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Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

bbc.com

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Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#81

Post by Symbiote »

droopybuns wrote: post #77
Symbiote wrote: post #12

"EcoLogic told the Super Express newspaper that somebody found the tracker in Sudan, removed the sim card and put it in their own phone, where they then racked up 20 hours' worth of phone calls" So they actually got a huge bill because they didn't set a SIM lock (if that's possible), and didn't block voice calls and so on. Presumably, they had a good contract for sending tiny packets of data, but not for roaming call…

Sim locking is a device-side control that ensures only a specific carrier’s sim is used in the device. They should have used a limited IoT-oriented sim with data limits. I kinda feel these folks were extraordinarily naive, but I’m coming from the perspective of a telco SME.

I think I mean the PIN lock, the one you have to input after rebooting the phone or inserting the SIM. This has existed since the beginning of GSM, as far as I remember.

But probably the GPS receiver can't work with that.

Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#83

Post by Mathnerd314 »

wpietri wrote: post #35
pjc50 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally you'd get a dedicated M2M MVNO operator who'll sell you a whole stack of them. If you just want one, you'll have to do a lot of price comparison; Three UK have some nice deals where you can use inclusive minutes/data in some non-EU countries as well as the standard EU free roaming.

Does anybody know of one that doesn't charge a monthly fee? I have a product idea where I'd like to use mobile data as a backup in case of wifi network failure. So I'm willing to pay a higher per-MB fee if I can avoid a monthly per-SIM fee.

There are a few: Freedompop, Truphone, Tello. But they all have minimum activity requirements so they wouldn't necessarily work as a backup.

Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#84

Post by dzhiurgis »

jnbiche wrote: post #56
isk517 wrote: post #46

In Sudan it is quite common for people to hunt storks in order to harvest their valuable SIM cards.

You're kidding, but you don't think that once word gets around some desperately poor region that tracker device == free phone calls, people aren't going to try and kill the bird to get the tracker? If you think that's not likely, you've got a lot more faith in humanity than I do.

I think its more of a new PBX hacking vector.

Call premium numbers to rake in bills. There are tons of SIM cards all over the place, some easy to access physically, some - electronically.

Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#85

Post by yekepa »

hnarn wrote: post #60
kaybe wrote: post #36

Meanwhile, can Microsoft please add an option to Windows10 that says 'this computer is only connected to an internal on-board network and satellite connection, please never try to update'? That was an expensive mistake as well. I really wish people had started to migrate away from Windows earlier, but now all the essential stuff is written for it and well-tested, so any choice is hard.

The answer for this type of edge case configuration in Windows is usually "use Linux".

Always tell my friends that who are frustrated over Windows: “No problems with Linux”.

Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#86

Post by deepspace »

wpietri wrote: post #35
pjc50 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally you'd get a dedicated M2M MVNO operator who'll sell you a whole stack of them. If you just want one, you'll have to do a lot of price comparison; Three UK have some nice deals where you can use inclusive minutes/data in some non-EU countries as well as the standard EU free roaming.

Does anybody know of one that doesn't charge a monthly fee? I have a product idea where I'd like to use mobile data as a backup in case of wifi network failure. So I'm willing to pay a higher per-MB fee if I can avoid a monthly per-SIM fee.

Twilio charges a relatively low monthly fee per SIM, starting at $2/mo. See: https://www.twilio.com/wireless/pricing

Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#87

Post by mynameisvlad »

TomMarius wrote: post #73
lallysingh wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they'll find that the Sim cards are locked and don't work, and will stop wasting their time on them.

Except that they mostly do work

Voice calls can be disabled remotely on the carrier side. Just because they worked this one instance doesn't mean future ones will. And especially after they had a 2k+ phone bill, you know they're scrambling to lock down any remaining SIM cards out there.

Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#88

Post by ReverseCold »

lathiat wrote: post #42
reubenmorais wrote: post #2

Only tangentially related to the article, but where/how do researchers get global coverage SIM cards that you can just put on a stork and expect to get data/calling wherever it flies? I've looked for this before but only found what seemed like tourist scams with very high prices per MB/minute.

I use FlexiRoam which gives me ~$30/GB that works in almost any country - everyone I’ve travelled to so far. On the same recharge and SIM card. It also sticks onto your existing sim and lets you software switch between your existing sim and the flexiroam. They also have country specific plans which are cheaper for some specific destinations. I’ve not tried those but I’ve gone through about 25GB of data over 2 years o…

Do you know what carrier they use in the United States? $40/10GB seems pretty good to me.

Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#89

Post by ReverseCold »

sandworm101 wrote: post #57
lathiat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use FlexiRoam which gives me ~$30/GB that works in almost any country - everyone I’ve travelled to so far. On the same recharge and SIM card. It also sticks onto your existing sim and lets you software switch between your existing sim and the flexiroam. They also have country specific plans which are cheaper for some specific destinations. I’ve not tried those but I’ve gone through about 25GB of data over 2 years o…

>> ~$30/GB Does that include Canada? That is about HALF the advertised rates where I am. The real rates, after all the fees, are inevitably higher. Please send a few storks my way. https://www.telus.com/en/bc/mobility/plans/

Canada looks like 5GB/25USD.

Re: Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork

#90

Post by socks »

wpietri wrote: post #35
pjc50 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally you'd get a dedicated M2M MVNO operator who'll sell you a whole stack of them. If you just want one, you'll have to do a lot of price comparison; Three UK have some nice deals where you can use inclusive minutes/data in some non-EU countries as well as the standard EU free roaming.

Does anybody know of one that doesn't charge a monthly fee? I have a product idea where I'd like to use mobile data as a backup in case of wifi network failure. So I'm willing to pay a higher per-MB fee if I can avoid a monthly per-SIM fee.

Hologram.io is a $1.50 a month fee, but it is suited much more to IoT global roaming
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