Since yesterday I saw a YouTube video of a Brazilian bunch of hackers who claim that they have managed to get a iPhone 3G workin on an unauthorized network by using a programmable TurboSim from Bladox.

Here is a little info on the TurboSim if you are unfamiliar:

“The Turbo SIM (also known as TurboSIM) is considered the forerunner of a large family of “Dual SIM” devices (HyperCard, HyperSIM, China3GPP, StealthSim, MagicSIMetc.) that piggyback on a telephone SIM card to alter its normal operation. It was introduced in December 1, 2004 by BLADOX, located in Prague, Czech Republic. It is a very thin device with a 9mm by 9mm EEPROMGSM phone. Without the product, the SIM card is still usable as before. mounted in the top right corner. It has the makers name BLADOX in gold letters on its black PCB. It is pressed on top of a normal SIM card (with some plastic cut off) in such a way that it is still small enough to be inserted into the SIM card slot of any”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_SIM

Turbo SIM - Blank Version- Blank Turbo SIM without pre-installed applications.
Price: €59.00 EUR

The TurboSim was used on the first 1.0.2 iPhones and later made most popular to unlock 1.1.2 and 4.6 Bootloader iPhones before GeoHot took a stab at it. There were all sorts of cheap clones and knock offs, some worked, some didn’t work at all.

Most of the knock offs were not reprogrammable like the TurboSim, and were firmware specific so you couldnt upgrade and use the same on, you would have to buy another and that got expensive.

The TurboSim however was programmable so you could simply (kind of) reprogram it to work with the latest firmware.

Thankfully we got past all of that, or have we?

Desbloqueiobr has posted a recent video, and sent it into Gizmodo, showing an iPhone 3G on TIM using what they claim to be a TurboSim, making phone calls and working. Other users on Hackint0sh have also posted photos of an iPhone 3G that they claim to be unlocked via a Universal Sim. The difference between the tow is that the TurboSims create an actual fake IMSI test card. Instead of faking the AT&T IMSI like the Universal Sim does, hence limiting it to USA or iPhone 3G’s purchased in the US unless they are programmed to work with local or more than one IMSI.

Here are the photos from Hackint0Sh

“Hi,
I have tested to verify that iphone 3G is compatible with universal sim, and works on tmobile network. The only trick is to disable 3G from General->Network->Enable 3G (to off).

See pictures, it is so easy compared to 1.0.2, 1.1.1, and 1.1.2
Sorry for poor quality coz taken from macbook with poor light”

vijay

- New York

Unfortunately the photos were taken with his Laptop so they are backwards and he didn’t reverse them and I don’t want to alter the original.

Now the neither the Universal Sim nor the Turbosim can activate the iPhone, so I am guessing that this is a legit iPhone that was activated via iTunes, the only difference is that they say its using a unauthorized simcard to get signal and make calls etc.

_Zf from the Dev Team has issued, a challenge if you will, to see if anyone can replicate the results of the Brazilian hackers:

“If you get a Turbo SIM, let’s try to validate the latest report from Brazil, which doesn’t look very convincing for the moment !
the following application (bin/lamesaft.trb) will simulate the Test IMSI on first launch, then return the real IMSI
install it on your Turbo SIM (remove all other applications first, including AppleSaft, with turbo-reset or the secret PIN code) and see what happens !
tests should include incoming calls, incoming sms, and of course data connection

http://dl.free.fr/nOUxyRvJY/lamesaft-0.1.zip”

These are jsut Rumors until more proof starts poping up or someone posts results to _Zf’s challenge, and even then I wouldnt go and buy a TurboSim or Universal Sim or any clone. They cost allot, need some setting up (and this can be rocket science if you dotn know what you are doing) and most of all, PWNED from the Dev Team is coming soon.

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