New fc-sim-tools repository

[Mychaela Falconia]

Hello FreeCalypso community,

I am continuing active development of fc-simtool and its companion
utilities, our suite of tools for working with SIM cards.  The program
purpose statement "working with SIM cards" includes all of the
following:

* Tinkering and experimenting with SIM cards directly at the protocol
level, sending arbitrary low-level commands without the tool standing
in the way or imposing any arbitrary restrictions of its own.

* Testing operator-issued SIMs to see if they still have the classic
GSM SIM application present and enabled, thus distinguishing between
good and evil SIMs.

* Performing all of the standard functions which GSM SIM specs define
as available to all users: enabling, disabling and changing PINs,
reading and writing SIM phonebooks, etc.

* In the case of programmable SIMs, fully programming them to the last
bit.

fc-simtool began its life in January of this year in our
freecalypso-hwlab Hg repository, then in February fc-simtool and its
companion utilities moved to a new repository named fc-pcsc-tools, but
I just had to move the tools once again to another new repository
named fc-sim-tools:

https://www.freecalypso.org/hg/fc-sim-tools/

The latest repository move was necessitated by expansion of functional
scope: the new versions of fc-simtool and fc-uicc-tool are no longer
tied to pcsc-lite like the previous versions were, instead they support
multiple card access back ends.  My vision is to support 3 different
ways of accessing SIM cards for manipulation with fc-simtool:

1) The card to be operated on can be inserted into a USB CCID "reader"
like HID Omnikey 3121 or 6121 - this access path requires pcsc-lite
software stack.

2) In addition to the above USB CCIDs that require the massive sw
complexity of pcsc-lite, I am seeking to add support for much simpler
"Phoenix" serial SIM interface devices - these devices present
themselves as /dev/ttyUSBx and can be operated directly, without
needing any drivers, libraries, daemons or other extraneous software.

3) The card to be operated on can be sitting inside a Calypso phone or
FC development board - this access path has just been implemented and
proven working in manual developer mode (manually running each of the
required pieces and manually connecting them together); the only part
that remains to be implemented is the fc-simint front end program that
will tie everything together for practical use with an end user hat on.

Throughout my journey of working with SIM cards, I continue to uphold
my belief that those of us who are going to operate our own GSM
networks for the purpose of providing service to classic GSM/2G phones
should issue our own SIM cards that are pure GSM SIM, without USIM or
ISIM baggage.  Right now the only vendor I was able to find who sells
programmable SIMs of this type without cost-prohibitive MOQ is Grcard,
hence I continue to work with them despite various problems exhibited
by this vendor.  Grcard surely make USIM/ISIM cards too, for all those
proprietary smartphone lovers who actually want LTE/5G crap, but I am
not buying any of those, instead the only Grcard model I work with is
what they call their GSM card, which is the same GrcardSIM2 model that
was branded as sysmoSIM-GR2 back in 2013 - no change in 7+ years!

I am currently trying to buy 200 of these GrcardSIM2 cards, with
custom printing on the plastic with our own FreeCalypso branding - if
this venture goes through successfully, our FC replacement for the
discontinued sysmoSIM-GR2 will be called FCSIM1.  And here is the best
part: fc-simtool will be the *official* tool for programming these
FCSIM1 cards!  Our competitor pySim-prog also has support for
programming this card model, added back in 2013-12, but it is a very
primitive and restricted tool compared to fc-simtool.  pySim people
are now working on a new tool that works as an interactive shell like
ours, but AFAICT all that work is UICC/USIM/ISIM-centric, and if they
do support the classic GSM SIM protocol at all, I don't see what they
can offer that fc-simtool does not already do just as well or better.

The bottom line is: if you are interested specifically in the classic
GSM 11.11 SIM protocol and the classic GSM 11.11 SIM card file system,
as opposed to all latter-day UICC/USIM/ISIM stuff, then fc-simtool is
the very best tool there is!  If there is any other tool out there
(has to be specifically for classic GSM SIM and not USIM/ISIM) that
can beat fc-simtool in functionality or flexibility, I challenge you
to name it!

Hasta la Victoria, Siempre,
Mychaela aka The Mother