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That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

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Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#241

Post by lxgr »

acdha wrote: post #162
lxgr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Was there any specific bad design?

As far as I understand it, it's more of the lack of a design (for authentication) that got us into all that trouble, similar to BGP, Email, and many other protocols that were originally designed with trusted counterparties in mind.

It just so happened that the illusion of mutual trust broke down earlier in the Internet than it did in the international phone network. (Some even still believe in it to this day!)

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#243

Post by giantg2 »

testfrequency wrote: post #75
giantg2 wrote: post #71

The story isn't bogus, it's just blown out of proportion. That's unfortunately how most news articles work, especially ones related to crime. The ironic part is that this article is just as much "bogus" with the assumptions it's making.

The story is bogus, the evidence isn’t*

By that measure, all stories are bogus. Even things like how a story is framed (NLP scoring for positive vs negative sentiment) would be a made up part of the story since the evidence and facts reported typically do not provide explicit evidence for whether an event should be viewed and positive or negative. This sentiment is created and added by the reporter.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#244

Post by BillTthree »

Does anyone know what crime is being investigated? It looks like the malicious activity was sending spam text messages and forwarding international phone calls. Is there a federal regulation against sending spam messages?

Is it somehow illegal to have many sim cards in the same place as having many radios?

The telco's are also capable of bringing down the network, and they are legally allowed to turn their services off. Its not government infrastructure, its a business. If the backbone ISP providers decided to turn off their services for an area for a time, thats fine, there are contractual provisions to deal with that. its not a crime.

There has been no mention of arrest, was this 'crime' perpetrated by the infamous hackerman in ablack hoodie?

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#245

Post by retsibsi »

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?

> Can you show me any story on BBC that is biased to the right?

They're saying that the BBC is relatively impartial, not that it is biased to the right.

If you're saying that the BBC has left-biased stories, and therefore the claim of impartiality requires evidence of counterbalancing right-biased stories, I think you need to start by providing evidence of the former. (Even if you think it's blindingly obvious that the left-biased content exists, your examples will clarify what would be required to balance it out.)

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#246

Post by pixl97 »

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?

Is the BBC highly skewed to the left, or is reality?

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#247

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #228
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, everybody except me is a ideologue with whom at least 2 academics and a reddit poster disagree. I, on the other hand, am always right, of course! Additionally, as a jew, I was raised on an ironclad ideological assertion that the holocaust was the worst thing people have ever done to each other, and no genocides have or will ever rival it. I'm keenly aware that there is a vested interest in maintaining that vi…

Stalin is very, very, very different from Hitler. (Again I cannot reply to the comment below, but my point is not that I am not ideological; of course I am. But Snyder is also extremely ideological and uses his history to push a very particular kindideologues of politics, which is ironic given the context of the thread. ) (Adding another edit since I can't reply! But again, I don't understand why my interlocutor cann…

Your entire reply to my post, from beginning to end, is 1 sentence, quoted below for posterity (before subsequent edits anyways, I can't keep track of all your changes made after this reply):

> Stalin is very, very, very different from Hitler

We see that you're literally ideologically repeating, almost verbatim, an ideological opinion, while complaining that someone else is an ideologue. Thus, your comment is extremely ironic given the context of this thread and your prior complaints. Indeed, you are the only one who appears to be the ideologue, and so all we have to go on as far as Snyder, are the naked, unsupported assertions of an ideologue.

Sure, stalin is very, very, very different from hitler, just like an isosceles triangle is very, very, very different from a scalene triangle. Any 2 different things in the universe are different by definition, and "very" is nebulous, therefore your logic also means that anything can be described as "very, very, very different" from everything else. A truly meaningless statement.

In short, the evidence presented indicates that Snyder is not an ideologue, and there aren't actually any issues with what Snyder is saying, only ideologues who either disagree with what he says or don't like that he's saying it.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#248

Post by philwelch »

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…

The good news is, the only people who watch cable news in the US anymore are either boomers or in an airport.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#249

Post by freejazz »

robmccoll wrote: post #138
jonnybgood wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the government?

I agree with you. I get tired of people complaining about "cancel culture" and the reactions of private individuals and groups to the opinions and actions of other private individuals and groups. People have the right to say what they want and to do what they want up to the limits of causing harm to others. They can shout their inflammatory opinions from the roof tops. They can boycott and petition to try to convince…

>"you'll get disappeared by secret police for what you told your coworker in confidence"

Not if you aren't brown. But if you are... well you can easily get caught up in an "immigration" "sting"

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#250

Post by walleeee »

pjc50 wrote: post #119
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…

I keep joking that instead of the normal repressive state-controlled media, the West has media-controlled states. Electing a TV host is just a culmination of that. Or a media owner, like Berlusconi. Coincidentally he was brought down by his underage sex trafficking. Westerners voluntarily tune into their propaganda, leaving the 24/7 news channels blaring. But there is a critical difference in that elections do happen…

Wolin is insightful in this regard
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