Lazybit

With SIM Manager 2 you can recover deleted SMS. This guide explains the technical details of the SMS recovery process. The table below summarizes the default settings for various mobile phones and how they affect your chance to undelete texts.

If your phone is not listed, there are some rules of thumb that will be helpful:

• if the phone stores the SMS in its own memory, rather than on the SIM, recovering a deleted SMS is not possible;
• check your phone's menu, if there is an option to copy the SMS from the phone's memory to the SIM card, then SMS recovery may be possible (provided that it was deleted from the SIM);
• if the phone stores the SMS in the SIM by default, recovering a deleted SMS is most likely to be possible, but is not guaranteed.

Phone Model	Default storage	Recovery
iPhone	Phone	N/A
LG KU990 Viewty	SIM if there is free space	yes
Motorola A840	SIM if there is free space	yes
Motorola V500	SIM if there is free space	yes
Nokia 1110	SIM	yes
Nokia 2600	Phone	N/A
Nokia 6230i	SIM if there is free space	N/A
Nokia n78	Phone	N/A
Nokia N91i	Phone	N/A
Samsung C200	SIM if there is free space	yes
Samsung D600E	Phone	N/A
Samsung x460	SIM if there is free space	N/A
Samsung X630	Phone	N/A
Sony Ericsson T630	Phone	N/A
Sony Ericsson W381i	Phone	N/A
Sony Ericsson W950	Phone	N/A

 

Contributions to this list will be greatly appreciated.

With SIM Manager you can copy the contacts from your SIM card to your Google account and vice-versa.

To do so, use the "Get contacts from Google" feature.

Once you enter your username and password, the contacts will be retrieved.

SIM Manager will copy the following address book details from Google:

• Name
• Second name
• Phone
• Additional Phone
• Category
• E-mail
• Group

You can write Google contacts to a SIM card, multiple cards or save them to a file for later use.

To upload contacts from a SIM card to Google, select the address book entries, right-click and choose "Send contacts to Google".

Here you can see the SIM card address book in Google contacts:

Naturally, you can do this with a SIM and a USIM, since SIM Manager supports both 2G and 3G SIM cards.

Future versions of SIM Manager will add the possibility to synchronize SIM card address books with Yahoo Contacts, Nokia Ovi and other similar services.

The program has many other interesting features, such as the SMS recovery or clear SIM contacts.

SIM Manager requires a PC/SC compliant SIM card reader, you can choose one from this list.

I often bump into ads in which somebody states that a company can clone your SIM card, or that some wise-guy has the gear needed to clone a SIM card. A slight variation is made by the ads that state that one can make a SIM card hold more than one SIM card [i.e. if you have two SIMs, you can migrate them into one, thus there will be no need to switch cards when you feel like switching numbers or mobile operators].

Why cloning a SIM card is impossible? [for a usual human being like you and me]

Because a SIM card is a smart card, it has an operating system, a microprocessor and a file system. On top of that, it has a great authentication mechanism that allows the card to determine which actions can be carried out [and which ones cannot] by a specific user. Yes – it is similar to an OS with multiple users, in which an administrator [or root] can do anything, while somebody else [say, Guest] can only read a limited number of files.

A SIM card is made of directories that hold files, each file has its own use, for instance, one of them holds your address book, another one – your SMS archive, etc. These files can be read by us – mobile phone owners.

There are also system files, such as the ones that contain information about the frequencies which the operator uses, or those that hold the amount of credit left in your account [you know – money-related information]. Such data are critical, and they cannot be changed by the user – i.e. by us.

In order to clone a SIM card, every single file must be read, including the ones that hold the low-level secret information. But, as you’ve probably figured out by now – the card’s protection mechanism will simply not allow that data to be read. Just imagine that you’re logged on as a guest, and you want to copy some files that only an administrator can access. For obvious reasons – you will fail.

So, if you really want to clone a SIM card, you need to “log on as an administrator”. Simple - but not possible for the end-user. Here are some extra facts that should help you understand why things are so.

When you buy a SIM card, the operator gives you the SIM card itself, and several codes: PIN, PUK [sometimes also PIN2, and PUK2]. The card is already formatted, meaning that its file system is created and it already contains some data. The PIN is something that allows you to “log on as a guest” and use the resources such as the address book. So there’s no way you can clone the card - insufficient privileges.

But how do mobile operators make changes to the card?

As stated earlier, a SIM card is just a smart card with a special format. Assume the mobile operator buys a thousand smart cards that are 100% empty. From the very beginning, the card manufacturer gives the provider the so called transport key (a.k.a issuer key), which is what is needed in order to perform any operation with the card. Afterwards, a person from the GSM operator formats the cards, creates the needed files, assigns the PINs, etc. and then the SIM cards end up on the shelves of stores and boutiques.

The conclusion is that the SIM card’s transport key is what you need in order to be able to actually clone it. But the problem is that the key is kept secret, for obvious reasons. Think about all the damage that could be done, all the financial scams, and so on.

So, when somebody says they can clone a SIM card, it is very likely to be a false claim, unless that person is an employee of the mobile operator, and has access to the transport keys. Even in that case, you can be sure that it is illegal, because no employee is allowed to disclose such information and use it for personal purposes.

But what about brute-force attacks?

Those won’t work, because a GSM SIM card [like any other smart card] will lock itself if an invalid PIN is entered a certain number of times. Afterwards, you can still unlock the card with the PUK, but if that fails too – the card will permanently lock itself. Meaning that its data are not available, gone, nada, zilch!

Technically, it is possible, all you need is a SIM card reader (or a PC/SC compliant smart card reader), and a hell of a lot of luck – so that you could guess the right key before the card locks itself. But let’s face it; the chance to succeed is probably much smaller than the chance of a pink unicorn materializing right now, right behind you!

You might also want to know some additional facts about PIN and PUK, available on Dekart’s forum.

Back to our money-making wise-guys – most often, the ad goes like this

“SIM card clones, any operator, any country”

. Now that’s a bold statement! If it was just a once in a lifetime deal, somebody who can clone a SIM card of a single operator (where they used to work, but got fired, and now they fight back) – it would’ve been more credible. But being able to clone any SIM card means that all the transport keys of all the mobile operators have been compromised, and nobody noticed that.

Some pseudo-statistics

No, I am not a statistician, but I did do a minor research, which included questioning almost everybody I know (who is technically literate). It turns out that everybody heard about people who clone SIM cards, but nobody has ever seen the process of cloning, or a home-made^ two-in-one SIM card in action.

With that said, ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.

^ - Strictly home-made, because it makes sense when the operator itself provides such a service [which is not an uncommon thing]

So, you and your employer are not on good terms anymore and you think it is payback time? Here is a beginner's guide to expressing disagreement.

Disclaimer: the article does not focus on the moral and legal side of the issue, the focus is purely technical.

Note: a complementary article for employers will follow shortly, but if you're sharp enough you can derive the protection methods from this information.

The options are different, but if you're in the IT industry, the common choices are:

• change all the passwords and do not disclose them;
• delete all the data;
• encrypt all the data;
• apply subtle changes to the systems configurations, so that they seem to be working right, but somewhere deep inside a problem is waiting to happen;
• share private data with your employer's worst enemy.

Change all the passwords

It is a matter of time before they find a new person who knows how to apply the password reset procedure - most (if not all) systems have one. Sometimes it is as easy as reading the manual (which they should've told you to write in the first place) and following the instructions.

As an IT expert, you are aware of the fact that if someone has full physical access to a system - they can override pretty much every security measure.

Cons:

• it is a matter of time before they reclaim access to the resources. Since the bridges are already burnt down - your image suffers badly, your future employment opportunities are quite shady. You gained nothing.

Pros:

• easy to implement;
• it is more difficult and time consuming to get past this if there are remote resources (ex: servers) controlled by other companies, in other timezones;
• once they get everything back and sue you, you can say "I didn't want it to be serious, so I chose this trivial method" [then pray they'll buy that].

 

Delete all the data

This is a better approach, because in this case there is nothing to recover. They can have the passwords for every server, the key for every door - but there is nothing to be found behind any of the doors.

Cons:

• there are backups, you'll have to delete those too, thus there is more work to be done;
• there are data recovery techniques, you'll have to make sure they won't work
  • destroy the data (crash the hard disks; burn the DVDs, literally);
  • wipe the data - wiping is the process of deleting data, then overwriting it with other data, to prevent recovery software from being able to retrieve the original files. In spite of the belief that you need multiple overwrite-passes to make a file impossible to recover - even one pass is good enough.

Pros:

• the more time passes since the files were deleted, the more difficult it is to recover them. The employer will feel a lot of pressure because they have to do everything fast, or they'll have to disrupt the service for a while. This should make it evident for them that they should've given you the raise you asked for, it would've cost them less;
• if you were unprofessional enough to not make those regular backups, the employer will understand that they made more mistakes than they originally thought, one of them was that of employing you in the first place.

 

Encrypt all the data

This is an extension of the previous method, and it is psychologically more aggressive, because this time they know they have the files, and "all they need" is the password. This gives them the false feeling that they're almost there.

Cons:

• encrypting data takes time, especially if there are large amounts of it;
• you may be foolish enough to use an encryption program that has backdoors in it - which makes your effort useless;
• the employer may have keyloggers installed on your systems, thus they will be able to find the password - rendering the exercise useless again;
• if you use a weak password - they can guess it or brute-force it.

Pros:

• the method is meaner than simply deleting the data;
• even if they have full physical access to the system - it does not help them;
• if you are sure that you are using the best encryption program that does not have any backdoors and employs the best encryption algorithm, you're safe;
• if you use a smart card to encrypt the data, any brute-force or dictionary attack attempts will be futile.

 

Apply subtle changes to the systems configurations, etc.

If you need an example of this, remember the movie "Office space" to get an idea about how this is done.

Cons:

• they won't know you've had them, because these backdoors are so subtle - thus you lose some of the moral satisfaction;

Pros:

• when the new guy shows up, it may take a long time until the flaws are revealed (especially if you were insightful and weren't kind enough to document what you were working on, making it difficult to understand the system you left behind);
• you can exploit these flaws for many years, and perhaps get some benefits out of it. If you're not greedy and keep everything below the radar, you may never get caught.

 

Share corporate secrets with the competition

If you are not bound by an NDA, they won't be able to use this against you.

Cons:

• if you don't keep this low profile, future employers won't be able to trust you, and your career may not get far from where you're standing.

Pros:

• if there were no NDAs, technically you succeeded in making them suffer without breaking the law.

 

Final thoughts

All the methods above have one thing in common - you'll have to pay for it sooner or later, and there is no approach that enables you to get away scot-free.

I do not encourage employees to cheat their employers (and vice-versa), I consider that a direct dialogue is the best way to solve a problem, as well as to prevent it from happening in the first place. This article must not to be used as legal advice.

Most of us think that we're stuck with the letters assigned to the partitions by Windows - and that cannot be changed. C: will always be C: and D: will always be D:, etc.

If you are a Private Disk Light user, you may run into a problem - the disk cannot be mounted, because the letter it was supposed to be mapped to is already in use. Since Private Disk Light doesn't allow you to change the disk letter of the encrypted disk - you cannot access your data. There are several solutions to this problem.

Make sure the letters are available

Use the standard Disk Management tool (Start\Run\diskmgmt.msc) to modify the drive letter of an existing partition. You will see that letters can be changed at will, unless you're trying to change the letter of the system disk (in this case you will be trying to cut off the branch upon which you are standing).

Note that if you use NTFS, the partition can be mapped to a folder on another NTFS drive, not necessarily to a letter. Also, some partitions may not have a letter or a folder to which they are mapped - of course, the obvious disadvantage is that you won't be able to access them.

 

Install Private Disk (the non Light version)

With Private Disk, you get a lot of other security features, as well as many other handy features - among them is the possibility to edit the settings of an image and change its disk letter.

This approach is the opposite of the one. In the previous case we make available the desired letter, while in this one we "desire another letter".

You don't have to actually buy the program, you can make the changes while still in the trial mode (which is fully functional), and then go back to Private Disk Light. If you decide to stick to the full version, don't forget that you can get it for a discount.

Private Disk Explorer

PD Explorer is a new tool that is perfect for this job, if what you need is to simply extract the files from an encrypted image. Note that PD Explorer works with NTFS images, so it is not applicable if you have FAT32 or another file system.

This encrypted image browsing tool is not yet officially released, but you can get a copy from our forum.

Use another computer

Private Disk and Private Disk Light are both portable programs - they can run from removable disks without installation enabling you to encrypt a USB flash disk or a CD; all you need is another computer on which the disk letters you need are not in use.