• 2 Posts
  • 165 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: October 17th, 2023

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  • I saw a Defcon talk about SIM cards a few years ago, really interesting stuff.

    Most people treat SIM cards as just an ID to get on a carrier’s network, but they are soo much more.

    When SIM cards were developed, they were designed to be the core of your phone, your handset would be just that, handset that would only run the software on the SIM card.

    SIM cards are small computers, they have a CPU, RAM and storage, they can run apps on the SIM card itself and only present the UI to the phone.

    With my first phones, I remember the contacts being stored on the SIM card itself, it usually took 30-60 sec to load them after a phone restart. But bloody convenient when switching phones, this was way before iCloud and other similar services, and moving your SIM card moved all your contacts as well.

    Since SIM cards are controlled by the operator, they can do stuff that might surprise you, they can act as a trusted source for signing/encrypting/storing data, the user does not have direct access to tamper with the chip, so security apps have been developed to run on SIM cards, I don’t know the current status on this, but in countries with limited/older infrastructure, this was used for bank security apps, since the SIM is a locked down system, you can use it to securely store a key, and have the SIM use the key to generate a token, sign requests and even encrypt data, all without the key leaving the SIM.

    Here is the talk I mentioned:

    https://youtu.be/31D94QOo2gY


  • Swede here, I am a bit weary of articles like these, Sweden has faced the same kind of attention, and it has mostly shown to be overblown propaganda.

    It is true that Sweden specifically has a rather extreme relationship to the state, we trust snd defer to it far more than other countries.

    We also have a social services agency, which is not spotless, there are similar cases like the Danish case ongoing.

    However, for the vast majority of people, as long as a child is healthy, attends school, and is not abused or denied their rights by their parents they have little to worry about.

    It is true that the government focuses on the rights of the child rather than the rights of the parents.

    Every child in Sweden get’s the same social benefits, regardless of the families socio-economic status, even if a child is born into wealth, they still get the money from the state, the reason is that this money belongs to the child, the parent is just a trustee managing the money.

    That being said, home schooling is prohibited in Sweden, as a parent you are required to send your child to school, this is to preserve the child’s right to an education with a curriculum that meets government standards.

    Another example, corporal punishment against children is illegal, it is classified as child abuse, there was a mess a few years ago when a Malaysian parent used corporal punishment on their child in public, and the government reacted.

    It became an international incident, but I don’t remember the outcome.

    These are just examples of the system works here, and there are plenty of people who hate Scandinavia and create propaganda against us.


  • I am all for a government having strong protections for the wellfare of children, a child that is endangered by their parents should be protected.

    But this talk about how “civilized” a person is and removing a child mere hours after birth after a decision made by a government worker with very limited insight into a culture that differs from their own is dumb.

    If this is the standard, then it is just a question of time until children from poor parents are removed due to the parent’s failure to provide a luxurious and civilized environment that an upper class family could provide.

    I am glad the system causing this specific crap is scrapped, and I hope that the situation is resolved in the least bad way possible.