Hi Mychaela,

nice to hear from you.

my cards are these cheap chinese magic cards. they have 88888888 as their adm and worked nice with osmocom till today :)

but even if i try with this 8-digit number the tool says Time out during card request.

do i need those sysmocom cards for using sysmo-usim-tool?

Thanks msfu

On 4/28/22 17:05, Mychaela Falconia wrote:

Hello msfu,

...

i have an issue with sysmo-usim-tool. If i do sudo ./sysmo-usim-tool.sjs1.py -a 4051049678932293688 -o [...] maybe i spelled the adm wrong. but it is calculated from hex 3838383838383838.

What actual SIM or USIM card model are you trying to program? If it's anything recent from Sysmocom (SJS1 or SJA2), those cards do *not* have hex 3838383838383838 as their ADM key - instead their ADM1 keys are randomly assigned per card, and the only way to find out the correct ADM1 key for your specific card (usually expressed as 8 decimal digits, as they use the ASCII-decimal subset out of the full 64-bit key range) is to look at the key material email you must have received from Sysmocom webshop at the time of your order.

The only card model I know of that has hex 3838383838383838 (equivalent to ASCII-decimal 88888888) as its default ADM key is GrcardSIM2. However, Sysmocom stopped selling those cards ages ago, and in fact the Sysmocom-branded version of this card (called sysmoSIM-GR2 in its day) was so rare that I have never even seen one with my own eyes - I'm guessing it must have been very short-lived. However, the original manufacturer of those cards (Grcard) still have that model available (or at least it was available from them about this time last year), and I got a batch of 200 of those cards made:

https://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/pictures/SIMs/FCSIM1_front.jpeg https://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/pictures/SIMs/FCSIM1_back.jpeg

If anyone would like some of these FCSIM1 cards, I can make them available. They are meant to be programmed with my C-language tools though, *not* with Osmocom/Sysmocom Python tools:

https://www.freecalypso.org/hg/fc-sim-tools/

When programmed correctly (I recommend COMP128v3), these SIM cards (inserted into GSM/2G phones) do work quite well with a GSM network that is operated with Osmocom CNI software. :-)

M~

Hi,

On 4/28/22 19:24, msfu wrote:

Hi Mychaela,

nice to hear from you.

my cards are these cheap chinese magic cards. they have 88888888 as their adm and worked nice with osmocom till today :)

I also used some Chinese SIM cards many years ago and they were only working with a Windows tool they provided, it was poorly written in VB and it was half English and half Chinese. All errors were only in Chinese.

Contact the seller from where you bought the cards to provide you the tool to write them.

Or buy the sysmocom SIM cards from their shop. http://shop.sysmocom.de/t/sim-card-related/sim-cards

Good luck!

Hi msfu,

my cards are these cheap chinese magic cards.

Vague descriptions of this kind are generally not useful when you are trying to *program* a SIM card - such programming generally requires knowing the _exact_ model of your card.

I am, however, a bit concerned by your use of the word "magic" in describing your cards: in my experience so far, I have only heard the name "Magic SIM" in reference to ancient COMP128v1-only cards that were specifically made for SIM cloning, back in the days when operators' use of COMP128v1 made such cloning possible. To the best of my knowledge, these "magic" SIMs allow *multiple* IMSI+Ki pairs to be programmed into them, and they have some kind of STK application that allows switching between these multiple programmed identities via a menu on phones that implement STK. I don't like cards of this kind at all, instead I strongly prefer a model that mimics a traditional cell network operator as closely as possible: in my paradigm, you put on the hat of a network operator when you program an FCSIM1 card with fc-simtool, including programming of IMSI and Ki (and you can do COMP128v3 too, you aren't limited to v1), and from that point onward, the card looks and feels like a legitimate operator issue, not some cloning hack.

they have 88888888 as their adm

Does your card support *just one* IMSI+Ki identity/key to be programmed into it, or is it a "magic" SIM that allows programming multiple identities with an STK menu switching between them? If your card is of the multiple-identity "magic" kind, I won't be able to help you further with it, but if it supports just one IMSI+Ki and you say it has 88888888 as its ADM key, then it *might* be a GrcardSIM2 card. The easiest way to find out would be to look at your card's ATR - please tell me your ATR, and I will tell if it's any of the cards I recognize.

Do you know how to get your card's ATR? If you don't know how to get your ATR with whatever tools you are already familiar with, now would be a good time to install and learn my fc-sim-tools:

https://www.freecalypso.org/hg/fc-sim-tools/

The most straightforward way to retrieve your card's ATR with my tools would be to run fc-pcsc-atr.

and worked nice with osmocom till today :)

Another vague statement - please tell us *exactly which* Osmocom tools have previously worked successfully with your cards.

but even if i try with this 8-digit number the tool says Time out during card request.

When you say "the tool", do you mean sysmo-usim-tool.sjs1.py? If so, you are using the wrong tool for your card model, and it can't possibly ever work.

do i need those sysmocom cards for using sysmo-usim-tool?

Technically yes, but you are posing the question the wrong way. Instead of starting with a preconceived notion of which specific software tool you are going to use and then looking for a card model that works with that specific tool (which might be impossible, as card model SJS1 which is specific to the tool you are trying to use, has been discontinued in 2020), you need to proceed as follows:

1) Decide which SIM (or perhaps USIM/ISIM) card you should use based on your actual application requirements, and then

2) Once you have settled on card vendor ABC model XYZ, use the right tool (normally provided by the vendor, at least if the vendor is a decent FLOSS-friendly company like Falconia or Sysmocom) to program your cards.

To answer question 1 above (which card model would be right for your application), ask yourself these further questions - and if you post your answers, then I and other members of this list (if they feel like engaging in this thread) will be able to give you suggestions as to which cards would work best for your application:

* Are you running (or seeking to run) a pure GSM/2G network, or are you more interested in 3G/4G/5G technologies?

* What kind of phones are you going to put your SIMs into, presumably for the purpose of connecting to your own network? Are they 2G-only phones with classic 2FF SIM sockets ("big" SIMs), or are they "modern" smartphones with 3FF or 4FF (micro/nano) SIM sockets that prefer 3G/4G/5G and only support 2G as a backward compatibility mode?

* How do you personally feel about the industry's transition from the classic GSM 11.11 SIM protocol toward UICC and USIM/ISIM? Do you consider this UICC/USIM/ISIM innovation to be a welcome and positive change, or do you consider it to be a misdesign that needs to be resisted and opposed?

The last question should really be the most relevant one for deciding which SIM or USIM/ISIM cards you should invest into and use. If you *like* the philosophical ideas of UICC/USIM/ISIM, if you are going to stick your cards into phones that speak these protocols, if you wish to program files under ADF.USIM and ADF.ISIM, and you are prepared to invest into the associated learning curve and tools, then I wholeheartedly recommend that you buy your cards from Sysmocom: their webshop cards are targeted to just this audience, and their latest pysim-shell tool is made for those cards.

OTOH, if you detest UICC/USIM/ISIM as *unwanted* innovations, if you work primarily with phones that don't speak any of those protocols, if your network is exclusively GSM/2G and you don't want to devote any brain cells to knowing, understanding and programming files under ADF.USIM and ADF.ISIM, *then* I recommend a SIM-only card model that has *no* UICC/USIM/ISIM capabilities - and the only such card model I know of that is available without cost-prohibitive MOQ is my FCSIM1.

and where can i get your cards? are they available for buying or something?

So far I haven't sold any, I have only given them away free of cost to those whom I (at the time) considered to be worthy recipients. If you tell me more about yourself (please be as verbose as you can be, *at minimum* as verbose as I am, preferably more), then I will decide if I can send you some cards free of cost, or not. If you don't qualify for free-of-cost cards, I will be happy to sell you some, but I don't have any kind of webshop setup, thus it would have to be a strictly informal transaction, similar to a street drug deal. :)

If you happen to be anywhere near San Diego, California, USA or Tijuana, Mexico (either side of the border is fine), I strongly prefer in-person transactions - but if you are on the other side of the planet from me, then shipping will have to be the way. Thankfully they haven't made SIM cards illegal *yet*, at least to the best of my IANAL knowledge...

M~