SIM card read/write [was Re: SIM Card Copy]

AVee openmoko-comunity at avee.org
Wed Nov 28 10:45:20 CET 2007


On Tuesday 27 November 2007 23:08, Ian Darwin wrote:
> > However, it would be nice if you could just put a sim card into the
> > Neo (or other OpenMoko) phone, select "copy sim to softsim" from the
> > menu, and have a software copy of the sim available in the phone.
> > Then you could change back to another physical sim card, and you would
> > have dual sim capability in the phone without the need for any extra
> > hardware at all.
>
> Be careful what you wish for :-) The physical SIM serves as an
> authentication token, which is why they are made difficult to copy. If you
> lose a phone (or an SD card) with a copy of your SIM credentials, anybody
> finding it can make phone calls at your expense, and (at least in the case
> of the SD card) you might not notice the loss until this problem had become
> very expensive. And don't look for a freefund -- I doubt that any carrier
> would be at all sympathetic to *this* sob story!

Another 'nice' addition to this would be a application which generates random 
SIM cards, until you find one which actually connect to the network. I anyone 
pulls off the SIM copy functionality someone else will do this and one day 
they may hit your SIM. Leaving your phone out of sight for a few minutes may 
put you at risk of having your SIM card cloned, and you won't know until its 
to late. And using your SIM for criminal activities sure beats an anonymous 
prepaid card.

I'm all for functions to copy phonebook data and other stuff like that, 
actually i'd consider that basic functionality for any GSM phone, but cloning 
the authentication part of a SIM card is a can of worms I'd rather keep 
tightly closed.

AVee

-- 
Murder is always a mistake -- one should never do anything one cannot
talk about after dinner.
  -- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"




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