I lost a bit track, is there anything known about the future of the Evergreen batch? Thanks.
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hi ! things are moving along > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qimtzxMyfq0 < Librem 5 usability improvements
it’s the latest AV from the Purism snooptube channel 
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As far as I know, the latest official info on that is this (from February) https://puri.sm/posts/coronavirus-delays/ which says: “Mid August: Start of the Librem 5 Evergreen batch for customer pre-orders”
But that also said “Dogwood batch for customer pre-orders” at end of April so Dogwood is by now more than a month late, I guess realistically Evergreen will then be at least a month later than mid-August, probably a few months later given that it’s the final batch with the extra difficulties that come with that. But this is just me guessing. Maybe December? Let’s see if/when Dogwood is shipped first.
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Dogwood is still in the process of being made ready for customers, so the situation with Evergreen will be clearer once Dogwood is shipped.
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I was reading on Purism’s website about how to activate a new SIM on your Librem 5. The instructions appear to require a four digit SIM unlock code. This is not a network unlock code nor a phone unlock code, but is tied only to the SIM itself. I have never heard of a SIM unlock code. I just recently got a new SIM to go with my mint mobile service and could not find anywhere in the kit nor on the SIM itself, or on the plastic card it pops out of, any four digit SIM unlock number. I don’t have my Librem 5 yet. But if I did, I would not be able to use the phone because of not having a four digit SIM unlock code that the L5 SIM activation instructions appear to require. Where does one get that code? None of the big carriers seem to require this code nor do they routinely provide it. The L5 activation instructions appear to even give you a limited number of failed attempts to enter the correct code. I am sure that none of us want to discuss any special requirements of our L5 phone with the carrier’s customer service person.
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It should be the PIN (personal identification number) of the SIM, after three errors you can reset the PIN by the PUK
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I’m using mobile phones for 25++ years, first in the C-network as a car phone, later as D-network handhelds. They always have had until today a 4 digit PIN and an 8 digit PUK (if you entered the PIN three times wrong).
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Will depend on the provider but you probably have to ask the provider for the PUK.
The procedures for setting the PIN and getting the PIN again probably depend on the provider.
I doubt that the Librem 5 is doing anything special. A SIM PIN is completely standard and has been for decades - and it is really a function of the SIM itself (not the provider, not the operating system, not the phone). Maybe no PIN has been set(?) for you and maybe in that case no PIN is required in order to unlock the SIM.
Note that it is only necessary to enter the SIM PIN at the time that the phone is powered on (booted). So best case, you may go months or years without entering the SIM PIN (which may encourage forgetting it ).
A SIM PIN may have been more important in the days when contacts were stored on the SIM itself - which is both a good thing and bad thing.
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storing some emergency numbers on the SIM itself is nothing bad … most SIMs that i’ve used in my phones did that out-of-the-box …
yes one should NOT store personal contact information on the SIM card … anyway they are extremly limited in how they store information.
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Exactly. Limited in quantity and limited in what fields they can store. Opaque, unauditable, blackbox, closed source storage too. Those are some of the bad aspects of storing contacts on a SIM.
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In some cases a default PIN is 0000 and in such a case the phone will not ask for it.
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I can’t remember the last time I had to enter a SIM PIN. If I restart my phone right now it just restarts, the only pin I have to enter is the unlock pin.
my bb requires me to enter BOTH the unlock code and the SIM pin (4 to 8 characters) if the phone has been off (with or without a battery present)
if the phone has been ON the whole time since i last entered the PIN code then it doesn’t require it again even if i ask the software to politely turn off the cellular modem.
if i didn’t know better i’d say that this behaviour isn’t that bad …
You can usually disable the sim pin unlock via settings on the phone. I leave it on, because I rarely restart the phone, and if it is napped it trips them up at least a little more.
Needless to say that even if the SIM requires the PIN, it is open to the phone’s operating system to undermine the SIM’s security by asking for the SIM PIN once ever and then storing it on the phone’s disk.
From the discussion above, it is evident that between different phone operating systems and different settings and different SIMs, we are all experiencing different behavior.
What I observe is similar to @reC i.e. phone always prompts for SIM PIN at boot time (but not if I go into flight mode) - so probably storing it in memory but not on disk.
I am happy with that behavior. Boot is fairly rare, basically limited to
- restart to install operating system updates
- restart because the damned thing is wedged or misbehaving
- very occasionally restart because I carelessly didn’t charge it before it went flat
Once I get my Librem 5 I may revisit this because I have a feeling that the third scenario may occur more frequently (and maybe the first scenario too, at least while things are still being developed at pace).
Apart from protecting the privacy of the data that is stored on the SIM, the SIM PIN also protects you from racking up thousands of dollars of calls etc. - if your phone is stolen. (All assuming that you lock the phone itself.)
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I don’t think that any OS can ask for the current SIM in clear text. If you think so, please point to the capture in the GSM 03.03 spec of the ETSI and/or give the AT command for this. Ofc the OS can record the users input through the GUI, but not ask the SIM for it.
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Yes. My first paragraph should be interpreted as:
Needless to say that even if the SIM requires the PIN, it is open to the phone’s operating system to undermine the SIM’s security by asking the user for the SIM PIN once ever and then storing it on the phone’s disk.
(bolded text added)
(In fact, if the operating system could ask the SIM for its PIN then there would be no need to store the PIN on the phone’s disk or indeed ever to ask the user for the PIN.)
The point was to explain the fact that different phones seem to behave quite differently as to whether, when and how many times the user is prompted for the SIM PIN.
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Can’t wait. I’m anticipating finally getting my non spy-bot phone. Non-Androids are hard to come by. SailOS - fugettaboutit- they pander to custom applications. Tizen? India only, (yes everywhere else in the world they get to enjoy spy-free phones). Samsung has a sweet heart deal to not sell them here. Firefox os, yea right.
Blackberry sold out to Android. Used BB’s have had all their seals broken and have been tampered with by the govt. agencies before the customer gets them. Amazon likes to do that.
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