BAPUJI INSTITUE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

DAVANGERE,KARNATAKA-577001
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

Seminar on
Sniffer Technology
By:
Manpreet Singh
4BD15EC053
8th sem, ’B’ sec

Seminar Supervisor: HOD:

Sri.Kiran Kumar G H Dr. G.S. Sunitha
M.Tech M.Tec(DEAC),PhD.,MISTE.,FIETE

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Contents
 Introduction
 IMEI
 Designing of Sniffer
 Sniffer Base Station
 Unidirectional Antenna
 Software Tracking
 Working of Sniffer
 Advantages
 Limitations
 Conclusions
 References

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Introduction
 The main scope of this presentation is to detect the lost mobiles.

 Each and every day thousands of mobiles get misplaced or lost,

though effective way for the blocking of the lost mobile to prevent
unauthorized person from making and receiving the calls has been
done by the manufacturers of the mobile with the help of IMEI
number.

 For the detection of lost mobile SNIFFER plays a vital role .

 The Sniffer is basically a transceiver that works in the different

frequency that we are commonly used.

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IMEI
 Each mobile device has a globally unique IMEI (International
Mobile Equipment Identity).
 IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbering system
is a 15 digit unique code that is used to identify the GSM phone.
 To know the IMEI number the *#06# has to be pressed, the number
will be displayed in the LCD screen.
 For Dual sim phones there are two IMEI numbers . First one is for
slot one and the second one is for slot 2.
 Example-490154100837810
 TAC (Type approval code)-490154
 FAC (Final assembly code)-10
 PSN (Phone serial no) -083781

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Designing for the Sniffer

 The sniffer device has to be designed precisely and the size should be
reduced for easy mobility for the purpose of detection.

 The sniffer device can be called as a mobile base station that includes
the following important components:

1. Sniffer base station

2. Unidirectional antenna
3. Tracking software

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Sniffer base station
 The sniffer has a small base station, it includes transceiver section.

 It should operate at a frequency that is much different from the frequency

of the current cell in which the operation of detection is being carried out.

 Some of the main important things are the frequency that has to be
generated by the transceiver section is around 900MHz range which is a
VHF range and it is necessarily to design the oscillator circuit for that
frequency range .

 Another important is the cooling that has to be provided to the circuit

while designing the circuit that is to be operated at 900MHz range of
frequency.

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Unidirectional Antenna

 The Unidirectional antenna acts as the eyes for the sniffer for the purpose
of the detecting the lost mobile phones. Hence the proper design of
antenna is required.

 Antenna is a device which works at specified frequencies range for

transmitting or receiving the data signal.

 In general, antenna’s transmit power depends on lobe pattern which

varies from one antenna to the other.

 The lobe pattern is two dimensional diagram that is used to show

radiation pattern.

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 Radiation pattern of Unidirectional antenna is shown in figure.

 Since the sniffer device that is constructed is a device that has both the
transmitting and receiving antenna ,this shows the ability of the antenna to
capture the signal that the lost mobile is transmitting.

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Software Tracking
.The software part plays a major role in the tracking of the lost mobile
phone. It is the base for the antenna to track the lost mobile.

.The main feature of this software is that it helps in the process of

creation of the data base and this is mainly done using a Random
Access Memory.

.The mobile phone that is lost has certain IMEI number that is
embedded in the chip.

.The RAM of the Sniffer device stores the IMEI number of the lost
mobile phone.

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Contd..
 The software is designed in such a way that software has a input as the
IMEI number of the lost mobile phone.

 After getting the input from the lost mobile phone the IMEI number
checks that any signalling information from the lost device sent by the
sniffer.

 The programming is done with C or Java. But C is most preferred as it is

easily embedded with the chips.

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Working of Sniffer

 The Sinffer is basically a transceiver that works in the frequency

which is in the special unused range.

 The working of Sniffer is basically done in two ways:

 Before Sniffer increases the frequency

 After Sniffer increases the frequency

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Before Sniffer increases the frequency

. In this a base station is used that works as a middle point of mobile

phone and MSC(Mobile switching centre).

. There is two way communication between devices. Before the

communication establishment, the authentication of SIM card (using
IMEI) and handest (using EIR) is done.

. The EIR is located at MSC and it contains the IMEI of the lost
mobile.

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After Sniffer increases the frequency

. The information from the communication is fed to sniffer device and start
to locate the mobile phone .

. The connection between BTS and device is lost due to EIR request.

. The lost device search the device to get locked and send the signal
which is received by sniffer device and connection between them is
established.

. Now IMEI of lost device is validated with stored IMEI and then
connection is established.

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Contd..
 After that the location is traced .During this process,if another
device try to connect with sniffer then the connection is denied.

 This can’t be done with the GPS because the sniffer can only work
with frequency used with operators.

 Now the antenna are used to track different positions of the lost
device.

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Advantages

 It is used for detecting lost mobiles.

 It is cost effective.

 It is good for low power consumption.

 It is easy to design.

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Limitations

 Power of the mobile should be good enough.

 The frequency of the mobile should be high though the

mobile is switched on.

 It becomes impossible for detecting and receiving the signal

from the lost mobile if the frequency is low.

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Conclusion

There are certain boundary conditions or criteria

that have to be qualified for the identification of the
lost mobile like the power of the mobile should be
good enough , the mobile phone should not be in
the shadow region etc., but however this method
can be improved by using modern technologies and
devices.

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References
 Schiller , “Mobile Communication”, Pearson Education 1 Edition, 7th reprint
2003.

 John D Kraus, “Electromagnetics”, TMH

 ,
 Jordan et al, “Electromagnetic waves and radiation system” , Printice Hall

 Network Sniffers, Alan Joch, 2001(Intro&Use.doc).

 Purpose,” Computer Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges,(Vol. 20,

Number 4, pp. 169-176).

 Muna, M., Jawhar, T. & Mehrotra, M. (2010). System Design for Packet Sniffer.

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THANK YOU

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