That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus • Hacker News Board

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#161

Post by drummojg » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:05 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #5

First thing I thought when reading it. This story makes no sense. Nothing they mentioned in the article is actually illegal. Having lots of phones (even in a rack-mount form factor) isn't illegal. Even if the phone network could conceivably be DoSed with that many phones all calling at once, it's not illegal unless you actually do that or intend to do it. And their other justification was that this equipment could be…

I stopped reading once the author claimed it was a lie because the SecSrv knew technical terms, then claimed it was a lie because they didn't know the technical terms. It's too early in the morning to be purposely confused.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#162

Post by acdha » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:05 PM UTC

lxgr wrote: post #100

topspin wrote: post #94

So if some rando were to just find one of these huge SIM farms, who could they call, and would anything be done? With the number of radios seen in the photos from the original story, there must have been a great deal of SMS from that structure. That is very easy to spot with low cost equipment: a TinySA[1] and a directional antenna should be sufficient. Hams do "fox hunting" with similarly basic equipment. Given the…

> Given the resources of cell operators, the most charitable explanation for how something like this can exist for more than a brief interval is total indifference. And why should they care? A paying customer is a paying customer, never mind the health and integrity of the public phone network (which coincidentally also serves as the primary identification and authentication method for ~everybody in the US).

These are by and large the same companies who created the caller ID forgery problem to save money when deploying VoIP around the turn of the century. Everyone technical knew that was a bad design but the executives were thinking exactly how you described it, collecting payments for all of that extra traffic until legislation became a risk.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#163

Post by bluGill » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:06 PM UTC

Hikikomori wrote: post #157

pookha wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What your Chinese friend isn't saying is that all those Substack writers in the US would be disappeared into Chinese gulag's. The US has a strong freedom of speech clause baked into its core governance system...When I was fifteen I'd be subscribed to five different punk zines and would be creating mix-tapes from 10 different sources (and much of it wildly offensive and political).

Does it matter if you can speak if the system is designed do that you can't be heard?

You can be and are heard. It may only be a tiny minority, but odds are good someone hears you. That is better than disappearing if you speak.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#164

Post by notatoad » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:07 PM UTC

klausa wrote: post #93

notatoad wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, the more extraordinary the claim is, the more proof is required. And I’m with you, I’d normally be incredibly skeptical of a substack post from an author I’ve never heard of before, who writes as egotistically as this. But there is just no extraordinary claim in this article. Only a very very ordinary claim that should be believable to any person who has ever owned a cell phone: SIM farms are normal, common…

> And I’m with you, I’d normally be incredibly skeptical of a substack post from an author I’ve never heard of before, who writes as egotistically as this. It's always funny to see comments like this; because there's always at least 50/50 chance that the article is from someone that is actually prolific, just that the person has a blind-spot for whatever reason. That is, also, the case here.

Yeah, sometimes the random substack is from somebody really respected, and sometimes it’s just from somebody who writes like they think they should be really respected. And sometimes the respectable people can be wrong too.

But I think it’s wrong to call it a “blind spot”. This is not my industry, I don’t know the names, and I’m not qualified to judge whether the author deserves my implicit trust. So I treat this substack with the same skepticism I would any other substack.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#165

Post by stevage » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:08 PM UTC

bilekas wrote: post #15

> That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles. It’s the “Washington Game” of “official leaks”, disseminating propaganda without being held accountable. Yeah makes a lot of sense when framed like this, the timing of the secret service of all people busting this 'huge' operation was far too suspicious.

>That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles

Are they just making up these "normal journalistic principles"? I see different newspapers publishing quotes anonymously under similar conditions all the time.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#166

Post by K0balt » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:08 PM UTC

roody15 wrote: post #98

Once a Chinese grad student explained to me a difference he noted between Chinese and American citizens. He said in China no really reads or watches 24/7 major news outlets in China. They are fully aware that all of it is propaganda and just go about their life. He said Americans seem to get really emotional over content in the press and seem to really struggle with the idea of propaganda / journalism in the news. I…

This is perfectly reasonable when people know that they have no control of the government, it’s like the weather then…you just deal with it.

The problem is that in the USA , we’ve been told that we have a democratic republic, and that we have significant self-determination in affairs of the state, and that justice, freedom, and the right to live relatively un-disturbed are inalienable rights.

It’s bullshit in practice, of course, but we’ve been told this, and we’ve been told it’s our duty to protect those rights, up to and specifically including armed insurrection.

Many people actually believed what they were told.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#167

Post by bluGill » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:08 PM UTC

r3trohack3r wrote: post #132

seydor wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main difference is, in liberal countries people depend on the media to manufacture consensuses, while China does not need anyone but the leader to create them. No society can survive without a certain degree of consensus

I believe it’s a mistake for liberal countries to rely on centralized content distribution platforms for consensus - that’s how you end up with consensus being for sale.

I would need to see an alternative before I can agree. There are other things tried on the margins, but so far none really seem better to me.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#168

Post by stevage » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:08 PM UTC

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #28

bilekas wrote: post #15

> That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles. It’s the “Washington Game” of “official leaks”, disseminating propaganda without being held accountable. Yeah makes a lot of sense when framed like this, the timing of the secret service of all people busting this 'huge' operation was far too suspicious.

Also seems to be the first time NYT has used that form of words according to Google `site:nytimes.com “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation”` has no earlier results Other outlets have used “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation” before though.

The wording I often see is along the lines of "a source who was not authorised to discuss the case publicly".

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#169

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

Hikikomori wrote: post #157

pookha wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What your Chinese friend isn't saying is that all those Substack writers in the US would be disappeared into Chinese gulag's. The US has a strong freedom of speech clause baked into its core governance system...When I was fifteen I'd be subscribed to five different punk zines and would be creating mix-tapes from 10 different sources (and much of it wildly offensive and political).

Does it matter if you can speak if the system is designed do that you can't be heard?

A more serious problem: do people want to listen? Do they want difficult truths or comforting lies?

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#170

Post by sbarre » Wed, Sep 24, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

This whole thing reminds me of the 90s when the government would bust some 16 year old hacker kid in his suburban bedroom who was abusing a PBX, and then parade him around like they'd arrested Lex Luthor (the cartoon villain, not the actual hacker) and prevented a global crisis.