A SIM card doesn’t have that kind of power over your phone. I’ve gone through 4-5 MVNOs on Pixel phones and not once has a SIM card done anything except provide cellular service.
They do have a lot of power over the device. They run the Oracle Java card standard and are a complete computer that can even run a webserver. They can interact with host events like call starting and call ending. Not sure if they can install user apps. But I have had a carrier push a voicemail shortcut into my app draw that would auto call the voicemail number when pressed. I couldn’t remove it unless I removed the Sim.
I worked in support for a phone manufacturer for a while. I have once seen an app get pushed by the SIM. I also however have seen plenty of really sketchy apps preinstalled or installed with updates by the carrier on carrier branded phones.
Some years ago I forget if it was Ting or Cricket would preinstall the Wish app and it received an update that added ads that would pop up at random while using the device including on the home screen (and fairly frequently at that) so for a while we’d get calls about that and pretty quickly get the Wish app off of those folks phones
Then one of the TracFone brands preinstalles a bunch of advertising directly on the home screen. It was something called app box or something like that and it would literally show an app icon on your home screen so you’d click it and maybe choose to install it
A SIM card doesn’t have that kind of power over your phone. I’ve gone through 4-5 MVNOs on Pixel phones and not once has a SIM card done anything except provide cellular service.
They do have a lot of power over the device. They run the Oracle Java card standard and are a complete computer that can even run a webserver. They can interact with host events like call starting and call ending. Not sure if they can install user apps. But I have had a carrier push a voicemail shortcut into my app draw that would auto call the voicemail number when pressed. I couldn’t remove it unless I removed the Sim.
A good read
That’s insane, I didn’t realize that tiny thing is a computer, let alone one running a tiny JcVM! Thank you for the educative link!
Wonder if that would install on a phone running graphene
I worked in support for a phone manufacturer for a while. I have once seen an app get pushed by the SIM. I also however have seen plenty of really sketchy apps preinstalled or installed with updates by the carrier on carrier branded phones.
Some years ago I forget if it was Ting or Cricket would preinstall the Wish app and it received an update that added ads that would pop up at random while using the device including on the home screen (and fairly frequently at that) so for a while we’d get calls about that and pretty quickly get the Wish app off of those folks phones
Then one of the TracFone brands preinstalles a bunch of advertising directly on the home screen. It was something called app box or something like that and it would literally show an app icon on your home screen so you’d click it and maybe choose to install it