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author Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>
date Sun, 21 Mar 2021 04:32:18 +0000
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GSM SIM specs define EF_PLMNsel and EF_FPLMN as containing lists of preferred
and forbidden PLMNs, respectively.  Both files are defined as writable by
ordinary users, requiring only CHV1 access for both reading and writing - and
both files are indeed user-writable on Grcard and Sysmocom SIMs.  However, some
operator-issued SIMs (specifically T-Mobile USA) implement an underhanded trick:
whenever we try to write anything to either of these two files, the write
operation appears to succeed (SW 0x9000), but the byte content of the SIM file
remains unchanged.  Therefore, writability of these files by ordinary end users
on regular operator-issued SIMs should be regarded as questionable.

fc-simtool provides high-level commands for both dumping (reading) and writing
both EF_PLMNsel and EF_FPLMN.  Here are the commands for EF_PLMNsel:

plmnsel-dump

This command dumps the full content of EF_PLMNsel.

plmnsel-write index mcc-mnc

This command writes a single entry into EF_PLMNsel.  The first argument is the
0-based index of the entry position to write into, and the second argument is
the PLMN code as in MCC-MNC.

plmnsel-write-list plmn-list-file

This command overwrites the entire EF_PLMNsel SIM file with a user-specified
PLMN list given in an ASCII data file.  The file must contain PLMN codes
(MCC-MNC) separated by white space; any lines or line tails beginning with '#'
are treated as comments.  Output from a previous plmnsel-dump is acceptable
input to plmnsel-write-list.  PLMN codes are written into EF_PLMNsel from index
0 onward; any unused space at the end is filled with FF bytes.

plmnsel-erase start-index [end-index]

This command erases a single entry position or a range of entry positions in
EF_PLMNsel.  Because EF_PLMNsel is a transparent EF (not record-based) at the
SIM protocol level, our numbering of entry positions in this file is 0-based,
rather than the 1-based convention used for record-based SIM files.  Keyword
"end" may be specified instead of the final index, meaning erase to the end of
the file.

plmnsel-erase-all

This command overwrites the entire EF_PLMNsel SIM file with FF bytes,
corresponding to fully erased state.  This command is more efficient than
'plmnsel-erase 0 end', as the operation is performed with a single UPDATE BINARY
SIM protocol command.

The commands for EF_FPLMN parallel those for EF_PLMNsel: simply replace
plmnsel-* with fplmn-*; all arguments are the same.