Call me, call me: car owners risk losing the ability to start their cars from their smartphones
New restrictions on SIM cards in Russia could in a number of cases make remote monitoring and control of one’s own car equipped with a modern GSM car alarm impossible. Why this might happen and what to do about it, we will examine in our publication.
The authorities are preparing new restrictions for SIM cards, reports Kommersant. M2M SIM cards are planned to have the ability to transmit voice information and send SMS messages disabled in order to protect citizens from fraudsters. It is claimed that criminals obtain such “SIM cards” in bulk and use them to make mass spam calls.
M2M stands for “Machine-to-Machine.” Simply put, these are SIM cards for various kinds of smart devices that transmit data. These cards are inserted into payment terminals, video surveillance cameras, barrier gates, “smart home” systems, and other similar devices. For example, into modern GSM/GPS car alarms. It would seem, why would anyone make calls through them? But it’s not that simple!
In modern GSM car alarms controlled via a mobile app on a smartphone, two communication options between the owner and the car are used (not counting the key fob’s radio channel, which is not truly long-range).
The first is through the mobile internet channel and the mobile app interface. This is the most convenient option, but this channel does not work if mobile internet is turned off or jammed. And this has been happening everywhere and regularly lately.
The second is precisely through the regular voice communication channel, which works quite successfully under mobile internet restrictions. That is, you can call the car’s number (from any phone, including a landline) and, by pressing a certain combination of buttons on the phone, send a command to start the engine, disarm the alarm, or perform another available action. The list of these commands is available both in the paper instructions for the alarm and in the mobile app. By the way, pure voice communication is also used: in the event of an alarm, the alarm system makes a call to the owner’s phone, notifying about breached security zones and triggered sensors, and through the microphone built into the unit of many alarms, you can listen to the situation inside the cabin to understand whether an intruder is inside, rummaging through the wires.
This second channel of “button commands” and voice communication has been thoroughly mastered by many car owners over the past year and a half of endless mobile internet disruptions, whereas previously not everyone even knew about this capability of their own alarm system.
What will happen if M2M SIM cards have the ability to transmit voice information and send SMS messages disabled? In the case of stable mobile internet — nothing: the user won’t even notice the changes. But when it is temporarily turned off, you will no longer be able to call your car’s alarm and, for example, start the engine for winter warming and turn on the windshield heating for defrosting, or activate the air conditioner for summer ventilation. And the car won’t be able to call you if there’s an attempted theft or break-in. And this is an absolutely realistic forecast that radically reduces the convenience of using a car, dragging us down to a “medieval-Zhiguli” level.
However, car alarm manufacturers, whose product lines now feature models with GSM control dominating over simple purely “key fob” models, urge not to panic prematurely.
A specialist from the company “Pandora,” whom we also asked to comment on the situation, also mentions the “white list”:
Legislation in the telecommunications sector has been changing very rapidly lately, and the speed of implementation of such initiatives is alarming. We are discussing this initiative with telecom operators. For our users within the framework of Pandora telematics systems, this could certainly affect part of the user functionality. We cannot provide any specifics yet; we will work out a solution together with our partners as the main SIM card suppliers. As for “white lists,” we are making every effort to ensure the operability of our GSM systems under blocking conditions.
Well, if that’s the case. And if not? Even a “white list,” as internet users know from practice, is not the most stable thing. Sites on the list can slow down or not open at all during restrictions. And not all car alarm manufacturers will end up on this “white list,” and what should those drivers do who chose other brands of security systems? No matter how you look at it, the potential problem is obvious.
In this situation, we see a typical attempt in our reality to act in not the most logical way. If spam calls from such cards are indeed a reality, and not a “just in case” assumption by officials, then certainly something needs to be done. However, a solution has existed for a long time: any mobile operator has the technical capability to see which device any SIM card registered in its network is working in. And, accordingly, can easily distinguish at the software level a smartphone from a barrier gate, and a tablet from a cash register. And nothing prevents mobile operator management from instructing their programmers to write software that would detect voice and SMS traffic coming from a SIM card installed not in a smartphone or tablet, but in a vacuum cleaner or gas meter. And automatically limit or disable that traffic. It’s unclear why this wasn’t done long ago.
Or rather, it is clear, of course. The number of M2M SIM cards in Russia is estimated at approximately 60 million units — one-fifth of the total number. This is a huge array of generating paid services — traffic, calls, and SMS. Mobile operators will maintain an innocent look to the very end and gladly serve such subscribers, even if they see that some “barrier gate” is calling hundreds of new numbers by voice every day.
