That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus

You might have the causality reversed. Another model might be that the electorate naturally divides into tribes, for a similar reason that competitive sports exist: people want to have a team to root for. And then media needs to adapt their message to make it seems like they're on the same "team" as the viewers/readers, because that's the only way they get clicks. So you may have the same parent media company running different spins on different brands to get left or right voters, but their only true incentive is to make the most money by getting the most clicks.

Arguably, the reason that the pre-Internet media oligopoly was more centrist was simply because it didn't face competition. If you were NBC and ran a moderate story that didn't quite please hard-core conservatives or leftists, they could...go to ABC and get the same story? But if you do that now, the MAGA types will go read Infowars instead, the leftists will go read Wonkette, and you'll be left with no viewers and no money.

Cell phone farm devices are a thing. Here's one you can buy on Alibaba.[1] This is a little more pro looking than the ones seen in New York. It's 20 phones in a 2U rackmount case. Costs $1880, including the phones. Cheap shipping, too.

Lots of variations available. Vertical stack, different brands of Android phones, rackmount, server racks for thousands of phones, software for clicking on ads, training videos. "No code".

Product info:

"only provide box for development or testing use.pls do not use it for illegal"

Description

Package

Each Box purchase includes the hardware (20 Phone motherboard ,USB cable, box power cord, phone motherboard +advanced control management software (15days free,after that $38 a year) download software from our website (in the video)

Whats is Box Phone Farm ? It is a piece of equipment that removes the phone screen/battery/camera/sim slot, integrates them into a chassis, and works with click farm software to achieve group control functions. 1 box contains 20 mobile phone motherboards. Install the click farm software on your computer and you can do batch operations.

Function:

Install the Click Farm software on your PC, and you can operate the device in batches or operate a mobile phone individually. Only one person can control 20 mobile phones at the same time, perform the same task, or perform different tasks separately, and easily build a network matrix of thousands of mobile phones. As long as it is an online project that mobile phone users participate in, they can participate in the control. The voltage support 110v- 220V, and when running the game all the time, one box only consumes about 100 watts.

Ethernet:

[OTG/LAN] can use USB mode, and can also use the network cable of the router to connect the box.Two connection modes can be switched.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/S22-Server-Rack-S8-Bo...

> Having been a reader of the New York Times for almost 50 years, I can say the New York Times hasn't changed that much.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/07/new-york-times...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-new-york-times-wmd-cov...

> To pick a nit, you are correct: This was no investigative journalism.

From the NYT article: "James A. Lewis, a cybersecurity researcher at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, said that only a handful of countries could pull off such an operation, including Russia, China and Israel."

Using the agreeable expert isn't "reporting" its BAD journalism. It's WMD's all over again.

Thank you for sharing. I recall blackice. I'm not seeing anything here would lead me to believe he's an expert in this particular domain though, which is more about nation state intelligence operations than it is anything technical.

The "Washington Game" is described the Society of Professional Journalists. https://www.spj.org/spj-ethics-committee-position-papers-ano...

Citing anonymous sources is not established ETHICAL practice, it's corruption of the system. The roll of the journalist is to get sources on the record, not let them evade accountability by hiding behind anonymity. Anonymity is something that should be RARELY granted, not routinely granted as some sort of "long established practice".

What is the justification for anonymity here? The anonymous source is oath bound not to reveal secrets, so what is so important here that justifies them violating their oath to comment on an ongoing investigation? That's what we are talking about, if they are not allowed to comment on an ongoing investigation, then it's a gross violation of their duty to do so. The journalist needs to question their motives for doing so.

We all know the answer here, that they actually aren't violating their duty. They aren't revealing some big secret like Watergate. They are instead doing an "official leak", avoiding accountability by hiding behind anonymity. Moreover, what the anonymous source reveals isn't any real facts here, but just more spin.

We can easily identify the fact that it's propaganda here by such comments about the SIM farms being within 35 miles of the UN. It's 35 miles to all of Manhattan. It's an absurd statement on its face.