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That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

cybersect.substack.com

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Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#41

Post by alansammarone »

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, presenting evidence and trying to make a case for their conclusion, I usually apply a different standard. From them, I expect sound reasoning, which often requires a form of independence/neutrality that news organizations don't have.

And let's just say this article is not exactly structured as a sequence of QEDs, so to speak. It doesn't seem like the conclusions follow from the premisses. That's not to say it's wrong, just that if it is right, it would be in part by accident.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#42

Post by mcintyre1994 »

If it is PR then it seems a bit odd. I suspect most people would care way more about them busting an SMS spam farm than protecting the communications of people at the UN. Maybe it has a specific intended audience, but protecting a UN meeting they're hosting is kinda assumed so I'm not sure who would give them much credit here.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#43

Post by nixosbestos »

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…

[flagged]

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#44

Post by pkaeding »

crystaln wrote: post #25
ajross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need to target "vulnerable UN delegates" from blocks away from the UN, though? Literally anywhere in the US would do. It's literally SMS , the location of the transmitter says nothing about the location of the recipient. No, they put this in lower manhattan because of the cell density there. It makes the fraud harder to detect in all the noise of normal usage.

I believe if you connect directly to the tower a phone is connected to you can bypass central spam filters.

This is interesting. Can you explain? What leads you to believe that? Do you have any references, or is this your area of expertise?

Cell networks are not my area of expertise, but cybersecurity is, so I am genuinely interested to learn more.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#45

Post by fidotron »

ceejayoz wrote: post #37
fidotron wrote: post #27

It's actually a combination of warning and bait, and it's not the first story like that nor will it be the last. Picking at the details of it misses the point. The real question here is who and what it was intended to warn off, and you'll never get a real answer to that.

The answer to that may be “no one”. The more likely scenario is they exaggerated a mundane crime into an exciting one.

They have all year to do that. The giveaway there is something odd about this is the timing.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#46

Post by op00to »

hk1337 wrote: post #17

Both scenarios could be right? It could be just a scam bot farm but a scam bot farm with the intention of targeting vulnerable UN delegates with scams not necessarily to disrupt any cell tower?

You do not need to be within 35km of someone to send them a spammy text message.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#47

Post by op00to »

crystaln wrote: post #25
ajross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need to target "vulnerable UN delegates" from blocks away from the UN, though? Literally anywhere in the US would do. It's literally SMS , the location of the transmitter says nothing about the location of the recipient. No, they put this in lower manhattan because of the cell density there. It makes the fraud harder to detect in all the noise of normal usage.

I believe if you connect directly to the tower a phone is connected to you can bypass central spam filters.

No, that’s not a thing.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#48

Post by JdeBP »

hk1337 wrote: post #17

Both scenarios could be right? It could be just a scam bot farm but a scam bot farm with the intention of targeting vulnerable UN delegates with scams not necessarily to disrupt any cell tower?

The whole U.N. thing is nonsense for several reasons, many of which got discussed just yesterday at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45345514 .

If one is setting up to target the U.N. one does not need this sort of setup to do so. Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building are just as (in)valid a guess at some purported central target, which one does not have to enclose. The 35 mile radius is ludicrous, and very probably a "telephone game" garbling by PR people of the rough range of SMS to a 2G cell tower given certain conditions. And targetting just a few delegates for scams, with kit that costs thousands of quid per gateway box, is stupidity. The scams thrive on large volumes because they don't net 100% of the marks.

This is a way of having VOIP on one side and what will appear to callees like (doing some simple arithmetic based upon the various photographs) a few hundred (in the site where they're on the floor) to several thousand (in the site where they're on garage shelving along the wall) seemingly legitimate cell phones in multiple locations on the other side. The far more sensible hypotheses are an (overseas) scam support operation, or a dodgy telco operator of some kind.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#49

Post by op00to »

pkaeding wrote: post #44
crystaln wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe if you connect directly to the tower a phone is connected to you can bypass central spam filters.

This is interesting. Can you explain? What leads you to believe that? Do you have any references, or is this your area of expertise? Cell networks are not my area of expertise, but cybersecurity is, so I am genuinely interested to learn more.

I work directly with telcos. All text messages, calls, etc go through telco systems that are in data centers far from the towers. There is no benefit for one cell phone being geographically close to another to send spam messages.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#50

Post by alansammarone »

nixosbestos wrote: post #43
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…

[flagged]

...more like an ELI5? Sure.

When Bobby tries to convince his friend Jimmy that Charlie is lying, you shouldn't trust him if he says that "I know that Charlie is lying because apples are green".

> One of the reasons we know this story is bogus is because of the New York Times story which cites anonymous officials, “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation”. That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles.

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