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[How To] Identify Fake GEVEY Pro SIMs

by Mahesh Kukreja on May 15, 2011

ApplenBerry recently launched successor to GEVEY SIM i.e. GEVEY Pro. I made a post to help identify differences between real and fake GEVEY sims. Now, this post will tell you the differences between real and fake GEVEY Pro sims.

Tony Wanis (@TonyWanis) passed me this tip. Thanks to him. Also, I got some information from ModMyi forums.

So here are the images:

Here’s the first pic:

GEVEY Pro Original

Okay, about the packaging first.

Original GEVEY Pro Packaging

The original GEVEY Pro packaging doesn’t have any hologram sticker on it, as the cloned one has. “Pro” is printed at the lower side on the original packet whereas the fake one has “Pro” on the upper side.

And here’s the inside GEVEY plastic packet:

Original GEVEY Pro Packet

The real one is bigger and is opaque. It is not transparent. The fake one is of lower quality and is transparent as you can see in the image above.

And now the differences between the actual GEVEY Pro ICs:

Original GEvEY Pro IC

  • The legit one has GEVEY engraved on it, whereas the fake one has GEVEY printed on it
  • The black IC chip is way too big than the original IC chip
  • There is some off wiring, bad connections and off coloring on the cloned GEVEY chips
  • The wiring is proper on the original one
  • “Pro” is engraved on the chip of original GEVEY as seen in the lower left image above
  • Also there are proper holes made on the original one
  • And on the fake one “Pro” is printed and the holes are not proper
  • Also, the color of fake GEVEY Pro Sim trays is not of high quality. It is quite dull

That’s all folks! And one more thing Tony Wanis who tipped me this is a legal distributor of GEVEY Pro sims. He’s selling GEVEY Pro for $35 and prices can reduce in the near future. He’ll also be listing the item on eBay. So if ApplenBerry.com doesn’t ship to your country, you can try buying from this guy.. Here’s a pic showing that this guy is legal distributor:

GEVEY Pro Legal Distributor

And according to ModMyi post,

most of the fakes are made by i-smart sim (aka ismartphone which had a horrible rep during the iphone 3g turbo sim era) they also sell unbranded ones while branding others as gevey.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask below.

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Rebel Micro Sim for iPhone 4 – Complete Review

by Mahesh Kukreja on May 3, 2011

Rebel Sim card is one of the methods available for unlocking iPhone 4. Many users have not yet got the Rebel sim. The sims are still in transit. @BIGAPPtipidcp is one of the few lucky persons who has got Rebel sims. He ordered about 10-12 Rebel Sims. He has posted a video review about Rebel sims and he sounds quite disappointed. He ordered Rebel Sim from RebelSimCard.com which is located in UK. But he got his consignment from HongKong.

The video is after the break. I’ll start with the review first. Firstly, the packaging of Rebel Sim is quite good. Here are the package contents:

  • 2 Micro Sim Adapter Templates/Stickers
  • Sim Tray Remover
  • Micro Sim to Regular Sim Adapter
  • 1 Mini SIM
  • Rebel Sim Chip
  • Sim Tray

Now the biggest shock comes. The Sim tray included in the package is actually a GEVEY sim tray. The engraved words have been sanded off.

http://www.maheshkukreja.com/rebel-micro-sim-for-iphone-4-in-action-doesnt-require-to-dial-112

Rebel Sim Tray

The Rebel Sim chip is same as that of GEVEY, with a little change in circuit design.

Rebel Sim IC

Rebel sim isn’t the same as it was demonstrated previously on Rebel’s site. The IC chip is larger as that of GEVEY. So you’ve to trim your sim a little bit so it fits properly in the sim tray.

Rebel IC

Also, Rebel Sim is much thicker than GEVEY sim. So you can face difficulty in pushing the sim tray inside the iPhone. GEVEY Sim slides easily inside the iPhone. The IC of Rebel Sim is also thicker.

Rebel sim - thicker

Now, when you insert Rebel sim in iPhone 4, you get 1 signal bar, then the status bar changes to Searching… It should be picking up signal immediately, as demonstrated by Rebel Sim Video.. but in vain. You see No Service in a few seconds. Then again 1 signal bar appears, then you need to dial 112 and follow the same GEVEY procedure. Also, iPhone does not regain signal after restarting.

Rebel Sim Tray

Now, the only difference between GEVEY and Rebel Sim is that you don’t get a Welcome Menu in Rebel Sim. Everything else is same. It is not untethered as demonstrated previously. Rebel Sim is just a waste of money. GEVEY Pro is for $35, whereas Rebel sim is for about $70.

Also, @BIGAPPtipidcp talked to Rebel customer care and they were quite un-helpful. Instead they abused him while he asked for refund.

Rebel Customer Care

Rebel Customer Care

Youtube video & Scribd Document by @BIGAPPtipidcp:

Also, here is link to my Flickr folder where you can view the pics from the above document.

Link to Scribd

Conclusion:

If you’re waiting to unlock your iPhone 4, I suggest you buy GEVEY Pro from ApplenBerry.com. Rebel Sim is just a waste of time and money. If you bought Rebel Sim, feel free to share your experiences below..

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[Updated] [How To] Identify Fake GEVEY Sims & Avoid Getting Scammed

by Mahesh Kukreja on April 19, 2011

Ever since I unlocked my iPhone 4 using GEVEY Sim, I was facing battery drainage problems and also the area around the sim slot was getting over-heated. I thought my battery drain was due to iOS problems or over-usage.

Today I was going through Yahoo! Answers and found this question. I found the answer posted xbowlover interesting. Here’s what he says about the difference in original and fake GEVEY Sims:

The main difference is they use different chips. The original one uses F981 chips. You can see the digital numbers on the gevey SIM (The black part). And the copy one uses F300 chips. The manufacturers usually wipe the numbers out, and you will not see any digital numbers on the black part.

Only original Gevey SIM comes with F981 as they have bought out this chip in the market, so others can only use F300. And the original Gevey SIM drains less battery and has better signal reception.

You may also want to read: Difference Between Real & Fake GEVEY Pro SIMs

This immediately struck me and I got a pin and removed the GEVEY Sim tray from my iPhone and found that there isn’t any number on the black part of the IC chip. Also, I thought to do some Google research on F981 chips used in GEVEY. And I found a Chinese site telling about the F981 & F300 chips.

Here’s what it reads after using Google Translate (I’ve improved the Grammar):

There are many counterfeit GEVEY sims in the market, all are very similar in appearance, but they have a lot of problems. They likely cause unnecessary damage to the iPhone. Your eyes cannot easily distinguish between the original and counterfeits.

After the Genuine GEVEY Sim is exposed to bright light, you can see the black chip has F981 written on it.

Following is a picture of genuine GEVEY:

Genuine GEVEY - F981 IC chip

Counterfeit GEVEY sim uses F300 chips. Fake sims use the process of  hand-welding which is quite rough. F300-chip voltage ranges from 3.0 ~ 3.6V, so the SIM card operates at 3.0V. The original GEVEY sims operates at 1.8V. Also, the thickness of F300-chip is twice the thickness of the F981-chip. This can lead to GEVEY tray being stuck in the iPhone. It cannot easily get in or get out.

The surface of the F300 chips doesn’t have anything written on it. Here is the picture of fake GEVEY chip or F300 chip:

Fake GEVEY sim - F300 chip

(Unfortunately, the GEVEY chip I’m using also doesn’t have anything written on it)

Use of counterfeit sims is related to risks and consequences. The appearance and size is the almost same, but the difference is in the power consumption of the sim. This greatly reduces the standby time of the iPhone.

Here are the problems caused by counterfeits:

  1. Increased power consumption, mobile phone standby times are noticeably shorter.
  2. SIM card can cause problems ranging from permanent damage to the possibility of burning.
  3. The Baseband chip can be seriously damaged.

ApplenBerry.com had posted a tutorial on this page, but it seems to be gone now. Please tell us if you are facing the same problems, like battery drainage and over-heating of the sim in the comments below. Also tell us if F981 is printed on your GEVEY chip.

And new buyers, don’t get scammed. Buy only after checking if F981 is printed on the GEVEY chip.

Update 1: Here are two more pictures to support this topic:

Original GEVEY sim for iPhone 4 Original GEVEY sim for iPhone 4

Click the images for a larger view. You can see F981 printed on the IC.

I got it from Dill Huang’s Singularity blog. He was the first person to post how the GEVEY sim works, so he must’ve got the original GEVEY sim then, because at that time GEVEY was not launched to the public and chances of getting clones were zero.

And certain persons have reported that the GEVEY Pro sim (ordered directly from Applenberry.com) doesn’t have anything written on the IC chip. So, it may have happened that the company producing GEVEY must have stopped printing F981 and other things on the IC chip. But, this will be the case only for the recent GEVEY sims. The older GEVEY sims which were brought in the initial period of the launch must have F981 printed on them.

Update 2: I got a Youtube video and Scribd.com slides which show the difference between original GEVEY sim and fake GEVEY sim

Link to Youtube video – This video shows a complete comparison of original and fake GEVEY sims (including the puter cover, the plastic covers, the manual, IC chip, etc)..

Link to Scribd slides – This shows the pictures of original & fake GEVEY sims

Some features of the Original GEVEY sim that I learnt from the Youtube video:

  • The original GEVEY sim shows an “English Menu” whereas the fake ones show “Chinese menu”
  • The sim tray of original GEVEY is of superior material and has “GEVEY” engraved on it, while the fake one’s sim tray if of lower quality and it has “GEVEY” printed on it, not engraved
  • The circuit design of both is same, just the original one has F981 printed on it

The video also says that the GEVEY sim used in ApplenBerry’s first demo video had some extra design. The design changed in the later productions of GEVEY.

I must tell people here that both GEVEY Sims work. You can call, send/receive texts, etc. But it’s the matter of quality, the GEVEY Sim from ApplenBerry gives you 100% quality, whereas the GEVEY sims from Chinese suppliers are clones. They are not 100% same as the original ones, but let you use your iPhone 4 to make calls, SMS, etc..

Stay updated for more news.

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Fake Windows XP activation trojan goes 2.0

by Mahesh Kukreja on November 20, 2008

Known as Kardphisher and “in the wild” since April, 2007, last week the malware author of this trojan horse mimicking the Windows XP activation interface while collecting the credit card details the end user has submitted, has made significant changes to visual interface and usability of the trojan, consequently improving its authenticity. Guess what happens when a gullible end user falls victim into this social engineering attack?

Their credit card details end up automatically into an IRC channel specifically set for that purposes. Some of changes in the new version include more legitimately looking color scheme, improved restrictions making it much harder for the end user to close the application without submitting their credit card details, built-in validation of credit cards and email, next to displaying the current product key to make the application look more legitimate. Once the user enters all the validated data, the new version of the tool automatically removes itself as if the activation was successful. Moreover, a bogus “verified by Visa” message that is also requesting social security number and a date of birth makes the trojan the perfect tool in the hands of identity thieves relying on nothing else but plain simple social engineering impersonating Microsoft.

The latest Kardphisher may indeed by filling in all the gaps from the previous version, but the trojan can never scale as efficiently as crimeware “in the middle” does for the time being. Among the main growth factors for the increasing number of such malware remains the fact that throughout the entire year proprietary crimeware kits costing several thousand dollars on average started leaking out, allowing many new entrants to start using what once used to be a highly exclusive tool in the arsenal of the experienced cybercriminal.

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