Is the eSim fixed to EID or EMEI and how is your general experience across countries?
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as far as I understand, for activation with any simcard, you need:
- IMEI (your device)
- ICCID (physical SIM card, or eSIM profile)
- (M)EID ((e)SIM chip)
That is just how the technology works. Depending on the provider you can reactivate a SIM on a different set. Silent.link does not offer that.
So every set change will require additional 4$? How was pgpp doing this again?
When silent link onboards you, does it ask this?
PGPP did allow reactivation just as I described.
No they get it automatically I assume. There is no reason to ask for it.
So if I use that qr code (ICCID) again on another EID/IMEI pair, I will get an error?
I assume so yes.
But
IF the server of the carrier is authenticating this stuff, can’t I have EID and IMEI different for different carriers?
not understanding your question. But generally goes that you cannot change them anyway.
I can on a router
https://github.com/srlabs/blue-merle
These guys have virtual EID somehow?
(Can use google translate.)
https://docs.estk.me/stk/settings/virtual-eid/index.html
I can also just use disposable eSim chips, if the EID on the chips can’t be changed.
Yeah glinet is one of the few options for this. Most hardware manufacturs block it for legal issues.
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Thanks very much for posting, I’ve been considering experimenting with them myself so great to hear a bit about them.
Do you get to choose (presumably via some standard phone settings, like turning off “Automatically select network” in Android) which operator to connect to if there is more than one available? Or does it always use the one with the strongest signal?
I have seen various people saying they are suspicious over the years but to some extent I don’t care. silent.link won’t have my ID or payment details to abuse, any mobile network is going to spy on my traffic and it seems the worst that’s going to happen is they do a bunk with my $10 of credit, which is a risk I can live with. And they have been around for a few years now without AFAICS any major scandal.
My main temptation to try them is that they look like a cheaper option than local cash-paid SIMs for my needs. Cash SIMs seem either very expensive for small quantities of data (roughly $0.10/megabyte, vs $2/gigabyte for silent.link) or want me to pay a large amount every month for a much bigger data allowance than I need on mobile, albeit at a fair price per gigabyte.
It also looks good that the credit never expires. Do they really mean that - could I have the eSIM and not use it for two years and still have my credit?
Even if my main reason for considering them is the price, any extra privacy benefits are welcome. Their FAQ says:
With Anonymous eSIM, your actual mobile number is not known to your local mobile network provider, as you are in roaming. Therefore, your adversary cannot collude with your local mobile network provider to run various attacks, that are easy with ordinary mobile subscribers, such as:
- SimToolKit attack. Using a special service SMS and a secret Ki key attacker can control subscriber’s SIM card (or eSIM chip) and, using a special surveillance interface built into every GSM phone, eavesdrop on the subscriber during calls or standby.
- Monitor subscriber’s location
- Log subscriber’s calls, messages and data sessions
I’m no mobile network expert, but this feels a bit suspect/technobabble/snake oil. (A shame, as almost everything else on their site feels fairly honest.) Is there actually any concrete privacy advantage here? Surely the SIM still has some kind of ID and therefore its location can be tracked, for example, even if it is not directly tied to my real world identity.
Is a silent.link eSIM any different from a cash paid local SIM in practice from a privacy point of view?
I could believe there might be a security advantage from not having a mobile number, or having one which even I don’t know and which doesn’t really work, but I’m not sure.
Are there any other downsides beyond the ones @vincente mentions? I do wonder if having a silent.link SIM in my phone might look slightly suspicious to any monitoring authorities, but I don’t actually have anything to hide so even if that’s true maybe it doesn’t matter.
A few points that I missed earlier:
- Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that the esim (almost) always connects to the cheapest carrier, not always the fastest. You can pick the carrier in settings of course, but I like the convenience and its done a good job so far of picking the right operator.
- I believe SIMs can be tracked in other ways too, but the data only sims have a phone number. It is a polish (+48) number, that would probably make you stand out, though I dont know how much effort your local government will put into investigating what would at first sight appear to be a visitor from Poland. And then again, if you use a vpn, which you will have to, nobody could associate either you or your traffic to the number, so it’s not going to be the weakest chain in the link regardless
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I accidentally deleted my above post, so I’m going to summarize what I wrote here:
- Silent.link is a good service, relatively cheap and allows you to roam worldwide
- They only accept crypto (including Monero), no app installation and no information requested from you
- It works by you topping up credit, and they charge from the credit as you use the data in 1kb increments
- I used their data only plan, and pay $1.24/GB in the US, but they have prices listed for all carriers and countries.
Issues (both of these haven’t affected me so…)
- (Theoretically) If you are in a remote location with only one carrier available that is very expensive, and you have automatic selection on, it may drain your balance (this hasnt happened to me even though I use automatic)
- All your traffic is routed to Poland, so you have a Polish IP and depending on where you are may have high latency (150-250ms in US) - latency has never been a problem for me, but I do have to use a VPN to connect to some US sites
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