5 ms·
/me puts on tinfoil hat the sim card has one important difference. It lives in a device that provides it with 24/7 battery and radio access. That is really wo
by gcb0 10y ago
/me puts on tinfoil hat
the sim card has one important difference. It lives in a device that provides it with 24/7 battery and radio access.
That is really worrisome when you think about. A tiny computer running applications you have no idea/access. powered 24/7. Always with you. With access to battery, network, mic, etc. And the other side of the network that could monitor it's traffic for malicious actions is owned by the very people that could abuse it in the first place.
- derefr 10y ago> powered 24/7 Is it? When you turn on "airplane mode" on a phone, is there a reason for the SIM to still be receiving power at that point?
- zamalek 10y ago> Is it? Easy to test: add a SIM pin, turn on airplane mode and reboot your phone.
- gcb0 10y agoyes. the sim has direct access to the radio and other modules, by design. it only needs the actual phone cpu/os for use interface. if it wants to take the radio out of silent mode it can.
- derefr 10y agoThat seems like it wouldn't comply with FAA regulations. I always presumed "airplane mode" was the specific set of features required by the FAA to enable the phone to do the same thing as a phone that's off, from the perspective of potential interference with a plane's communications. If the SIM can still enable and use the radio despite "airplane mode" being on, then "airplane mode" is not really "a mode for making your phone safe to stay on while on an airplane."
- gcb0 10y agoyes and that is not new. try this: enable airplane mode and then open any app that has system permission to change gps or Bluetooth or wifi settings. it will enable those radio and the ui will still show the little airplane there.
- milcron 10y agoYou can actually enable wifi yourself even while airplane mode is enabled - try it!
- nucleardog 10y agoIt's actually an FCC regulation that prevents people using cellular devices on airplanes, and the issue isn't "interference with avionics" but "violating some fundamental assumptions that the existing cellular network is based on" like devices not travelling 600mph or having the ability to transmit signals for dozens of miles.
- umurkontaci 10y agoIt's no different than having no SIM, if your phone wants to spy on you, it doesn't need a SIM card. It's the phone that transceives the signals, and it can do so without a SIM card. SIM card authenticates you to the network, but you control the device and the network around the device, there's no need for a SIM card.
- amelius 10y agoYes, but now your Telco can also do those things.
- colechristensen 10y agoIf there was an open standards-compliant protocol it could be implemented open-source and trusted. You could create an entire open operating system and use open hardware to know everything happening on your phone. That is different than having a SIM, which is a piece of mystery hardware the phone company could do anything with.
- Laforet 10y agoThey already have control of all your traffic so what's the harm? Take the sim out of your phone in case you are really worried, but that would cut you off the network as well. I'd be far more concerned with the hundreds of microcontrollers running proprietary code.
- colechristensen 10y agoThe SIM, being a physical piece of hardware plugged into my phone, could easily be used as an attack vector for my phone company to root my phone. Hardware plugged into my phone is a much more vulnerable attack surface than control of network traffic.
- EvanAnderson 10y agoThe baseband is already at the beck-and-call of your telco provider and has much better access to the hardware than the SIM card.
- jjawssd 10y agoPhones can be directly accessed over a network via IMEI
- milcron 10y agoFor tinfoil wearers, the sim card is not as much of an issue as the baseband modem itself.