6 ms·

> “can I get free data from the SIM card embedded in the device that I now technically own?” That seems like the next-most-interesting question now that you've

> “can I get free data from the SIM card embedded in the device that I now technically own?” That seems like the next-most-interesting question now that you've determined what the device is. Possibly followed closely by "can I use that free-to-me data in a fun way that might teach the people who installed the SIM to deactivate their devices when they sell them?" i.e. Could you send and receive enough on the connection using that SIM to cost them enough money that they'd notice it?

TomK32 2y ago
Even though the SIM was part of the car they bought, the SIM's contract is not in their name which means using the contract would be theft.
- Arainach 2y ago
  Is there case law on this? I don't see any way in which this is legally theft by the OP (admittedly my knowledge is more US-centric than Euro-centric). If I let someone tether a device to my cell phone (or loan my phone to them), are they committing theft? The company on the contract voluntarily gave the SIM to OP.
  - taeric 2y ago
    Imagine it was a credit card found in the car, what are the material differences? Note the suggestion is to willfully use the device in a way.
    - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
      Well, one is tied to a private bank account, the other is a privacy-violation device tied to no one.
  - staticautomatic 2y ago
    IAALBNYL it’s not theft because they’ve been abandoned and are in the new owner’s possession. If the prior owner can’t be reached and the security company which claims to own them won’t take them, they’re probably fair game.
    - 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
      I do not see any way in which this property could still be considered the previous owners. Let's say the camera was in the bathroom pointed directly at the shower. You just have to suck it up forever, knowing that someone could be watching? In fact, I could imagine it being a criminal charge for trying to capture people in the nude. What if someone has a child who bathes there? Now they were trying to create CP.
      - fwip 2y ago
        Even if that were the law, you could disconnect the cameras or cover the lens.
        3eb7988a1663 2y ago
        What if it has microphones which are not so obviously obscured? I do not see why it should depend upon my technical acumen to non-destructively disable a surveillance device within my private space.
      - staticautomatic 2y ago
        It’s property law 101 that possession and ownership are not the same thing.
  - cyberpunk 2y ago
    You better believe if I buy a property in Germany which has security cameras inside the absolute first thing that’s happening is those are getting smashed to absolute bits and if anyone even tries to complain I’ll sue them. I may even consider filing against the previous tenants for not removing them and so my being filmed destroying them was without my consent, it’s a clear crime to me to record someone on their private property without their permission .. This is absolutely not normal anywhere.
    - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
      Same thing in France and I don't understand some answers in this thread. My home -> my cameras, and you can be sure they will be removed and thrown away ASAP. It's at least a violation of my privacy and wouldn't be tolerated where I live.
- Xenoamorphous 2y ago
  This can be difficult to grasp. I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed. I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time. My patience was running out so I threatened the security company with removing the cameras installed in the house I owned, but I was told that they owned them even if they were inside my house.
  - hedora 2y ago
    At that point, you could point out that you have no contract with them, and that they’ve abandoned their property on your place. The last time I checked, US property rights made it clear that you cannot just store stuff on other people’s land without permission, and then complain when they throw it away. They could try to argue that whatever contract the previous owner signed still applies, but for that to be the case, they would have had to amend the deed to the property, and that should have been noticed by your title agency.
    - Xenoamorphous 2y ago
      FWIW this was not in the US.
      - jhugo 2y ago
        Regardless I would have carefully taken these down and put them in a box on the day I moved in. And then called them (or better, written to them) and given them a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple months) to collect their property, making it clear that I would dispose of it after that time expired.
        sidewndr46 2y ago
        Why? After cutting the power to them I'd tell the company if they wanted them back I can take them down and ship them back at my standard rate of $500/hr
- cosmotic 2y ago
  The contract would likely say something to the effect of "I promise to pay for the data sent to or from this device" and nothing about the owner of the device. If anything was said about the owner, it would be that the responsibility of the original contract holder is to ensure the contract was terminated when the sale took place.
realityking 2y ago
It’s surprisingly common for SIMs in IoT devices to not be locked down. If the data usage spikes enough above the noise it’ll probably be detected & deactivated. Here’s an example from a few years ago: https://scootertalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1370 https://scootertalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1370
- nlawalker 2y ago
  Nice. Thought this was going to be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22085089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22085089
  - aaron695 2y ago
    [dead]
  - zymhan 2y ago
    I'm reminded of a sim card installed in tracker for wildlife, that was then used by someone for their cellphone.
- ctb_mg 2y ago
  I've experience working on a team for one GPS fleet management solution. Our SIMs were usually provided in a bulk PO from a top tier wireless provider and were all locked down to a certain very small (on the order of 5mb/mo) bandwidth plan. This cuts cost and risk.
aeturnum 2y ago
I work for a company that uses sensors with some kind of 4G connection. I don't know the details but I did ask our sensor guys what would happen if someone removed the SIM card (or whatever it is) and started using data. My recollection is that locking down those SIM cards is the responsibility of the sensor maker. We have an agreement to pay for all legitimate traffic at a contractual rate, but the device manufacturer actually owns the connection and pays for the data themselves. So you're probably using the connection in violation of the wishes of the responsible party, but it was not clear to me exactly how illegal that would be? Like I'm sure they could charge you with a crime but I have no idea what it would be.
- justinclift 2y ago
  > they could charge you with a crime Doubt it. You'd be using a device you bought and now own, that didn't come with any kind of agreement/contract/etc to limit your usage. :)
  - chgs 2y ago
    I suspect that computer misuse / hacking laws could apply. I’m also certain that there will be small print if you bought it from a dealer.
    - justinclift 2y ago
      The situation they're describing is it coming with the house they bought.
focusedone 2y ago
I work at a place with LTE GPS trackers on fleet vehicles. Tracking boxes get moved from old -> new vehicles when possible. Otherwise the cell and tracking services are deactivated ASAP to avoid paying a monthly fee on an unused tracker. I'd personally be equal parts creeped out and curious about the hardware if that showed up on a car I bought. If it's a former fleet vehicle, its probably deactivated. The particular sound described makes me think of older pre-lte stuff, which in my part of the world was abandoned and became useless a couple years ago.
- hoistbypetard 2y ago
  That was also what the sound made me think of, but I don't think the sound would've happened with deactivated hardware. (?) But you're right, I don't think I've heard my phone cause that sound since I switched to an LTE phone.
tengwar2 2y ago
If the people who made it know much about telecoms, then no, the will not work. When your mobile device connects to the Internet, the connection tunnels through the mobile network to a gateway specified by the "APN" (access point name). This is usually set up automatically these days, but you can dig the setting out of your phone. That's for an Internet connection - however a company can pay for a "private APN". This is still a gateway, but they control what it connects to. This is often done for machine to machine connections, e.g. for utility smart meters - so a SIM for a gas meter will not be provisioned for the normal Internet APN, and if you were able to get that SIM out (difficult as they are not usually in card format) you would not be able to connect to the Internet. Typically the equipment company will negotiate a cheaper data price than for Internet access, since the data usage will be low and predictable. Now it could be that the people who built this tracking device are too small scale to negotiate a deal, or just don't know this, but my guess is that (a) the SIM is not in a physical format which can be removed and fitted in a different device; and (b) it is connected to a private APN which is not connected to the Internet. BTW, if you look up the Wikipedia article, bear in mind that it is a bit inaccurate - for instance it refers to an APN as being a gateway to the Internet, which is not always true. I'll correct it some time.
- throwaway984393 2y ago
  Cars now have cell modems that you can hook up to select telecom providers to turn your car into a hotspot, so those cell modems/SIMs do have an APN for internet data
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Suppafly 2y ago
Our water company switched our meters from RF to cellular a while back, I'm not curious enough to mess with it, but I suspect you could repurpose the sim card from one of them.

TomK32 2y ago

Even though the SIM was part of the car they bought, the SIM's contract is not in their name which means using the contract would be theft.

Arainach 2y ago
Is there case law on this? I don't see any way in which this is legally theft by the OP (admittedly my knowledge is more US-centric than Euro-centric). If I let someone tether a device to my cell phone (or loan my phone to them), are they committing theft? The company on the contract voluntarily gave the SIM to OP.
- taeric 2y ago
  Imagine it was a credit card found in the car, what are the material differences? Note the suggestion is to willfully use the device in a way.
  - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
    Well, one is tied to a private bank account, the other is a privacy-violation device tied to no one.
- staticautomatic 2y ago
  IAALBNYL it’s not theft because they’ve been abandoned and are in the new owner’s possession. If the prior owner can’t be reached and the security company which claims to own them won’t take them, they’re probably fair game.
  - 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
    I do not see any way in which this property could still be considered the previous owners. Let's say the camera was in the bathroom pointed directly at the shower. You just have to suck it up forever, knowing that someone could be watching? In fact, I could imagine it being a criminal charge for trying to capture people in the nude. What if someone has a child who bathes there? Now they were trying to create CP.
    - fwip 2y ago
      Even if that were the law, you could disconnect the cameras or cover the lens.
      - 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
        What if it has microphones which are not so obviously obscured? I do not see why it should depend upon my technical acumen to non-destructively disable a surveillance device within my private space.
    - staticautomatic 2y ago
      It’s property law 101 that possession and ownership are not the same thing.
- cyberpunk 2y ago
  You better believe if I buy a property in Germany which has security cameras inside the absolute first thing that’s happening is those are getting smashed to absolute bits and if anyone even tries to complain I’ll sue them. I may even consider filing against the previous tenants for not removing them and so my being filmed destroying them was without my consent, it’s a clear crime to me to record someone on their private property without their permission .. This is absolutely not normal anywhere.
  - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
    Same thing in France and I don't understand some answers in this thread. My home -> my cameras, and you can be sure they will be removed and thrown away ASAP. It's at least a violation of my privacy and wouldn't be tolerated where I live.
Xenoamorphous 2y ago
This can be difficult to grasp. I bought an aparment 3.5 years ago and it had an alarm installed. I called the security company to transfer ownership but that couldn’t be done without authorisation from the previous owner, which probably makes sense. The problem is, they were unreachable, and I was living on a house that I now owned, and which had cameras the previous owner could take pics from at any time. My patience was running out so I threatened the security company with removing the cameras installed in the house I owned, but I was told that they owned them even if they were inside my house.
- hedora 2y ago
  At that point, you could point out that you have no contract with them, and that they’ve abandoned their property on your place. The last time I checked, US property rights made it clear that you cannot just store stuff on other people’s land without permission, and then complain when they throw it away. They could try to argue that whatever contract the previous owner signed still applies, but for that to be the case, they would have had to amend the deed to the property, and that should have been noticed by your title agency.
  - Xenoamorphous 2y ago
    FWIW this was not in the US.
    - jhugo 2y ago
      Regardless I would have carefully taken these down and put them in a box on the day I moved in. And then called them (or better, written to them) and given them a reasonable amount of time (maybe a couple months) to collect their property, making it clear that I would dispose of it after that time expired.
      - sidewndr46 2y ago
        Why? After cutting the power to them I'd tell the company if they wanted them back I can take them down and ship them back at my standard rate of $500/hr
cosmotic 2y ago
The contract would likely say something to the effect of "I promise to pay for the data sent to or from this device" and nothing about the owner of the device. If anything was said about the owner, it would be that the responsibility of the original contract holder is to ensure the contract was terminated when the sale took place.

realityking 2y ago

It’s surprisingly common for SIMs in IoT devices to not be locked down. If the data usage spikes enough above the noise it’ll probably be detected & deactivated. Here’s an example from a few years ago: https://scootertalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1370 https://scootertalk.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1370

nlawalker 2y ago
Nice. Thought this was going to be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22085089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22085089
- aaron695 2y ago
  [dead]
- zymhan 2y ago
  I'm reminded of a sim card installed in tracker for wildlife, that was then used by someone for their cellphone.
ctb_mg 2y ago
I've experience working on a team for one GPS fleet management solution. Our SIMs were usually provided in a bulk PO from a top tier wireless provider and were all locked down to a certain very small (on the order of 5mb/mo) bandwidth plan. This cuts cost and risk.

aeturnum 2y ago

I work for a company that uses sensors with some kind of 4G connection. I don't know the details but I did ask our sensor guys what would happen if someone removed the SIM card (or whatever it is) and started using data. My recollection is that locking down those SIM cards is the responsibility of the sensor maker. We have an agreement to pay for all legitimate traffic at a contractual rate, but the device manufacturer actually owns the connection and pays for the data themselves. So you're probably using the connection in violation of the wishes of the responsible party, but it was not clear to me exactly how illegal that would be? Like I'm sure they could charge you with a crime but I have no idea what it would be.

justinclift 2y ago
> they could charge you with a crime Doubt it. You'd be using a device you bought and now own, that didn't come with any kind of agreement/contract/etc to limit your usage. :)
- chgs 2y ago
  I suspect that computer misuse / hacking laws could apply. I’m also certain that there will be small print if you bought it from a dealer.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    The situation they're describing is it coming with the house they bought.

focusedone 2y ago

I work at a place with LTE GPS trackers on fleet vehicles. Tracking boxes get moved from old -> new vehicles when possible. Otherwise the cell and tracking services are deactivated ASAP to avoid paying a monthly fee on an unused tracker. I'd personally be equal parts creeped out and curious about the hardware if that showed up on a car I bought. If it's a former fleet vehicle, its probably deactivated. The particular sound described makes me think of older pre-lte stuff, which in my part of the world was abandoned and became useless a couple years ago.

hoistbypetard 2y ago
That was also what the sound made me think of, but I don't think the sound would've happened with deactivated hardware. (?) But you're right, I don't think I've heard my phone cause that sound since I switched to an LTE phone.

tengwar2 2y ago

If the people who made it know much about telecoms, then no, the will not work. When your mobile device connects to the Internet, the connection tunnels through the mobile network to a gateway specified by the "APN" (access point name). This is usually set up automatically these days, but you can dig the setting out of your phone. That's for an Internet connection - however a company can pay for a "private APN". This is still a gateway, but they control what it connects to. This is often done for machine to machine connections, e.g. for utility smart meters - so a SIM for a gas meter will not be provisioned for the normal Internet APN, and if you were able to get that SIM out (difficult as they are not usually in card format) you would not be able to connect to the Internet. Typically the equipment company will negotiate a cheaper data price than for Internet access, since the data usage will be low and predictable. Now it could be that the people who built this tracking device are too small scale to negotiate a deal, or just don't know this, but my guess is that (a) the SIM is not in a physical format which can be removed and fitted in a different device; and (b) it is connected to a private APN which is not connected to the Internet. BTW, if you look up the Wikipedia article, bear in mind that it is a bit inaccurate - for instance it refers to an APN as being a gateway to the Internet, which is not always true. I'll correct it some time.

throwaway984393 2y ago
Cars now have cell modems that you can hook up to select telecom providers to turn your car into a hotspot, so those cell modems/SIMs do have an APN for internet data

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Suppafly 2y ago

Our water company switched our meters from RF to cellular a while back, I'm not curious enough to mess with it, but I suspect you could repurpose the sim card from one of them.