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doc/SIM-in-Calypso-phone article written
author Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>
date Sun, 21 Mar 2021 05:04:33 +0000
parents f893cdde97a4
children 0299c16f2ab1
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This code repository contains current versions of FreeCalypso SIM card
manipulation utilities fc-simtool and fc-uicc-tool; the old versions which were
previously maintained in freecalypso-hwlab and fc-pcsc-tools Hg repositories
are now deprecated and no longer maintained.

The present version has been refactored to allow other card communication back
ends besides libpcsclite: the tools can now operate on SIM cards that sit inside
Calypso phones or development boards (the necessary simagent back end lives in
the freecalypso-tools Hg repository), and it would be easy to add support for
Phoenix-style serial SIM readers if someone were to either send me one or point
me to a place where I can buy one.  All libpcsclite compile-time dependencies
have been factored out into the pcsc back end; if you don't have a pcsc-lite
based reader and don't need that support, you can exclude this back end from
your build and thus eliminate that compile-time dependency.

fc-simtool is the utility of primary interest.  It speaks the classic GSM 11.11
SIM protocol to the card (as opposed to the unwanted-innovation UICC protocol),
and it is intended to be useful to end users of regular operator-issued SIM
cards without admin privileges.  High-level user-friendly commands include
manipulating PINs and phonebooks; low-level commands allow you to SELECT any
arbitrary file (MF/DF/EF) and to perform READ and UPDATE commands on any EF
(BINARY or RECORD as appropriate) as the card will allow, given your access
level.  We (FreeCalypso core team) are also doing some experiments with
programmable SIM cards, hoping to some day be able to issue our own SIMs, but
this work is currently very experimental and not ready for consumption.

fc-uicc-tool is currently a very minimal tool for a few narrow use cases.  It
implements a small subset of fc-simtool commands (basic low-level ones), but
speaking the new UICC protocol to the card - as well as new SELECT by AID
commands that are only possible with this new protocol, granting access to ADFs
for USIM and ISIM.  The tool's only useful functions right now are (1) testing
whether or not a given card has USIM/ISIM functionality present, and (2)
manually exploring the file system under ADF.USIM or ADF.ISIM which cannot be
accessed in any other way.  fc-uicc-tool does NOT currently replicate any of
the high-level end-user-oriented functionality of fc-simtool!