Android now lets you transfer eSIMs between your phones

You don't need to program the keys into the card, you program the card's identity/public key into the network.

For SMS, Google Vooice both sends to and receives from email. I have a cronjob set up to `mail` a TextNow number that needs activity every 28 days to stay alive.

>- CC incoming texts to a mailspool which allows me to browse my SMS history as if it were email (this one is particularly nice).

Oh, I like this. I tend to delete most of my SMS-via-email, and the texts are always searchable in my Google Voice account, but can definitely see the appeal of always archiving all incoming texts with my mail so that I can use `mairix` for search.

>Finally, I cannot participate in a discussion of hosted/VOIP vs. physical SIM numbers without reminding readers that a "2FA Mule" solves the problems of providers not supporting VOIP numbers for 2A:

Nice. I do use my phone's SIM (now eSIM) number when (and only when) 2FA won't take Google Voice, but if I decide that is a meaningful security flaw, your approach would work.

Speaking of telco superpowers, I don't know if Twilio lets you do this but Google Voice has always supported voice calls by browser. The only time I make or answer a phone call on my phone is when I am away from my computer. When iOS 8 appeared, I'd enjoyed the equivalent of Continuity for years.

Source: GV user since Grand Central days.

Everything else (including paypal, fidelity, schwab, sofi, discover, capital one, to name a handful) work fine.

i don't understand why people say "meh" about companies copying apple, _as if it is apple's fault_. it's samsung, google, huawei, etc. making those decisions. if apple has 20-30% marketshare in most of the world, but has stronger fanbase, makes more money, and pushes tech boundaries, of course other companies will want to follow.

I've also had actual costs being charged when eSIM provisioning failed with "error -2" or whatever during travel and then carrier support refused to do anything about it (after taking my money for the card of course).

As someone who designed quite a few public systems like this, I can recognize one that's built with users in mind and one that's built with profiteering in mind.

There's no reason for eSIM to not be easily transferrable between devices like pSIMs are. There's no reason that the QR codes with provisioning tokens can't be reusable and revokable like pSIM ones. There's no reason that eSIM provisioning servers work on whitelist principle where they deny all phones the carrier doesn't profit from.

And yet now we have all that. And before (at least here in Europe, I'm aware that US citizens are very used and defensive about abusive business practices by their telecoms) we didn't.

As always, be careful not to confuse the sample with the distribution. The commenter you are replying to is not necessarily one of those people. Also, their statement might be matter-of-fact, not a condemnation.

I didn't read it as "they're doing it only for money". That indeed is perfectly understandable. I read GP as saying, they're being customer-abusive asshats.

We all need to make money to pay our bills and such, however there's a subtle but important difference between selling some good/service/labor in exchange for money, and abusing the customer to extract money from them. eSIM, per GP, is designed very much for the latter case.

I always use prepaid as i hate nasty contract surprises and also because its actually cheaper here with most carriers!

Actually I take that back, shady shops will sell you a SIM that can't be activated.

Which countries? Of the few countries I traveled to, the cheapest esim (by using a esim comparison site) is cheaper than local sims for any reasonable amount of data (eg. 3 GB for a 2 week trip). The local sims sold at the airport might be "cheaper" on a per-GB basis, but they come with absurd amounts of data that you couldn't possibly use (eg. 30GB) so they are more expensive in actuality.

That means I assume they are paying roaming rates to the local providers.

The old operator used the week to make me 3 increasing discount offers. Had I switched just for economic reasons I could have cancelled the operation on Saturday just before the scheduled transfer at Monday noon and saved a bit of money.

Once you have the new SIM the transfer is pretty quick.

The problem you are describing is therefore a regulatory one, not a technical one.

All depends on if someone set this flag when creating your SIM and if you took their discount when buying their service.

He does say they're delivered via QR in the email, so the "application" is just a store frontend, it doesn't change his esim itself.

Apps like Airalo, etc, are legit.

It lists the cheapest e-SIMs for travelling to each country.

And all of them are some form of jank or inconvenience.

Look, most people (myself included) don't give a fucking fuck about security. Our time lost to the kabuki theater of security is worth more than the so-called "security" we gain, and that's assuming whatever is being secured is even worth securing.

A determined attacker will ignore all that and just undermine everything with social engineering against a useful customer support tech anyway.

Unless your solution is as simple as entering a password and hitting a button, which is the digital equivalent to taking out a key and unlocking your front door, it is not going to see widespread acceptance. Make your fucking security solutions convenient, not secure. kthxbai.

Even cars did away with keys because turning the ignition is an inconvenience compared to just pushing a button.

Not only that, they also both provide the same underlying technology to 3rd party apps, because the core trick in WebAuthn uses a cryptographic hash of a DNS name, so if we put say a UUID minted by your app store in where the DNS name goes we get the same functionality, (logically collisions can happen, but they're astronomically unlikely) but customised for each phone vendor & each app.

So e.g. I tap the icon for the NHS app on my Pixel 6, it starts up to where it would want me to do nonsense with passwords and so on but nope, hold my thumb against the screen, biometric match inside the phone, therefore this is my phone, it has a FIDO-style proof that this phone, which enrolled via the laborious process with passwords and SMS and whatever, is mine and it says this is me. Now I can order routine prescription re-fills, they go in a queue, my doctor says yeah, tialaramex doesn't need to re-check those blood levels until summer, prescription approved, done.

If there is a specific law forbidding carriers to put any kind of block on a device using only physical SIM, but not if eSIM, I'll be interested to know that law. And if that's the case, wouldn't it be obvious that because eSIM is a relatively new thing, the law is just lagging behind, not that eSIM inherently a bad thing?

Technically it’s not a SIM lock (also called carrier lock) in the traditional sense, AT&T calls it the carrier visibility or carrier reveal program.

It’s a BS name because it doesn’t just hide other carriers from the carrier select screen, it also actively prevents eSIM activation via QR code etc. And if you need help from AT&T CS 9/10 have never heard of this term.

For all intents and purposes it’s basically just an eSIM specific SIM lock.

But you (and anyone reading this that runs into the same issue) can use the “carrier visibility/reveal” terminology to get the issue resolved faster in the future.

I'm more asking about cases where using an esim means the existing regulations don't apply, not instances of some shit company disobeying regulation until the regulator gets involved.

My carrier straight up doesn't support esim transfer as in moving the esim from one phone to an other, you have to renew / order a new one (as if you'd lost a physical sim basically).

It does not take too long once you find out you have to do that, and hunt down how to do it, but it's stressful, annoying, and dumb.

The root cause of the cookie banner problem was implementing third-party cookies in the first place. Regulation is like violence; in both that if it doesn't work you just need more, and that if you needed to resort to it you've already fucked up.

We can't wind the clock back and give Netscape a slap, or stop the operators from introducing SIM-lock on handsets. The next best thing is to fix it now, and yeah, sometimes the wheels have to turn slowly.

What else do you propose we do? Refuse to use mobile data? (Actually, doesn't seem like the worst idea.)

In the meantime, don't buy esims. Nothing but drawbacks.