that message is not read by the HLR, but the MME (in LTE), which then has to query the HSS which does a DB lookup to determine status and reply.
Anyway, IMSI contains Mobile Network and Country Codes as first 5/6 digits, so you just read the numbers and can tell if it's yours or if it's a roamer. No need to do a DB lookup to identify a roamer.
It is not really a brick in the same sense that some strict lockdown measures can render the phones in (i.e not even getting to the OS).
I am sure the phones can still use wifi and play shite games.
I wonder about foreign handsets with foreign simcards. I doubt these will need registering or tourists might get annoyed. So this government decision is mostly to trap the denizens living in indonesia.
To "prevent black market handsets" and not piss off tourists Turkey has a variation on this
You can bring a "foreign" handset in and get a local SIM
However, the handset must be registered to a Turkish citizen or foreign resident within 3 months or it's blacklisted
The result: you need a new handset every time you visit. iPhone fanthings will not face this problem
However, Turks are very enterprising - it's the home of the Telefon Hastanesi (Telephone Hospital) so it's probably a $25 fix
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