Ki numbers

Forums › Vodafone New Zealand › Ki numbers

lduncan

189 posts

Master Geek

Topic # 15217 9-Aug-2007 21:19

Hypothetically if someone was to ask Vodafone for the Ki number (authentication key) relating to their mobile account, would they hand it out, given appropriate checks and verifications had taken place?

Do Vodafone support have access to this information? Who would one speak to in getting this information, without spending hours on the phone trying to explain exactly what you're after, to someone who's got no idea what it is?

sbiddle

27274 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 6706

Moderator

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

Reply # 81812 9-Aug-2007 21:23

Other than trying to h8x0r a SIM for an iPhone or doing something unlawful what possible use would you want for it?

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2600
Inactive user

Reply # 81813 9-Aug-2007 21:26

lduncan: Hypothetically if someone was to ask Vodafone for the Ki number (authentication key) relating to their mobile account, would they hand it out, given appropriate checks and verifications had taken place?

Do Vodafone support have access to this information? Who would one speak to in getting this information, without spending hours on the phone trying to explain exactly what you're after, to someone who's got no idea what it is?

Ki relates to the SIM

And no Vodafone will not give out this info, This would be a major security risk

Don't even try to be honest

lduncan

189 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 81814 9-Aug-2007 21:29

subtle as a brick aye ;)

It's an interesting circumvention of the iPhone baseband though. Seems to be totally transparent to the mobile network (IMEI, IICD, IMSI), while appeasing the baseband checks.

lduncan

189 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 81816 9-Aug-2007 21:35

johnr:
Ki relates to the SIM

And no Vodafone will not give out this info, This would be a major security risk

It's only a major security risk if one subscribers key is given to another subscriber. So long as it's given to the account holder then there's no 'damage' done, unless they are foolish enough to make it available (accidentally or otherwise) to someone with the knowledge to take advantage of it.

Extracting Ki numbers from early vodafone sim cards is fairly trivial, the recent versions, it's not.

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2600
Inactive user

Reply # 81819 9-Aug-2007 21:45

lduncan:
johnr:
Ki relates to the SIM

And no Vodafone will not give out this info, This would be a major security risk
It's only a major security risk if one subscribers key is given to another subscriber. So long as it's given to the account holder then there's no 'damage' done, unless they are foolish enough to make it available (accidentally or otherwise) to someone with the knowledge to take advantage of it.

Extracting Ki numbers from early vodafone sim cards is fairly trivial, the recent versions, it's not.

Its a security risk no matter how big or small

Thats is all I have to say on this topic

John

lduncan

189 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 81821 9-Aug-2007 21:48

I suspected as much. But, if you don't ask...

paradoxsm

3000 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 81822 9-Aug-2007 21:51

They used to freely give them out mainly as most staff did not even know what they were.

One of the "features" of the new system is to restrict access to "stuff you really shouldn't touch" like KI Strings and old defunct products so short answer... No. too late.

The KI strings were easily extracted from the old simcards (IF only I could find those 70-odd Bellsouth '98 sims I have stashed) but the new (SIM2) cards just fail, I have had no success rates using 4 test sims from recent connections both Prepay and on-account.

I did a bit of interesting stuff to various phones over the years with the Silverwafer and a home made tool called SIMulator but cannot remember much of it now, I kind of lost interest in the low-level stuff when UMTS came along (And i've just chucked out a lot of that old stuff)

lduncan

189 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 81825 9-Aug-2007 21:57

paradoxsm: They used to freely give them out mainly as most staff did not even know what they were.

Interestingly, there are a few reports of overseas carriers handing them out to people looking to try this iPhone network lock circumvention.

One of the "features" of the new system is to restrict access to "stuff you really shouldn't touch" like KI Strings and old defunct products so short answer... No. too late.

Unfortunate.

richms

21617 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 4432

Trusted

Subscriber

Reply # 81831 9-Aug-2007 22:18

If they cant be extracted, does that mean that the put several sim cards onto one blank one readers wouldnt work on the vodafone nz sim's?

Richard rich.ms

paradoxsm

3000 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 81832 9-Aug-2007 22:20

yes, Neither worked. not Supersim or the standard goldcard (fullsize) worked for me.

I remember supersim did not work on the new vodasims back when I tried it in 1995 either.

lduncan

189 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 81833 9-Aug-2007 22:32

Yeah, the original SIM card Ki extractor I believe used a collision in the encryption scheme to reduce the number of brute force "tries" to get the key, so that it didn't kill the chip.

However security in later SIM versions means this no longer works... and currently there are no know solutions, brute forcing just kills the SIM after a few 10's of thousands of attempts.