Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sending and Receiving SMS on Linux (2015)

20papercups.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 42 posts

Re: Sending and Receiving SMS on Linux (2015)

#31

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

ossguy wrote: post #28
hardwaresofton wrote: post #10

I've long suspected that the only way to make an actually private/secure cellular phone is by bypassing 3G all-together and making it optional -- forcing the SMS/SIP features of the phone were actually on separate hardware that had very limited integration with the phone itself (essentially as dangerous as any external USB device would be)? Most smart phones are considered pwned-by-default due to the inclusion of the…

If you want to use an SDR instead of a dedicated 2G/3G/LTE modem, you would still need 2G/3G/LTE baseband firmware to teach your SDR how to access the cell network (if/when you wanted that). As mentioned by "pjc50", OsmocomBB (see https://osmocom.org/projects/baseband ) aims to do this for 2G, though it isn't quite ready yet. FreeCalypso (see https://www.freecalypso.org/software.html ) has a working 2G firmware, but…

Thanks for sharing jmp.chat; this finally looks like an alternative to Google Voice, and a really good alternate at that

Re: Sending and Receiving SMS on Linux (2015)

#32

Post by spoiledtechie »

You don't need any of this stuff. It might be technically cool to do SMS now, but there is an android app for SMS Gateways. Just have an extra phone that sits around and sends SMS all day long. Much cheaper than Twilio if your sending large amounts of text messages.

Re: Sending and Receiving SMS on Linux (2015)

#33

Post by vincnetas »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #10

I've long suspected that the only way to make an actually private/secure cellular phone is by bypassing 3G all-together and making it optional -- forcing the SMS/SIP features of the phone were actually on separate hardware that had very limited integration with the phone itself (essentially as dangerous as any external USB device would be)? Most smart phones are considered pwned-by-default due to the inclusion of the…

In case of SDR you should not forget to get a license to transmit in GSM spectrum:

Legalities and options

The GSM spectrum is very expensive private property. You may not transmit (or even receive) in GSM bands without permission. In the UK, it is an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act to transmit on licensed bands without permission and furthermore intercepting GSM without a warrant is an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.You should apply for a licence (example from OFCOM below) before commencing GSM testing and will also need a faraday cage to suppress radiation. (For these reasons, GSM interfaces get less scrutiny than TCP/IP for example).

https://www.contextis.com/blog/binary-sms-the-old-backdoor-t...

Re: Sending and Receiving SMS on Linux (2015)

#34

Post by gh02t »

mateuszf wrote: post #13

For personal usage: if you have an Android phone and are not bothered by web ui, you can use https://messages.android.com/

Side note, is it just me, or is the Android Messages app really laggy? Especially on the phone, there is a significant delay from when I hit send to the message popping up on screen, to the point that I frequently get the "Messages has stopped working, would you like to stop it" dialog. It has been slowly getting better, but it's still surprising in such a high-profile app so I'm wondering if it's something specific to me.

That said, I recently switched to AM from Pulse (which also has a webui). I quite liked Pulse, but the web interface had a lot of trouble staying in sync, plus it requires a subscription to use the web interface. Also tried MightyText, but $7/mo is ridiculous and it also had sync issues. Android Messages seems to have really nailed sync across several devices, which is pretty important to me.

Re: Sending and Receiving SMS on Linux (2015)

#35

Post by walrus01 »

Before anyone thinks of implementing this for large-scale notifications/outbound SMS with one SIM card and an "unlimited" SMS plan for $40/mo, be aware that your cellular carrier will rate limit or cut you off completely pretty quickly if you use it for bulk SMS.

There's a reason why various VoIP providers have APIs and bulk SMS rate pricing.

Re: Sending and Receiving SMS on Linux (2015)

#38

Post by kilroy123 »

rohit2412 wrote: post #26
znpy wrote: post #22

This was an awesome read. I finally decided to resuscitate my old ThinkPad x200s who had a modem card in it, put SIM card in the spot and do some testing. Sammy/fammi worked after some quarrel with ModemManager (not really it's fault, it was doing his job). By the way this read has resuscitated an old fantasy of mine: adding an indirection layer to my mobile phone presence. After this testing I am finally sure I can…

Just buy Google fi, and access/dial your phone calls/sms in hangouts.

Don't even need google fi. I ported my number to google voice and I can send texts from my the web app.

In fact, I mostly just text from my computer instead of picking up my phone and texting from there.

Re: Sending and Receiving SMS on Linux (2015)

#39

Post by mateuszf »

gh02t wrote: post #34
mateuszf wrote: post #13

For personal usage: if you have an Android phone and are not bothered by web ui, you can use https://messages.android.com/

Side note, is it just me, or is the Android Messages app really laggy? Especially on the phone, there is a significant delay from when I hit send to the message popping up on screen, to the point that I frequently get the "Messages has stopped working, would you like to stop it" dialog. It has been slowly getting better, but it's still surprising in such a high-profile app so I'm wondering if it's something specific…

It's pretty slow for me too, but I don't mind.
Post reply on HN