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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

#481

Post by neuronexmachina »

Reading between the lines, my guess is something like this happened:

* some of the US government officials protected by the Secret Service were the targets of swatting

* the USSS found the swatting calls were anonymized by a SIM Farm in/near NYC

* their investigation of the SIM Farm found "300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards across multiple sites"

* it could have hypothetically been used for swatting officials at the UN General Assembly, but that seems to be conjecture by the Secret Service, rather than anything they actually have evidence of

Does that seem consistent with what we know?

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#482

Post by themafia »

gaoshan wrote: post #262

There is so much to address in this post but I want to look at just this part: "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. It’s the “Washington Game” of “official…

> The NYT has formal editorial standards around the identity of anonymous sources that require editors to assess the justification for applying it.

They should also have editorial standards that judge the quality of the information and then decide whether to even print it or not. In this case, without a second source, it probably should /not/ have been printed.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#483

Post by wat10000 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #361
1234letshaveatw wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those are absurd interpretations, "nation-state threat actors and individuals that are known to federal law" = some foreign country? give me a break

You seem to not understand how propaganda puff pieces work. You are taking the anonymous sources and the SS agents' words at face value as if they are good faith normal language. But given the clear propagandistic nature of the piece, you should instead immediately suspect every statement as being the most weasely possible "technically true" statement that could have been made. When someone is willing to call 35 mile…

Compare with this statement from July about a counterintelligence operation: https://xcancel.com/FBIDDBongino/status/1940116391262118089

You get specific numbers (two arrests and eight search warrants), more specific locations (names of big cities aren't very specific, but they're more specific than a circle 70 miles wide), a specific country running the agents (China), and a specific goal (recruit spies in the US military).

The vague statement about the SIM farms is pretty clearly an attempt to puff up an operation that didn't accomplish much.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#484

Post by philwelch »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #414
philwelch wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s something hypocritical about a person who thinks it’s an injustice for them to be fired for expressing their opinions, when that opinion is that they are glad Charlie Kirk was murdered for expressing his opinions. Karl Popper said, “But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but…

> when that opinion is that they are glad Charlie Kirk was murdered for expressing his opinions. You are conflating the expression of an opinion with the opinion itself. Generally, the point people are getting fired for making is that the very circumstances of Charlie Kirk's murder are precisely the circumstances he advocated for. I don't find it hypocritical to draw attention to that irony. I do, however, find it hy…

> Generally, the point people are getting fired for making is that the very circumstances of Charlie Kirk's murder are precisely the circumstances he advocated for.

He never advocated murdering people over political disagreements. He disagreed with banning guns, but even the people who advocate banning guns don’t usually openly advocate banning bolt action hunting rifles.

The sentiment here is to cheer and laugh at a premeditated murder. If you want to rationalize it, whatever. It’s no use trying to have a discussion with someone who cheers and laughs at a man getting murdered for having discussions.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#485

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

tsimionescu wrote: post #355
1234letshaveatw wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the figure that has been cherry picked and everyone has run with to dismiss the announcement yes. While it probably was included to sensationalize, I fail to see how that is some kind of smoking gun that somehow falsifies all the rest of it. Everyone buying into this is showing their bias

The title of the NYT article is "Cache of Devices Capable of Crashing Cell Network is Found Near U. N.". The 35 mile radius is not some cherry picked number buried deep in the article, it is the explanation of the propagandiatic title. And the other parts of the title are also bullshit: it wasn't a "cache", which would suggest the devices were stockpiled waiting for some nefarious purpose - they were actively used de…

"The reality is that this is just a normal criminal threat that sometimes crashes cell towers. SMS is an ancient technology that works slowly even in modern cell networks. Too many SIM boxes spamming SMS in one location can indeed overwhelm a cell tower" Are you agreeing with Cybersect or not?

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#486

Post by tourge »

glenstein wrote: post #467
abirch wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When has the NYTimes made shit up?

I also would appreciate an answer to this. It's one thing to say anonymous sources like to offer quotes when they can push a preferred narrative. It's another to say they straight up make things up, and this lazy attitude of reflexively accusing NYT of fabrication like it's the apex of wisdom seems to come from a place of not understanding their processes or history. There's bias in the sense of selecting stories and…

to be fair, most of the people who could give you an answer have probably been banned/shadowbanned from this website (this website has a very blatant zionist influence, as does NYT)

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#487

Post by tsimionescu »

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #485
tsimionescu wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title of the NYT article is "Cache of Devices Capable of Crashing Cell Network is Found Near U. N.". The 35 mile radius is not some cherry picked number buried deep in the article, it is the explanation of the propagandiatic title. And the other parts of the title are also bullshit: it wasn't a "cache", which would suggest the devices were stockpiled waiting for some nefarious purpose - they were actively used de…

"The reality is that this is just a normal criminal threat that sometimes crashes cell towers. SMS is an ancient technology that works slowly even in modern cell networks. Too many SIM boxes spamming SMS in one location can indeed overwhelm a cell tower" Are you agreeing with Cybersect or not?

Yes, I agree with the blog that this is quite obviously just run-of-the-mill criminality dressed up by the authorities and the NYT as some major cyber terrorism threat. I'm not sure what that quote has to do with anything I was saying, though.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#488

Post by pt9567 »

fwiw - these sim machines are heavily used by ticket brokers who get unique phone numbers and tie them to ticketmaster accounts and then gets tons of verified fan codes for concerts for big tours. the big brokers import lots of these from aliexpress.

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#489

Post by enslavedrobot »

themafia wrote: post #482
gaoshan wrote: post #262

There is so much to address in this post but I want to look at just this part: "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. It’s the “Washington Game” of “official…

> The NYT has formal editorial standards around the identity of anonymous sources that require editors to assess the justification for applying it. They should also have editorial standards that judge the quality of the information and then decide whether to even print it or not. In this case, without a second source, it probably should /not/ have been printed.

How do you know they didn't have multiple confirmations from different anonymous sources? Generally this is the case with high quality journalism (souce: dated a journalist).

Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

#490

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #434
gaoshan wrote: post #262

There is so much to address in this post but I want to look at just this part: "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. It’s the “Washington Game” of “official…

It's possible the author is wrong, but one should consider the author's history and demonstrated technical proficiency, e.g., the programs he has written. Take a look at his code. He has been around much longer than "blogs" and "Substack" IMHO, he is also proficient at explaining complex topics involving computers. If others have differing opinions, feel free to share Anyone know where can we see parent commenter's c…

"Sometimes departments want to float ideas that a spokesperson would not want to put his or her name behind."

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-anonymous-sources...

IIUC, the blog post is not claiming there is no such thing as speaking with the press on the condition of anonymity, it is claiming that requesting anonymity for disclosing the existence (cf. the details) of an investigation into routine criminal activity is reasonable cause for skepticism. The blog post then explains why the author believes the "SIM farm" is a routine criminal enterprise, not something more

One does not have to be an "expert in political propaganda", nor rely on one, to question out of common sense why anonymity is needed to disclose the discovery of a "SIM farm"

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