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mentalisttraceur / python-macaddress

BSD Zero Clause License
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IMEI #15

Closed mentalisttraceur closed 2 years ago

mentalisttraceur commented 2 years ago

An IMEI is also essentially a hardware address, much like a MAC.

TODO: think through if if it's worth providing a premade IMEI class, if IMEI influences any of the 2.0.0 design thoughts like #8, #7, or #13, or otherwise suggests anything.

mentalisttraceur commented 2 years ago

So in the world of hardware identifiers, I'd say IMEIs are less address-like than MAC addresses, but more address-like than, say, credit card numbers or VINs.

The thing that makes something an address as opposed to just an identifier is that you send something to it.

What I don't know is if there's any phone networking that actually sends traffic with IMEI as an identifier saying who the packet goes to, or no.

mentalisttraceur commented 2 years ago

IMEI is decimal, not hex. To support it, I'd need to add d as an alternative to x which only accepts decimal letters, or force users to jump through additional hoops.

I don't want to add that just for IMEI, but it may be worth adding it in 2.0.0 because it's technically a breaking change. (formats parsing treats everything besides x as literal, and is documented as such.)

mentalisttraceur commented 2 years ago

Whether or not the IMEI is used in the physical or link layer of stuff like GSM and newer telephony protocols, there's stuff to be learned here, and it can contribute to the overall thinking about all of this.

mentalisttraceur commented 2 years ago

Verdict: no IMEI support.

Sadly I've had two crashes (one of which was an actual blue screen of death) take out two drafts of various design thoughts and rationale that this generated. Hopefully I'll have the time and motivation to write them out tomorrow.