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Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

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Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#151

Post by LeonidasXIV »

gruturo wrote: post #141
Nextgrid wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, you can't. The e-SIM provisioning process is under the control of the carrier. They give you a QR code (or SM-DP string) which you scan/enter, your phone then contacts the carrier and after some back and forth acquires cryptographic keys which are stored in the eSIM chip. There is no way to extract these cryptographic keys and enter them into another phone. Instead, you have to repeat the whole process and get…

> There is no way to extract these cryptographic keys and enter them into another phone. Instead, you have to repeat the whole process and get a new QR code from the carrier. They may charge for this, or just be a pain in general and make it difficult or refuse for whatever reason. Even worse, in many real cases. Let me give you an example, happened to me this October: I get a new phone. I browse my carrier's website…

In all fairness, this is Congstar being shit, a low-cost MVNO. They could also be shit by locking your SIM to the first IMEI they see on their network, so the only difference is that they need to establish a porting process for eSIM but haven't done so.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#152

Post by tootahe45 »

globalise83 wrote: post #73

Presumably Apple executives, by virtue of working for a global company, are more likely than average to use dual-SIM or swap between SIMs when travelling. Don't they see that for a large segment of their existing market not having this feature might make it a deal-breaker when upgrading?

It's most profitable to get people on a weekly/monthly plan and every industry is trying to do this. In the future you will rent everything (phone included), and own nothing.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#153

Post by simonebrunozzi »

jwr wrote: post #66

I am very worried about this. While I love (and sometimes use) eSIMs, the physical SIM has a huge advantage in that it gives me freedom. It's the revolution that GSM brought: just take your SIM and move it to a different phone. No permission required. Arguably we've become slaves to ecosystems of either Apple or Google at this point, as pretty much nobody uses a phone as "just a phone", you need to have an account wi…

In EU, an eSIM gives you the same "rights" as a physical SIM.

The biggest difference is that a physical SIM gives you a slightly higher level of security, at least in theory (then, phone carriers do a lot to screw this up anyway).

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#154

Post by SloopJon »

boondaburrah wrote: post #65

I can't understand why anyone would want this. Being able to physically swap sims so I don't ever have to deal with carrier customer service is a /good/ thing, especially when it's in the carrier's interest to make this as difficult as possible.

I tried to activate an iPhone on an existing Google Fi plan using eSIM, and it was a nightmare. The frontline support is responsive, but can't do anything about it. The specialists I was escalated to were useless, and only reachable by email every day or two.

After a week of this nonsense, it occurred to me that maybe I could start over with a physical SIM card. I chatted with frontline support again, and he said he was positive that would work. (So why didn't anyone suggest that?!) I couldn't use the old card, because it was clearly beyond their capabilities to reactivate a perfectly good SIM card, but I was able to buy a new one at Best Buy and complete the process in about five minutes.

I would have swapped the card in the first place and been blissfully ignorant of the eSIM fiasco, but I somehow had it in my head that the iPhone used a smaller card than the five-year old phone it was replacing. It may not be eSIM's fault, per se, but if the design is dependent on carrier competence, it's fatally flawed, as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#155

Post by Nextgrid »

mrtksn wrote: post #150
Nextgrid wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS-based 2FA's weakness is not due to SIM cards. It's due to carriers being shit. SMS-based 2FA is not exploited by breaking any cryptography or exploiting some software vulnerability. It's by "asking nicely" the carrier's customer support idiots to associate a new SIM to the target account & number. Replacing the SIM with username/password wouldn't do anything - instead of the attackers having to associate a new ph…

Those SIM engineers should build other unhackable systems too! Anyway, it's not only social engineering but even if it was it simply means that it's useless for security. Just yesterday, a friend of mine got a fringe hacking incident or a bug. We are not still sure if it was hack but somehow the SIM card in her phone identified as another number from another carrier. Who knows what happened, her SIM wasn't swapped it…

> Those SIM engineers should build other unhackable systems too!

They did - see EMV payment cards for example.

> it simply means that it's useless for security.

It's not - SIMs close one attack vector where credentials can't be stolen by malware/bruteforced. Current SIM-swap attacks don't scale well; imagine how worse the problem would be if any Android malware could silently take over your number even after you've wiped the device clean.

The solution is to close the social-engineering attack vector by making carriers liable for any losses, not to remove a different layer of security because it's currently being bypassed by a different flaw.

> Who knows what happened

I doubt it was nefarious, I'll place my bets on misconfiguration somewhere. The telephone network is a massive mess and it could very well be that some carrier/equipment in the path rewrote the caller ID as something else.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#156

Post by Aardwolf »

rosndo wrote: post #87
boondaburrah wrote: post #65

I can't understand why anyone would want this. Being able to physically swap sims so I don't ever have to deal with carrier customer service is a /good/ thing, especially when it's in the carrier's interest to make this as difficult as possible.

I don’t have a physical sim in my phone, but I have 8 esims. As far as I can tell the physical sim slot is just a complete waste of space, I can’t use it anyway without toggling one of my esims off.

If you buy a new phone to upgrade your current one, how easy will it be to get the 8 esims in the new one?

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#157

Post by daqhris »

That'd be great for some specific countries or markets. One gateway to a network being removed isn't bad news. More traffic and bandwidth is used by Wi-Fi nowadays.

Just in case that future phone will be connected to a headset or IOT devices, it makes sense to give less priority to GSM functionality.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#158

Post by PebblesHD »

I (before COVID…) travel somewhat regularly and have a collection of SIM cards from my most frequently travelled destinations making just arriving and going about my life a nice straightforward process. I haven’t seen anything to indicate eSIMs have anything close to this experience and I feel like losing the option to do so for some perceived modernness is a bit disappointing.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#159

Post by 2ion »

jwr wrote: post #66

I am very worried about this. While I love (and sometimes use) eSIMs, the physical SIM has a huge advantage in that it gives me freedom. It's the revolution that GSM brought: just take your SIM and move it to a different phone. No permission required. Arguably we've become slaves to ecosystems of either Apple or Google at this point, as pretty much nobody uses a phone as "just a phone", you need to have an account wi…

Where I live (Germany) this is completely unfeasible and untrustworthy for yet another reason: telcos and ISPs (the big telcos here are ISPs as well). There are not many industries where contract agreements are handled by electronic and manual processes so unreliably, erroneous and intransparently as they are at ISPs and telcos. I wouldn't trust them with managing an eSIM for me ever. Given how important a phone number is these days, again, never. When the simplest processes don't work (point in case: wanted to change a prepaid plan online (should be possible) -- it was not possible, buttons simply greyed out for no reason and/or missing, customer rep totally clueless).

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#160

Post by CraigRood »

izacus wrote: post #23
th3iedkid wrote: post #18

eSIMs are good but it doesn't eliminate the bureaucracy/paper work involved with acquiring an actual network connection, esp for those traveling across countries. Unless ofcourse you are willing to pay those listed roaming charges(some of which appear as hidden charges). Not sure what eSims or even Apple as a company can do about that?

Here in Switzerland eSIMs are actually massively worse - you can't swap them around on most operators without calling (!) their support line to manually release and regenerate the eSIM token. Meaning that swapping between phones now requires calling, possibly expensive, support lines and you better hope your phone issue didn't happen during holidays. And that you have a working backup phone. And you're not in a forei…

If a sim is digital, couldn't Apple put the eSim into your 'wallet' for example? I appreciate that it's not currently designed like that, but given we are just talking bits, just because it's not a fully baked system yet, it can't be?
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