[apostlion]

It's amazing people don't understand this is an elaborate mass prank. Pirate base stations have been present in the area since the disturbances began, already being used for nefarious purposes before (SMS/money transfer fraud and so on). Whoever operates these is a petty criminal, not a nefarious government – if I'd have an opportunity to send thousands of protesters anything I want, I'm sure I'd pull a prank like this as well.

[gtaylor]

A healthy sense of skepticism is helpful in cases like this (both ways). Do you have a source to share to show how this specific instance was a prank? I wouldn't put anything past the Ukranian government now, and they could have just as easily sent the message themselves.

[apostlion]

This specific instance might or might not have been. I'm just telling you that the pirate base stations have been operating in the Maidan area and have been used for nefarious purposes since November at least. Knowing some of the petty phreaking criminals that do stuff like this, I assumed that it's much more likely to be a prank.

[sdfjkl]

Do you have any sources for that claim?

[ctdonath]

The only valid angle to your theory is that the government may very well not bother sending such a text - they'd just register the participants and arrest them later.

It's not the message that's the concern, it's knowing who to send the message to.

[eli]

Base stations aren't cheap. I guess it's possible that some reasonably well-funded and very sophisticated criminals have one lying around, but it really seems like a stretch.

[apostlion]

The pirate station equipment is not so expensive, and in fact, petty phreakers use it pretty frequently to do basic SMS frauds in heavily populated areas. Maidan protesters have found themselves on a receiving end of false-station SMS frauds since November, so we know for a _fact_ that criminals do operate them.

The government could as well, of course, but I'm going by an Occam razor here.

[nitrogen]

http://openbts.org/

[streetnigga]

The fatal flaw is that you have to believe they would stop trying to make money in order to partake in a profitless operation that has military attention.

Aside from that, sure why not? Prank.

[apostlion]

What do you mean by “military attention”?

[streetnigga]

I mean tanks have been deployed, not just APCs. Military[1].

[1] http://youtu.be/NSQ989fCrbU