[notatoad]

I think, the more extraordinary the claim is, the more proof is required. And I’m with you, I’d normally be incredibly skeptical of a substack post from an author I’ve never heard of before, who writes as egotistically as this. But there is just no extraordinary claim in this article. Only a very very ordinary claim that should be believable to any person who has ever owned a cell phone:

SIM farms are normal, common things that exist all over the place to allow messages from far-away senders to be sent as if they came from a local number.

That’s all the author is asking us to believe.

[lxgr]

> SIM farms are normal, common things that exist all over the place to allow messages from far-away senders to be sent as if they came from a local number.

Meanwhile, many US companies won't let me, the actual legitimate user they're trying to authenticate, use Google Voice, because it's "so dangerous and spoofable, unlike real SIM cards".

Hopefully this helps a little bit in driving that point home.

[singpolyma3]

Unfortunately that's part of the reason sim farms exist.

[klausa]

> And I’m with you, I’d normally be incredibly skeptical of a substack post from an author I’ve never heard of before, who writes as egotistically as this.

It's always funny to see comments like this; because there's always at least 50/50 chance that the article is from someone that is actually prolific, just that the person has a blind-spot for whatever reason.

That is, also, the case here.

[notatoad]

Yeah, sometimes the random substack is from somebody really respected, and sometimes it’s just from somebody who writes like they think they should be really respected. And sometimes the respectable people can be wrong too.

But I think it’s wrong to call it a “blind spot”. This is not my industry, I don’t know the names, and I’m not qualified to judge whether the author deserves my implicit trust. So I treat this substack with the same skepticism I would any other substack.

[disiplus]

yeah, like you go on alibaba and can get them right away. i was even thinking about them like 10 years ago when we had to send transactional sms to our customers to get one instead of paying for somebodies sms gateway.

https://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/faf448fd0d906a15/prod...

[kcplate]

The article for me was weird in the sense that it makes the claim that the purpose was of the farms were not necessarily nefarious in a terror sense, but merely criminal. Even suggesting that they could be legitimate (that was a stretch, sim farms in residential apartments? Please.).

It also makes the point that its purpose wasn’t to disrupt cell service, although these things can and will disrupt cell services.

So from my perspective, the article is strange in the sense that the author seems pretty intent on splitting enough hairs to prove the secret service wrong. For me, I don’t care if they are wrong about its purpose— If this helps decrease spam messages, great. If it means that cell services are now more reliable in that area, great. If it’s something that could be hijacked and used for terroristic purposes and has now been neutralized, great.

[DangitBobby]

If the secret service were involved in policing that had nothing to do with national security, that might be worth reporting on. We should be wary of the expansion of their policing duties.

[frankharv]

Rack mounts of cellular gear in an apartment. Dummy rentals. I don't understand the optimism.

How did this not throw flags with the carriers.

[kcplate]

If a SS advance team for Trump’s UN address were following up on a lead that was based off detected unusual cell activity in the area…seems to me like that would have been within their responsibility profile.

[hakfoo]

We need to be especially careful about labeling things a terror threat during the current inflamed security and political situation.

"Freddy No-Lips is burning down Suzy's Bakery because she didn't pay protection money" is not the Reichstag fire and should not be weaponized like it was.