Charlie Sorrel
Gear

Social Hack Claimed to Put iPhone on Vodafone Network

It would be too much headache for a network to do what this guy claims they did for him moomoo: Rohitk: the reason it might work is that the account's *primary* IMSI was still the original voda SIM, only an 'additional' SIM was added, a "child account" if you will RohitK: SIMs aren't hard to provide.... Even if you get a suitable imsi and ki done for you, you still need to trick itunes somehow to generate a cert so the phone wont say @sorry your not an ATT sim@ RohitK: And in any case, after all Apple has done to prevent the phone from being unlocked, I sincerely doubt it'll happen by such fantastical means as this one If this works, it's proof that social hacks can indeed be more powerful (and a lot easier) than cracking hardware and software.

Voda Iphone-1TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) reader AJ has reported a clever but unconfirmed social hack for the iPhone. He claims that he bought an iPhone and a prepay AT&T SIM card on eBay. He then headed to his local UK Vodafone store where apparently the shop assistants were fired up to get the phone running on their network.

Instead of putting in a Vodafone SIM, the guys at the store reprogrammed the AT&T SIM with a new 20 digit number. This satisfied both the iPhone (which needs the AT&T card) and Vodafone (which needs the number for its network). AJ says that the phone and SMS functions work, but data and Visual Voicemail do not.

Needless to say, the news has caused a storm at the iPhoneDev IRC channel. There are several reasons for suspicion: SIM codes are country and carrier specific. Reader "Austin_yeahbaby", a source close to Vodafone, says that only the last nine digits can be modified. Also, we have no photo evidence or more importantly, corroboration. One chat member says he has tried the hack with Rogers in Canada and got nowhere.

The folks at the #iPhone IRC chat were good enough to help out. Here's a transcript of their answers:

RohitK: also, charlie_, if you want to be a little more detailed about why the SIM can't be registered, here are a few facts:

Every SIM card has a unique number called IMSI. The thing with the IMSI is that every operator has its own range of this numbers that are supported by the network.

The operator's various systems like billing, etc. have these ranges defined

moomoo: the range is allocated to operators. I've seen nothing that say as an operator *has* to use a particular range

RohitK: I know, but think about it. It would be too much headache for a network to do what this guy claims they did for him

moomoo: Rohitk: the reason it might work is that the account's *primary* IMSI was still the original voda SIM, only an 'additional' SIM was added, a "child account" if you will

RohitK: SIMs aren't hard to provide. Any network would simply provide a new SIM for the guy to use, rather than reprogram an old one from a different network

__spoonet: __even if he was able to do it, with a friend that works at voda, how we will be able to reproduce?

moomoo: ie: primary account works, poper IMSI, for billing etc.... "child" SIM HACKED

Cartman: the issue is the generation of the KI (key), which the service provider does for you and puts on your sim. Even if you get a suitable imsi and ki done for you, you still need to trick itunes somehow to generate a cert so the phone wont say @sorry your not an ATT sim@

RohitK: And in any case, after all Apple has done to prevent the phone from being unlocked, I sincerely doubt it'll happen by such fantastical means as this one

If this works, it's proof that social hacks can indeed be more powerful (and a lot easier) than cracking hardware and software. More likely though, in view of the complete lack of evidence, it's a hoax.

UK iPhone reportedly functioning with Vodafone [TUAW]

IRC chat [iPhoneDev]