Germany jails phone shop boss who hacked chips

Nuremberg (dpa) – A German court has jailed for four and a half years a cellphone dealer who altered the software in thousands of mobile phones, some stolen, to cheat telephone firms.

Phone companies in Europe offer bargain mobiles on condition that the user stays for two years with the same phone company and keeps topping up a “prepaid” card. Special software in a semiconductor chip called a SIM card prevents cheating.

The 40-year-old man, who owned a phone shop in the city of Nuremberg, admitted the charges, but claimed to judges that “everybody” in the business hacked the software and this was “more or less tolerated” by the phone companies.

Judges rejected that, saying his activities had cheated phone companies of 600,000 euros. He was convicted of receiving 348 stolen phones and fraud by altering 2,900 phones.