Comment by wildzzz
5 months ago
Here's my guess how this has and will play out:
1. Sim box operators were running multiple locations for sending spam texts, cheap VoIP for scams, and potentially other phone-related crimes. 2. Operators were associated with other criminal gangs. Maybe directly, maybe indirectly. Someone may have been running a drug side-business from a location. 3. Someone uses this sim box operation to send threatening scam messages that happen to reach these government officials. For whatever reason, they take it seriously. 4. Now that the feds and NYPD have raided this sim box operation, they have to justify why they were doing this. It's probably not directly illegal to run a sim box farm so they are going to play up the threat a bit to get more coverage of the investigation.
I can assure you, a lot more dangerous criminal activity happened within a 35 mile radius of the UN than some zombie cell phones sending scam texts. While I applaud anyone shutting down scams, the window dressing is embarrassing. Someone has watched too much Blacklist or any of those fantastical police procedurals.
Yeah. Sorta weird USSS is investigating this. Maybe it was originally related to some Treasury-related fraud case. We're close to budget time so they have to demonstrate congress should give them the money they asked for, so it's pretty easy to upgrade some random scam/spam texter to a terrorism case. It's sort of endearing, actually, when they get some adults back in the USSS reporting chain we'll probably see less "imaginative" press releases.
They might have randomly spammed phone numbers that have special purpose and triggered some sort of honeypot. Or someone powerful got scammed. Either way, happy they take it down and provide some photos. Would love to learn more details.
Yeah. There's another post on HN saying the investigation started when someone texted a threat to a congress-critter via this system. So I guess that tracks.
Speculation: Some gov't types wanted to shut down the scammers (or whatever they are) - but were not getting much traction with the higher-ups, to actually do something. Vs. after their case was rebranded as "this may be part of a plot to assassinate the President" - suddenly every approval and resource they could want was being push into their laps.
It makes no sense: anyone with a phone would loooove to hear about an SMS/voicecall spammer takedown.
[dead]
Literally anything the government does from now on is going to be related to discovering terrorist plots. They have to find some way to fit the agenda into that giant post-9/11 loophole.
My read is slightly different:
> 1. Sim box operators were running multiple locations for sending spam texts, cheap VoIP for scams, and potentially other phone-related crimes.
Agree, I would guess this was just a bottom-rate VOIP/text spam service, potentially affiliated/run by organized crime, that doesn't ask many questions, accepts payment exclusively in BTC, etc.
> 2. Operators were associated with other criminal gangs. Maybe directly, maybe indirectly. Someone may have been running a drug side-business from a location.
I think this is just another version of a grow-op. Run by a gang, mainly for profit. Perhaps the shelves were even from an old grow-op that became unprofitable when New York legalized marijuana.
> 3. Someone uses this sim box operation to send threatening scam messages that happen to reach these government officials. For whatever reason, they take it seriously.
I disagree here, from the description of the messages I think these were supposed to be actionable threats. At least two of the incidents mentioned were swatting attempts, which are still taken somewhat seriously and are treated as serious threats when directed at elected officials. US Police are highly armed and often very aggressive, swatting incidents have resulted in deaths before.
This, to me, reeks of the sort of foreign interference with domestic politics that has been mentioned in the past. Trying to escalate domestic tensions is straight out of that playbook.
What I think happened is - some foreign actor used organized crime connections, or some other way in to get time on this spam farm, and they used the numbers there to SWAT and threaten officials around the US in a way that's harder to trace than a regular VOIP provider.
> 4. Now that the feds and NYPD have raided this sim box operation, they have to justify why they were doing this. It's probably not directly illegal to run a sim box farm so they are going to play up the threat a bit to get more coverage of the investigation.
I think they see this as a wonderful coincidence. With the setup as described in the article, I could see this farm overloading the few cells that serve the particular area around whichever building(s?) these sites were found in, but city cellular networks are very dense. There's hundreds of mobile cells in New York City, and frankly I think if you wanted to seriously take down the cell network a few high power jammers distributed across the city would be more effective.
And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't directly illegal, although I bet the operation as a whole has been dodging taxes and know-your-customer rules. But, here we have a golden opportunity to play this up as a major terrorist threat instead of just organized crime, and they're going to take that option every time.