Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd probably need thousands of residential IP addresses to pass under the radar with so many SIM cards.
There are bot nets that specifically offer such services
This IS the botnet that offers the service.
That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
611–620 of 656 posts
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#612Reminds me of the time when I consulted with a very large newspaper chain in the US which owned a lot of papers - both left leaning and right leaning. we used to get feeds from all of the usual sources. But the news articles themselves were "massaged" in various ways by some of the same editorial teams to suit the left-leaning or the right-leaning newspapers. The idea that completely different spin can be put to the…
There's a Fox News video of this on Youtube and the comments are literally completely insane. A third of them saying it was Democrats, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, etc. Another third saying it was immigrants and it's Democrats' fault for letting them in. Another third saying it was the Chinese. A few saying it's the woke Marxist agenda. Not a shred of sanity in sight.
There wasn't a single "hey maybe it's just some random people trying to earn money", much less a "hang on, this isn't actually a crime".
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
Judith Miller reported total fabrications and helped lead the entire country into a disastrous invasion of Iraq.
For some reason I feel like reporting fabricated evidence is magnitudes different than fabricating evidence (making shit up.) From what I've briefly read is that Judith Miller reported on evidence that Ahmad Chalabi provided her: https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/ I'm not saying that the NYTimes doesn't have an agenda (it has one) nor do I believe that they are infallible. I'm just wondering when the…
Correct. I got lost in the threads, and lost context here.
I have never heard of the NYT deliberately inventing falsehoods. They do have a history of credulously repeating falsehoods as truth to serve an editorial goal. I’ll grant that distinction.
Note that does nothing to defend the story in question.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you please stop repeatedly editing multiple comments to respond to replies? The "reply" function exists for a reason, and your backedits disrupt the directional read of a thread, confusing the discussion. If the HN system tells you that you're posting too fast, and you need to slow down, that also exists for a reason: you are, and you do. You can still reply (so please stop saying you cannot), you just need to…
I'm just replying to make my position clear since you replied with very misleading content. It's not my fault HN wants to be an echo chamber and makes it difficult to respond to people when they are wrong.
Looks to me like you can use the "reply" function just fine. Good job! Keep it up.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes? Journalists in the past talked to criminals.
of course, a criminal would have no reason to lie.
You've lumped everyone you don't like into one bucket - "criminal" - without considering their individual nature. You're probably a criminal (there are lots of stupid laws that people break all the time) but do you have a reason to lie?
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But a large part of this is completely unsubstantiated speculation that people are nodding along with, which, in my opinion, is showing a breakdown in the ability to comprehend logical or evidence-based arguments. This is how I feel about the NYT article. So much doesn't add up, and the more I read and investigate, the flakier it becomes. Odd to have officials speaking anonymously about an investigation while the S…
>Odd to have officials speaking anonymously about an investigation while the Secret Service is putting out press releases about it. This is a bizarre new take that seems to be making the rounds. Not that they are right or wrong but they've been a staple of national security communication and reporting for as long as once followed the news, which for me is dating back to the George W. Bush admin. Glenn Greenwald in hi…
I don't understand what's bizarre about it. When you're putting out a press release about something, you want the public to know about it for some reason. And the U.S. Secret Service met with a huge number of outlets and did lots of separate interviews about this particular takedown. A lot of self-congratulation going on in those articles.
And they try to tie the UN to this SIM card farm over and over in those official statements. Then there's this one anonymous source inside the New York Times article.
> There is no specific information that the network, now dismantled, posed a threat to the conference itself, Secret Service officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
So in the middle of a press conference and media blitz, including official posts on the U.S. Secret Service website, we're announcing this giant takedown, and then we have to go to one anonymous source to find out that there is no threat to the actual UN itself.
It could be that I'm the crazy one here, but that sure seems weird to me. Have you seen that kind of thing before?
The story has a number of technical problems with it, but there's a lot of other weird stuff besides this. I listed it out in a separate post if you want to go look.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
You're right that he didn't cheer on political assassination.
He merely intimated that trans people's lives are less valuable than others and that black people and women are incapable of intellectual equality with whites and males. A debate about whether that is an indirect encouragement to violence is a valid one.
And to be very, very clear: ambivalence at his departure from earth is not equal to ambivalence of the manner.
I was happy Rush Limbaugh died of skin cancer. I was not happy Charlie Kirk died of murder.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#618Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some reason I feel like reporting fabricated evidence is magnitudes different than fabricating evidence (making shit up.) From what I've briefly read is that Judith Miller reported on evidence that Ahmad Chalabi provided her: https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/ I'm not saying that the NYTimes doesn't have an agenda (it has one) nor do I believe that they are infallible. I'm just wondering when the…
Correct. I got lost in the threads, and lost context here. I have never heard of the NYT deliberately inventing falsehoods. They do have a history of credulously repeating falsehoods as truth to serve an editorial goal. I’ll grant that distinction. Note that does nothing to defend the story in question.
I believe the story in question is overly hyped. I don't think anyone was planning on destroying the phone system. It seems like the secret service found a text spam ring and is trying to make it more nefarious.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
You completely miss my complaint. Perhaps I was unclear. The Pentagon Papers is the exact opposite! Ellsberg actually shared the documents; there were literal "papers" involved in the Pentagon Papers. That's the "real evidence" I demand. Off-the-record conversational, "I'd never lie to you" BS, from anonymous sources in the "intelligence community" is a lead to investigate, not a story. They weren't called the Pentag…
Fair point!
And remember how quickly Powell’s “Yellow Cake” fairytale fell apart once they resorted to sharing the docs. The docs were fake! Actual evidence can be interrogated and disproven. While anonymous, evidence-free reporting is unfalsifiable.
Re: That Secret Service SIM farm story is bogus
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But a large part of this is completely unsubstantiated speculation that people are nodding along with, which, in my opinion, is showing a breakdown in the ability to comprehend logical or evidence-based arguments. This is how I feel about the NYT article. So much doesn't add up, and the more I read and investigate, the flakier it becomes. Odd to have officials speaking anonymously about an investigation while the S…
>Odd to have officials speaking anonymously about an investigation while the Secret Service is putting out press releases about it. This is a bizarre new take that seems to be making the rounds. Not that they are right or wrong but they've been a staple of national security communication and reporting for as long as once followed the news, which for me is dating back to the George W. Bush admin. Glenn Greenwald in hi…
Just to follow up, Schneier thinks something is weird as well.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/09/us-disrupts-m...