Live data from Hacker News

The secret life of SIM cards (2013)

simhacks.github.io

1–10 of 45 posts

Re: The secret life of SIM cards (2013)

#2
In Kenya, the SIM card application is very important as most Telecommunication companies have important services that they offer thorugh the application. These include Mpesa, Airtel Money, YU Cash and Orange Money among other services.

The iPhone has a menu option within Settings > Phone > Sim Applications where these are displayed. I haven't seen this on other SIM cards

Re: The secret life of SIM cards (2013)

#3
i hate to be that guy, and without actually trying to start a flamewar or "who's better", I find it really interesting that americans are so great at marketing things, the german stuff works, but usually looks crappy. here's a CCC talk from 2011 on the topic [1]

you could observe the same thing when the ccc guys had their first gsm phones. Someone just showed up with a base station in the trunk of his car. compare that with the huge buzz that went around the same thing at defcon a couple of years ago. The defcon truck definitely looked WAY cooler.

but on topic what's actually really scary about this is that even newer smartphones would allow sim exploits to roam free. contrary to what you may think it's not just old phones.

[1] http://events.ccc.de/camp/2011/Fahrplan/events/4427.en.html

EDIT: while technically not exactly the same as opensimkit here's an answer to the why question posed by jacob appelbaum. I suspect the same applies here(and it's not really a bad reason either)

https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-J...

Re: The secret life of SIM cards (2013)

#4
post #3

i hate to be that guy, and without actually trying to start a flamewar or "who's better", I find it really interesting that americans are so great at marketing things, the german stuff works, but usually looks crappy. here's a CCC talk from 2011 on the topic [1] you could observe the same thing when the ccc guys had their first gsm phones. Someone just showed up with a base station in the trunk of his car. compare th…

The CCC talk looks cool for digging into more of what's possible as well as actually building their own serial interface, but the DEFCON talk is more interesting from the perspective that they actually got their own virgin SIMs and implemented their own app.

Re: The secret life of SIM cards (2013)

#5
It reminds my good days programming simcards, i was the founded of a startup in Brazil that made a good use of simcard programming to store two numbers in the same simcard, around 2010 it's a cool and profitable, the thing is that i managed to insert a local imsi and an a north american imsi registered in the same card so everyone that travel abroad could be free of expensive roaming charges, them we sold the company and now days they are a reseller for some major carrier in US =)

Re: The secret life of SIM cards (2013)

#7
post #6

Wait, what? They're unknown in the U.S? Then what in the world are they using over there?

Apps that run directly on the SIM card are relatively unknown in the US. We (in Canada) normally download apps that run on the phone's OS, like Android or iOS apps. Running apps directly on the SIM card is very unlikely.

Re: The secret life of SIM cards (2013)

#8

It reminds my good days programming simcards, i was the founded of a startup in Brazil that made a good use of simcard programming to store two numbers in the same simcard, around 2010 it's a cool and profitable, the thing is that i managed to insert a local imsi and an a north american imsi registered in the same card so everyone that travel abroad could be free of expensive roaming charges, them we sold the company…

Can you go into more details?

I travel a lot and use a hacked up Chinese phone since it supports dual SIM pretty well but I'd rather use an iPhone. Unfortunately I want both my US and UK numbers and contacts slightly more.

Re: The secret life of SIM cards (2013)

#10
post #8

It reminds my good days programming simcards, i was the founded of a startup in Brazil that made a good use of simcard programming to store two numbers in the same simcard, around 2010 it's a cool and profitable, the thing is that i managed to insert a local imsi and an a north american imsi registered in the same card so everyone that travel abroad could be free of expensive roaming charges, them we sold the company…

Can you go into more details? I travel a lot and use a hacked up Chinese phone since it supports dual SIM pretty well but I'd rather use an iPhone. Unfortunately I want both my US and UK numbers and contacts slightly more.

For some reason i have that NDA shit on my back, but i can show you a few options available on ebay that works well too!
Post reply on HN