Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

cybersect.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 656 posts

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#231

Post by 55555 »

alansammarone wrote: post #41

I felt slightly...hm...confused when reading this. When I see something in the news, to the degree that I trust the source, I see it only as a statement of fact, and unless I trust the commentator, I ignore the comment. I only expect descriptive accuracy from the news. This sometimes requires resources that individuals don't generally have. When I read a personal blog article articulating a personal opinion, presenti…

It's not complicated. This is a normal sort of criminal enterprise. These rooms filled with SIM boxes are all over the world. The owners of them rent out the service to others -- letting them send 1,000 spam messages for a fee. One of the buyers of the service was indeed using it to threaten a politician. But this represents a tiny fraction (less than 1% of 1% of the SIMs normal use -- which is probably mostly phishing messages and other spam). It is a criminal enterprise and was used as some sort of political threat, but it's probably not set up by Russia or intended for that purpose.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#232

Post by throwaway894345 »

whatamidoingyo wrote: post #208
alansammarone wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think I agree with most of what you're saying, I think it can be misunderstood and it can be very damaging when taken to an extreme, so I'll just leave a quote from the absolutely fantastic 20 lessons from the 20th century by Timothy Snyder: > Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing…

This reminded me of a YouTube clip I watched years ago. It was basically a retired KGB agent explaining how the media purposely puts out conflicting stories. This breaks the brain of the citizens, and they're unable to know what is true. We indeed see this here in the US. I can't tell you what is true or false (in media) objectively. I can choose what I want to believe is true, though.

I would expect to see conflicting narratives in any country with free press. Why would we expect different outlets with different biases to run consistent narratives?

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#233

Post by anukin »

hnlmorg wrote: post #193
fidotron wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important point is to distinguish between truth and the co-ordinated release of information in the NYT, BBC etc. The latter is very much intended to send a message, but it is not to be taken as literal truth.

I cannot about the NYT, but the BBC is one of the most impartial sources available. So much so that the left and the right accuse the BBC of biasing the other in equal measures! If you want to talk about bias in the UK press then you’re better off looking towards The Sun, The Mail and anything owned by Murdoch (that guy has done so much damage to the world it’s unreal).

BBC is impartial till it reports on anything which has to do with its old colonies. Then it becomes high brow British aristocrat weapon of propaganda.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#234

Post by cm2012 »

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 just wrong. There is a huge difference between having a free press vs not. And while publications like the NY times are not perfect, they pretty much never outright lie, unlike state propaganda.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#235

Post by potato3732842 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #223
potato3732842 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that supposed to be a problem or a counter point or something? It doesn't matter what ideological whims someone is espousing, people who hold discretionary authority backed by government violence ought to keep it in their pants.

> people who hold discretionary authority backed by government violence ought to keep it in their pants That applies to violating the out-of-classroom First Amendment rights of publicly employed teachers by their publicly employed management at the urging of the federal government, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independe... "The Court famously opined, 'It can hardly be argued that either stu…

If an entry level commissioned officer can be expected to keep it in their pants than an entry level teacher can too.

Yeah it's a first amendment issue depending on where through the gray area the line is drawn but the .gov runs right through the gray areas of violating rights all the time, I don't really see the big deal if it does it to it's own cogs.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#236

Post by lxgr »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #127
lxgr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I knew there were residential proxies for sale (for bypassing geofenced VOD content etc.), but I didn't know that was a thing for mobile data yet. Is it time to stop treating somebody's IP address as an authentication factor yet?

That time was always

You know that, I know that, but the only thing that matters is decision makers at big corporations also knowing it.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#237

Post by ceejayoz »

potato3732842 wrote: post #235
ceejayoz wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who hold discretionary authority backed by government violence ought to keep it in their pants That applies to violating the out-of-classroom First Amendment rights of publicly employed teachers by their publicly employed management at the urging of the federal government, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independe... "The Court famously opined, 'It can hardly be argued that either stu…

If an entry level commissioned officer can be expected to keep it in their pants than an entry level teacher can too. Yeah it's a first amendment issue depending on where through the gray area the line is drawn but the .gov runs right through the gray areas of violating rights all the time, I don't really see the big deal if it does it to it's own cogs.

There's a very, very long standing specific exception for members of the military (subject to the UCMJ) that is not present for teachers.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#238

Post by stefantalpalaru »

cm2012 wrote: post #234
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 just wrong. There is a huge difference between having a free press vs not. And while publications like the NY times are not perfect, they pretty much never outright lie, unlike state propaganda.

[dead]

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#239

Post by ptaffs »

whatsupdog wrote: post #216
hnlmorg wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot about the NYT, but the BBC is one of the most impartial sources available. So much so that the left and the right accuse the BBC of biasing the other in equal measures! If you want to talk about bias in the UK press then you’re better off looking towards The Sun, The Mail and anything owned by Murdoch (that guy has done so much damage to the world it’s unreal).

> BBC is one of the most impartial sources available. I really hope that is sarcasm. BBC is highly skewed to the left. No debate on that. Can you show me any story on BBC that is biased to the right?

I hope you're being sarcastic. If you do want a debate, there's plenty of research on bias at the BBC, and there are examples of bias left and right, pun intended.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#240

Post by aedocw »

There is a lawyer (Alec Karakatsanis) who has been writing about police driven propaganda for years. His recent book "Copaganda" is fantastic. He carefully breaks down how major papers (NYT is chief among them) create stories that fit a narrative by using very one-sided sources. Like an article on crime written in bad faith where the only people quotes are police, police consultants, and ex-police.

It's a really good book, I wish more people were aware of it and read it.

Post reply on HN