This document discusses cell phone cloning, which is copying the identity of one mobile phone to another. It can be done by obtaining a phone's ESN (for CDMA phones) or IMEI number (for GSM phones) and MIN or SIM information, and using software to clone it onto another phone. This allows calls made on the cloned phone to be improperly billed to the original phone. It costs mobile carriers millions annually. The best way to prevent cloning is for networks and phones to use authentication, where a secret key is used to perform identical calculations and verify the phone is not a clone.