atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones Stolen phones

I had a customer ask me the other day about this.
My customer has a small Cisco VOIP system using 7960 phones. One of their employees left the job and move away..but he took his phone with him. My customer asked me if he could use his phone on another system...Well I said yes if he knew how to configure the phone for the other system. redo the addressing and such (boring details). The company didn't like the way that he left, I guess, and wanted to know if they could track down the phone on another system saying that he stole it?

Now, I know that each phone has it's own MAC address just like any other network cark, PC card, etc...but to get to that address from the cloud side going thru firewalls and such would be almost impossible, wouldn't it?
I am not exactly sure what to tell the customer, start a search or let it go...We have all seen it before...people take their phones home and try to use it then wonder why it don't work... but with an IP phone..??? Any ideas?

My only experience with IP phones has been with Vodavi, so I don't know nearly enough to answer your question "professionally".

Still, I know that Vodavi's phones won't work unless the switch has the MAC address programmed as an extension. That's how we sell the IT guys on security for remote workers.

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Ed
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How come there's always enough time to go back and fix it a second time?

RatherBeFishing might have found their phone. Ask them to look here to see if they can identify the missing item.

https://img282.imageshack.us/my.php?image=realization1zq.jpg

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Nope, because MAC address's don't transmit outside of your network.

I'd tell them to keep an eye on Ebay. There are many available on there, so they might catch this guy in the act of selling it.

Then again, good luck getting anyone to investigate that, even if they found it. Ebay won't do squat, and most PD's are far too busy.

Still, it would be great to nail him in the act!



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-Steve

Well, I talk to Cisco about it and it would be nearly impossible to actually run down a certain phone from the net even if was legal!!!! Was told, I would need a court order for something like that... It would be like tapping a phone....to actually look at someone's internal configuration on the phone from the cloud side....So...SOL about the phone I guess. thanks for the input guys/gals