[Cryptography] Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone

[Ray Dillinger]

On 05/13/2017 02:05 PM, mok-kong shen wrote:
> Am 10.05.2017 um 21:00 schrieb mok-kong shen:
> [snip]
>> Being a layman in such issues, I should be very grateful for exact
>> explanations of the phenomena.
> I like to add that I am mainly interested in technical explanations of
> the phenomena, i.e. whether
> it is indeed true, and how, that the SIM card in my mobile phone got
> manipulated, and personally
> deem it not favorable, nor essential, realistic, etc. to conjecture in
> our group on the motivations
> behind such manipulations, if these indeed happened,

This does not seem like a thing that could be done by manipulation
of the SIM card alone.  Among other things, the SIM card is not a
device that stores the phone numbers of your contact list.

The behavior you describe would happen only as a result of bad
firmware or drivers in the device, or as a result of a bad device.

We can wonder why the firmware, drivers, or device is bad, but
I can't think of any reason why anyone benefits from this behavior
so I doubt that it's a deliberate act unless the motive is pure
malice.  Malice does not usually suffice to motivate something as
complicated as that behavior, when it would be far easier to just
deactivate the SIM card and leave you with a bricked phone.  And
I don't know your situation, but I hope that you haven't got
anyone harboring that degree of malice against you.

				Bear


"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from
malice." - Jim Gray

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