14 ms·

Now that it's closing, it seems safe to reveal - the SIM cards from these kindles made for the best emergency data SIM that money could (not) buy. Everything p

• jackson1442 5y ago
  It seems Barnacle made the same mistake: https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/students-defeat-new-barnacle-parking-boot-skip-fines-and-get-free-internet https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/students-defeat-new-barnac...
• mabbo 5y ago
  I was an Amazon intern in 2011 and there was another intern I met at a party who told me about this fact. We all thought it was hilarious. His entire intern project was a small piece of the system being built to detect abuse of these SIMs and stop it. Given it's a decade later now, I doubt it still works or works for very long.
  • kweks 5y ago
    I can't even begin to imagine the bills that were racked up via this and others (like the Lime SIMs).. For the Lime SIMs, there was a day when the pipe was turned off - I can imagine it was the day someone looked into their twillio billing in detail..
    • simonebrunozzi 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure Amazon agreed to a fixed fee from a number of carriers, and moved on. The few outliars might have costed a few $M over the years, which is a rounding error for Amazon.
  • delecti 5y ago
    I think I remember encountering that project. It got built out a bit more by the time I started full-time in 2012. I could be misremembering the specifics, but I think the most recent country from which a device checked-in was used to decided the data cap, because unlimited 3g cost dramatically less when the devices weren't roaming.
  • southerntofu 5y ago
    > His entire intern project was a small piece of the system being built to detect abuse of these SIMs and stop it. I'd rather work for another evil corporation like Mac Donalds than work to remove features from devices people have already bought. When your company is selling surveillance tools to individuals masquerading as e-book readers and you have to struggle to just install a libre Operating System, it's not even close to fair that you get to use the SIM card Amazon planted in your device in whichever way you please.
    • chrisseaton 5y ago
      Maybe just don't buy a Kindle in the first place if this is your outlook?
      • vages 5y ago
        I don't agree with his/her outlook, but I don't think "don't buy it" is a valid counterargument Alice: "Don't work for Foo vineyard. Foo vineyard puts poison in the wine that people buy without them knowing it." Bob: "Just don't buy Foo's wine yourself, then." (Millions of people are still being poisoned drinking Foo wine and would probably buy a different wine if they were informed about it.) However, if you morally object to anyone purchasing Amazon's Kindle on the basis of surveillance capitalism, I'm not sure if arguing over limiting data use with their SIM cards is the best use of your energy.
        • chrisseaton 5y ago
          It's not poisoned. It just doesn't have features that you want. The analogy would be that you don't like the style of the wine. They're arguing 'I bought a product which doesn't offer feature X and I'm mad that it turns out it can't do X'. Use your common sense. Buy a product that explicitly does have X if you want X.
          • smorgusofborg 5y ago
            It is also a little more subtle than you are describing. People ask why do right to repair laws need to exist despite John Deere having thousands of competitors for tractors? Similarly, the market for e-readers and smart phones should allow limitless competition. How many e-readers companies could negotiate great terms for e-ink displays and world wide 3g coverage? If any of them did, might Amazon automatically get their negotiated best price as part of the clauses Amazon could negotiate given it has most of the volume? If Amazon and Sony get the best price on e-ink displays, Amazon and b&n on US networks, and Amazon and Kobo on European networks, who is actually competing with Amazon to sell an ereader with world wide coverage?
• renewiltord 5y ago
  If you have a Google Fi connection, their extra data SIMs are perfect. Zero extra cost and you get global roaming.
  • dharmab 5y ago
    Even the Fi roaming doesn't include US embargoed areas like Iran.
    • renewiltord 5y ago
      Oooh I didn’t know that. Good observation. Thank you.
• encoderer 5y ago
  Yeah, must have been those “others” abusing the system while all you were doing was accessing free data in China, Iran and Iraq! Seriously, though, great comment!
  • kweks 5y ago
    I postulate there are two categories of people: those who assume that if the activity was minimum, the service would continue, and others that assume the service will end, so will pump as much as possible. I'd found it to be invaluable solving the after-landing-before-you-have-a-local-SIM conundrum.
    • peterburkimsher 5y ago
      I'm of the latter variety: use it until it ends. It wasn't a Kindle, but another country's prepaid SIM that I continued using while in Japan. Phone companies in Japan don't do prepaid: only phone rentals by the day, or 2 year subscriptions. Neither of those were suitable for the 2 months I lived there. Some international SIM cards would run out of balance and send an SMS as a warning. But others would redirect me to a topup page. Let's just say that wasn't the only page that was available, and the "send this page to a friend" email function is very convenient when Japanese phones have incoming email addresses for sending email-to-SMS. Google calendar used to be a great way to get free email-to-RSS-to-SMS notifications, but that shut down a couple of years ago unfortunately.
      • koyote 5y ago
        > Phone companies in Japan don't do prepaid In case you ever go back: https://www.bmobile.ne.jp/english/ https://www.bmobile.ne.jp/english/ I've used this on several trips and it works well. Unless of course you were living there more permanently, in which case the above is not useful.
        • peterburkimsher 5y ago
          Prepaid where the credit expires after 21 days sounds more like a subscription that lasts 3 weeks and cancels safely. With my current prepaid SIM, I typically top up $5 every 3 months. Between iMessage, WhatsApp/WeChat/KakaoTalk/Skype/Facebook, free incoming calls, and the occasional emergency SMS, I usually don't need a phone. People don't like it when I don't have a local number though.
• random_savv 5y ago
  For what it's worth, it's possible to get 1GB/mo of global roaming, for $130/mo - World offer here: https://fiber.salt.ch/en/mobile/plans/standard https://fiber.salt.ch/en/mobile/plans/standard
  • lbotos 5y ago
    When I travel I use airalo to get local e-sims for data and pay probably something like $10 on average for 5GB for 30 days. (Another option for people who's phones support e-sims)
    • mortenjorck 5y ago
      I had no idea there was a company doing this already! I just downloaded their app, and will have to give it a try when my next travel destination opens its borders again.
      • lbotos 5y ago
        Tips: - Set up the sim before you leave. It's the worst trying to do it once you land. (Ask me how I know) - You will get some interesting networks, but I've never had problems with them. - I think they just fixed it on iOS, but be prepared to type in the details manually (not hard, just not seamless) because they expect you to scan a QR code??? Even with those quirks, it's been great, simple, no problems, and I've used in US/UK/Australia.
  • rescbr 5y ago
    Before my provider offered worldwide roaming on my monthly plan for an additional fee of the equivalent of USD 6 (that you pay whether you use it or not), I've used Flexiroam for data when traveling abroad. Good prices if staying for less than a month.
  • sjf 5y ago
    Fi has data roaming for 10$/GB, free after 6GB (speed reduced after 15GB, unless you opt-in to pay extra). This is actually the normal Fi plan- there are just no roaming charges. This is single #1 reason why I am on Fi, no more messing around with local SIMs. https://fi.google.com/about/international-rates/ https://fi.google.com/about/international-rates/
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• azca 5y ago
  this was one of the main reasons I acquired the kindle keyboard :) worked excellent as an emergency device when you _needed_ to rebook travel things with nothing else around.
• nbduckman 5y ago
  Yep, I pretty much bought a Kindle back in the day for this exact purpose. Unlimited free 3G that worked anywhere? Yes please. Also the Kindle itself had an experimental web browser, so my Kindle basically became an emergency internet connection for overseas travel.
• Goety 5y ago
  these were literal lifesavers
• Denatonium 5y ago
  As another nice-while-it-lasted data deal, Verizon used to allow previously-used SIM cards to connect to their LTE network. Once connected, all TCP/IP traffic would be redirected to a captive portal page. There lies the problem; UDP traffic could still flow freely. Yes, that included OpenVPN (WireGuard hadn't been invented yet). I never really abused this, but someone must've, as when I checked a month later, activation was strictly handled through phone calls; previously-used SIM cards no longer received any type of LTE service.
  • kbenson 5y ago
    One of the tricks in the past to get past captive portals that allowed only DNS traffic, but did not redirect DNS traffic to a controlled server, was to tunnel traffic through DNS. I remember I went on a cruise once and that was my plan to get out of having to pay exorbitant fees for data access on wifi. I never ended up doing it though, because I ended up not really using my phone or laptop while on the cruise, which I count as a win. It was a lot easier to not actually use the internet then though, as it was 10-15 years ago. The last time I was on a cruise, 3-4 years ago I think, I bought the wifi package, and it was so poorly implemented and/or overloaded that it was a pain at best to use. All things considered, not usually an issue when you're relaxing, but when you need it for a moment and it feels like you're using an old 3G connection, that sucks.
  • Bluecobra 5y ago
    That’s a good a find. Back in the mid 90s I was a teenager with a PC but my parents wouldn’t let me go online, so I had to find nefarious ways of accessing the Internet. I had a 50’ phone line cable and had to go online when they weren’t home. One method I found was the Prodigy install CD would have to dial up to the Internet to download the list of servers. I found I could just minimize the installer and go online freely but only for 10 minutes. They ended up fixing this about a year later.
    • ta988 5y ago
      I made a hole in the ceiling and passed a cable that I spliced in the telephone box. I just had to put alligator clips on the cables hidden behind the radiator tubing. That plus some ISP that had a bug in their subscribing system so you got 50 hours for free every time.
• fma 5y ago
  I have one of these whispernet and I did use the kindle + experimental browser + gmail as form of communication while abroad, and it was great that it had the built in proxy. But many years ago it stopped working in China.
• MatthewWilkes 5y ago
  Even just the kindles, I carried mine with me so much when it first came out as an emergency communications channel.
• wodenokoto 5y ago
  Reminds me of a gps tracker placed on birds that got found in a 3rd world country and the SIM card was used to take up 1000s of dollars worth of calls on the scientists bill.
  • grishka 5y ago
    Should've used a prepaid SIM
• isp 5y ago
  It seems safe to post this too now that it's closing. It was also possible to SSH from the Kindle, over its 3G connection. So the SIM card could be kept in the Kindle, to be used as originally intended. But also (in an emergency) to use a few KB of data anywhere in the world for SSH. I was very careful to use <1 MB of data - as this use case isn't quite what the Kindle was designed for, probably. :-) From memory, broad steps were: - Root (jailbreak) the Kindle, and sideload "USB Networking" (to allow tethering - i.e., connect the Kindle to a computer via USB, and the computer would share the Kindle's Internet connection) - Read the magic key (which the HTTP proxy required) - it was sitting in a plaintext file within /var/local/ so could be easily read after rooting the Kindle - Run an SSH server on the HTTPS port (TCP/443), then use proxytunnel to connect via the HTTP proxy server - https://github.com/proxytunnel/proxytunnel https://github.com/proxytunnel/proxytunnel (proxytunnel has an option to pass an arbitrary HTTP header containing the magic key) EDIT: This isn't me, but looks like I wasn't the only person to SSH from the Kindle. https://studylib.net/doc/5580927/kindle https://studylib.net/doc/5580927/kindle
• kuroguro 5y ago
  Hmm. Wait, so if I take the SIM to a country that supports 3G would it still work? Or are they killing the SIMs/proxy servers themselves as well?
• unixhero 5y ago
  Why did you travel to both Iran and Iraq? Are you in the CIA?