ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250128
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BALTIMORE
SOURCE: MARY BOYLE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brigid Fahmy's car was parked on a busy street for less than an hour when someone smashed a window and stole her cellular phone.
``It was still light out, there were people streaming out of work. I couldn't believe it,'' Fahmy said.
Authorities weren't surprised. Cellular phones are being stolen at an unprecedented rate in some major cities, often by drug dealers and other criminals who want phones that can't be traced.
The cellular telephone industry, which last year lost a record $650 million through theft and fraud, is fighting back with new technology to make using a stolen phone more difficult.
``Last year was probably the worst year for us,'' said Tim Ayers, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. ``But we think we may be rounding a corner.''
Generally, thieves steal a cellular phone and reprogram with a stolen phone number, a practice known as ``cloning.'' Most of the time, the person whose phone number has been stolen doesn't realize it until the bill arrives.
That means the criminal can get away with maybe a month of free calling before the phone company disconnects the number.
The greatest hope in the industry's high-tech arsenal against fraud is now ``authentication'' technology, which is being introduced in some markets around the country. The industry expects it be in place nationwide within a year.
``Cloning as we know it today will become extinct with authentication,'' said Roseanna DeMaria, vice president of security for AT&T Wireless.
Authentication requires the phone to verify its identity to a receiving station. The phone company can more promptly recognize that the number is being used fraudulently.
``The criminal's phone doesn't stay activated as long, maybe two or three days. Then they get discouraged,'' said DeMaria, who used to prosecute cellular phone fraud in the district attorney's office in New York City.
The industry has also developed new devices that prevent thieves from reprogramming cellular phones with stolen numbers and is training police and prosecutors to better fight the criminals.
Because the phones are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, federal agents are involved. The Secret Service is working closely with the industry to break up wire fraud operations in most major cities.
Black market cellular phone hot spots include New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Charlotte, N.C., said Arnette Heintze, a Secret Service spokesman.
Police don't have much trouble arresting the smash-and-grabbers and middlemen who resell the phones. But finding the lawbreakers who ``harvest'' stolen phone numbers - using radio scanning devices at places like airports - and the computer hackers who program those numbers into black market phones, is more difficult.
In the first half of this year, the Secret Service arrested 259 people responsible for $7 million in phone fraud, Heintze said.
``We are making progress and having an impact on this crime,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB