
Nokia: We Don't Know Why Criminals Want Our Old Phones - echair
http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,163515/printable.html
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anigbrowl
Nokia says they're not aware of any software vulnerability, and I believe
them. But if some essential information is transmitted in clear and can be
read out or blocked via a small hack to the phone's PCB, then it would be a
_hardware_ vulnerability, no? People like hard-modding old digital
synthesizers, and a phone is just another kind of DSP device.

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arih
Seems quite odd - I see them for sale all over the place for < $15 .. They
might not be made in Bochum.

I would've thought this kind of spoofing involves sim cards rather than
hardware.

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laut
Spoofing my own Danish SIM card was how I first got the iPhone to work with a
Danish carrier in later summer 2007. That was one of the first method used
around the world to get the iPhone to work outside of the US. Before the
software hacks (anySIM).

I needed to brute force the original SIM card to get a certain number needed
to forge the new SIM card. Luckily the SIM card I needed the key from was old.
Modern SIM cards can not be hacked that easily. I heard that the phone
companies know that number and in some cases would tell that number to the
customer owning the SIM card.

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eli
But that was only because you had physical access to the original SIM, no? You
couldn't mount this attack "over the air" against a stranger.

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laut
The only reason you would need the physical original SIM card is to get the
numbers you need to make the SIM clone. (IIRC)

I think that the phone companies have all the keys you need. Of course they
don't just give them out to anyone who asks.

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eli
Seems like hacking the phone is the trivial part compared to the SIM
authentication scheme. What am I missing?

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derefr
Perhaps the phone is old enough that it doesn't _use_ SIM technology? I had a
phone just last year that didn't (or at least, that's what they told me when I
asked my next provider after that why I couldn't transition it to their
network.)

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eli
I'm pretty sure all GSM phones use SIM cards. Perhaps your old phone was a
Verizon or PCS phone.

Those don't use SIM cards, but they aren't GSM and generally aren't used
outside North America.

