I am oversimplifying here, but this should still get the point across: The SIM is only necessary to give your modem an identity so that towers can talk to it. Towers do talk to your equipment, even if it isn’t a subscriber of that mobile operator.
I think this is a really straightforward answer and we should add it in the docs.
We have had those questions before but got lost in nuance because technically it depends on providers. For example:
SIM is definitely required.
Active plan may be required depending on the region and carrier, but probably not. For example, i have a non-activated sim card here that produces a ton of false positive warnings due to not being activated.
Sometimes people ask this question for the wrong reason. For example they bought a device with the wrong frequency bands and wonder why it can’t connect, thinking a new SIM will help here.
Rayhunter installed OK on several Verizon Orbic Speed hot spots using un-activated Mint trial sim cards. WiFi installation failed possibly due to trial sims issues but orbic-usb ran fine from a Linux Mint 22.1 system. They appear to operate normally capturing non-warning and test session packets but haven’t been used against actual IMSI catchers yet.
SIM, yes. Active plan, no.
I am oversimplifying here, but this should still get the point across: The SIM is only necessary to give your modem an identity so that towers can talk to it. Towers do talk to your equipment, even if it isn’t a subscriber of that mobile operator.
I think this is a really straightforward answer and we should add it in the docs.
We have had those questions before but got lost in nuance because technically it depends on providers. For example:
Yes, please.
FAQ is here in case anybody wants to update it https://efforg.github.io/rayhunter/faq.html#do-i-need-an-active-sim-card-to-use-rayhunter
hm, here is a counterpoint that an active simcard is sometimes required: https://github.com/EFForg/rayhunter/discussions/517#discussioncomment-14010372
I wonder what changed or initialized after the active SIM was inserted to make the modem output data…
Rayhunter installed OK on several Verizon Orbic Speed hot spots using un-activated Mint trial sim cards. WiFi installation failed possibly due to trial sims issues but orbic-usb ran fine from a Linux Mint 22.1 system. They appear to operate normally capturing non-warning and test session packets but haven’t been used against actual IMSI catchers yet.