US Secret Service 'Dismantles Telecommunications Threat' (bbc.co.uk) 74
mrspoonsi writes: The US Secret Service says it has dismantled a network of more than 300 SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards in the New York area that were capable of crippling telecom systems.
The devices were "concentrated within 35 miles of the global meeting of the UN General Assembly now under way in New York City" and an investigation has been launched, it adds in a press statement.
The Secret Service says the dangers posed included "disabling cell phone towers, enabling denial of services attacks, and facilitating anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises."
The devices were "concentrated within 35 miles of the global meeting of the UN General Assembly now under way in New York City" and an investigation has been launched, it adds in a press statement.
The Secret Service says the dangers posed included "disabling cell phone towers, enabling denial of services attacks, and facilitating anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises."
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I believe they found what they stated but they aren't even sure what its for so its hard to believe the supposed threat. It was traced due to supposed text threats made to various congresspeople, again, unstated as to who or what it was. A quote I saw:
"The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated," says US Secret Service Director Sean Curran.
THAT I do not believe, unless by disruption they mean spam, since it was also stated it could send a text message to every american in a very short time. To be fair, if that is also true, sending out a "War of the Worlds" sort of hoax message could indeed cau
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I believe they found what they stated but they aren't even sure what its for so its hard to believe the supposed threat. It was traced due to supposed text threats made to various congresspeople, again, unstated as to who or what it was. A quote I saw:
"The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated," says US Secret Service Director Sean Curran.
THAT I do not believe, unless by disruption they mean spam, since it was also stated it could send a text message to every american in a very short time. To be fair, if that is also true, sending out a "War of the Worlds" sort of hoax message could indeed cause chaos, since the echo chambers of social media would confirm everyone got it and everyone would then believe the sky was falling.
I don't know how many simultaneous calls the emergency services can handle but 100K seem to me like a lot. Likewise i have no idea if they can apply any sort of sensible filtering akin to regular ddos to incoming calls. Alarms that use mobile network could be ddosed, security cameras. With a bit of imagination I'm sure there's more.
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I don't know how many simultaneous calls the emergency services can handle but 100K seem to me like a lot.
IMNSHO (friends and family work for FDNY dispatch), this further reinforces the need to keep and maintain the emergency call boxes that have been deteriorating and keep being proposed for removal. If you're unaware, there are call boxes all over NY on various corners with a hardline to the CO, and those are processes completely separately from incoming phone calls. Phone calls and and do overwhelm the system whenever there is a very large emergency. In general, that's not a huge problem because the issue is
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You don't even need to call 911 to cause issues
just having those 100,000 SIMS start connecting to the nearest towers making random calls and using data
One of these things requires an active cell service plan. However, just having those SIMs attempt to connect to the tower without trying to do anything at all could still be an issue.
The newer 5G setups use towers that cover a very small area. If a close nearby signal is overwhelmed but strong, I don't think a phone tries to connect to a weaker signal. If you wanted to knock out a very tiny area completely, just connecting phones to one of these towers might knock the whole cell out.
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If you mean home security systems, BFD. Home security alarms are the very last priority for dispatchers because (literally) 95+ percent of them are false alarms. The dispatchers that I've worked with say that kids smoking weed in the park are a higher priority than home alarms.
If you want someone to actually respond to your home alarm system either 1) cough up the extra cost to have the alarm company dispatch someone to investigate, or 2) get an alarm that is so freaking loud and obnoxious that the neighb
Re: I don't believe you (Score:2)
Details (Score:4, Interesting)
If not, why and under what authority was it dismantled?
If so, any arrests? Names?
Any known or suspected ties to existing threat actors or nation state intelligence?
Right now this is Roscoe P Coltrane posing next to a pile of jugs. But it has the elements of something that might be interesting.
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The Secret Service says the dangers posed included "disabling cell phone towers, enabling denial of services attacks, and facilitating anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises".
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All the other articles are just reporters rambling.
Or leaks.
Unfortunately, since the sourcing is usually an opaque "source with knowledge," leaks are rarely known about, even when reported on.
And sources with knowledge are often a mechanic whose brother once worked in the same building as the events. Or for example if an article on the FBI cites a "source with knowledge of law enforcement procedures" it is probably a retired deputy sheriff from Bumpinville who doesn't know shit about FBI procedures.
If they cite a person with knowledge of an engineering capa
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If that happened to you or I all we would get is a shrug.
Re:Details (Score:5, Informative)
If not, why and under what authority was it dismantled?
Police can seize equipment in order to investigate possible crime, so long as they have probable cause to suspect the gear might be evidence, then they can take it in.
Also, the location being Abandoned hotel rooms, and the unauthorized nature of the presence of many racks' worth of gear being installed there by the owners of the property is probably plenty probable cause.
Was the installation used to commit a crime?
It sounds like they are still investigating. The article does not mention any crime as being alleged, Only that the network they seized in theory would be capable of causing disruption if the operators had wanted it too.
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Abandoned hotel rooms? How is anything abandoned in NYC in 2025?
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They didn't say it was in NYC proper. They said it was 'within 35 miles of the UN', which means it was someplace, maybe Long Island, maybe Trenton NJ.
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Abandoned hotel rooms? How is anything abandoned in NYC in 2025?
Just bc rent is high in NYC does not mean they have no buildings being kept empty.
There must be, since the news indicates the seized network was scattered across 5 sites. In short; they were hidden within rooms in 5 different abandoned buildings - not just one.
Doesn't need a whole building (Score:2)
It doesn't need to be a whole abandoned building - just a specific abandoned spot within it. If anything, a building still otherwise in use would be superior, more noise to hide the power draw in.
I've watched some some specials on NYC buildings. "Useable" floorspace getting walled away or even just forgotten behind a locked door happens regularly. Inheritances, will disputes, remodeling snafus, and more.
As for the use of the servers themselves - I'm guessing they were used to make scam calls and such usi
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If anything, a building still otherwise in use would be superior, more noise to hide the power draw in.
The BBC's version of the article stated abandoned buildings.
But sure. Find a room not being used at the end of some hall. Create some means of covert entry into the space from outside like a new hatch cut behind a bush, or whatever. Quietly frame up new walls inside the building during some holiday while everyone is gone and nobody's looking.. Fresh coat of paint to match surroundings, coat rack, or
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I've been thinking about this some. It's NYC, so entry from outside would imply a ground floor, less than ideal. Maybe climbing up a fire escape would work.
Making it look like a utility closet would probably work well. Still have access from inside, not restricted to where you can get at it from outside the building. All depends on the access rating of the place, of course. For example, a painted wooden panel screwed onto the wall concealing the entrance. Sure, can't access it on a whim, but could sit
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https://gothamist.com/news/nycha-has-nearly-6k-vacant-apartments-lawmakers-want-to-know-why [gothamist.com]
https://www.attomdata.com/solutions/market-trends-data/zombie-foreclosures-report/vacancy-market-in-new-york/ [attomdata.com]
https://nypost.com/2024/04/02/real-estate/manhattan-offices-set-new-record-high-for-emptiness/ [nypost.com]
https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/new-york/abandoned [atlasobscura.com]
https://abandonednyc.com/ [abandonednyc.com]
As far as why stuff stays abandoned, check out this pdf guid
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Abandoned hotel rooms? How is anything abandoned in NYC in 2025?
Because every broom closet, subway toilet and dumpster in town is now an AirBnB.
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Abandoned hotel rooms? How is anything abandoned in NYC in 2025?
Builldings get abandoned when the owner is unable to rent them out: Either due to regulatory reasons, such as the city won't issue the necessary permits, Or due to the lack of anyone willing to currently pay the demanded per square-footage rent on the rooms or the space. Large property owners will Not reduce the rents much -- as it can impact the market rates on their other property. It benefits certain owners more to take their prope
Re:Details (Score:4, Insightful)
These devices, if they had the cited capabilities, were (at the very least) not FCC-compliant.
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What's that got to do with anything? Also at least based on what happened with Kimmel, Trump seems to enjoy using the FCC when it suits him so...
Re:Details (Score:5, Informative)
The were being used to threaten and swat government officials on both sides of the aisle over the last few years. The Secret Service found them by tracking the SIM numbers that the threats originated from.
The sheer volume of the SIM cards and distribution of the installations indicates there were plans for far more than just anonymous threats to officials, because that volume of devices could easily overload the cell network. .
CNN has a much better article [cnn.com].
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If you see something that looks like a bomb next to a bank you don't wait until the bomb has detonated to remove it. You remove it while you can and then figure out later if it actually WAS a bomb.
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The U.S. Secret Service dismantled a network of electronic devices located throughout the New York tristate area that were used to conduct multiple telecommunications-related threats directed towards senior U.S. government officials, which represented an imminent threat to the agency’s protective operations.
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Was the installation used to commit a crime? If not, why and under what authority was it dismantled?
This is Pre-Crime buddy, get with the times.
Just people looking for free phone service (Score:1)
This would not surprise me if the entire setup is designed to give people cellphone service without having to pay somebody.
All the things they talked about being 'possible', seem to me like you could do similar things by hacking, for a lot less money and effort.
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Re: Just people looking for free phone service (Score:3)
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I'm actually thinking that it would be "make VOIP calls look local and avoid mass shutdowns for spamming people with scam calls."
They then rent the service out globally to said scammers from China, India, even Pakistan and North Korea.
The real reason (Score:2)
Which implies they view encryption and anonymity as an implicit threat.
Also, TFA: https://www.secretservice.gov/... [secretservice.gov]
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Not that I would tell them to stop but ... (Score:2)
Why is this a project of the Secret Service? Isn't the FBI or one of the myriad DHS departments supposed to be in this lane?
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Why is this a project of the Secret Service? Isn't the FBI or one of the myriad DHS departments supposed to be in this lane?
The FBI and DHS are now focused on Trump's round-up of illegal aliens.
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Once you threaten a public official, as happened in this case, the Secret Service is involved. The SS is also involved in protecting foreign dignitaries when they come to this country.
Thus, with the UN session going on, they were doing what they should. They were probably (most definitely) working with the FBI and DHS, possibly even NSA, on this.
Could it also be a phone based bot-farm? (Score:1)
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Pretty much how they always determine that sort of thing, they reached into their nether regions, pulled something out, washed it off and said, "We saved the world AGAIN!!!"
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Seems to me that it could not be used for ddos, since a thousand sim cards in one place would immediately saturate the cell they were talking to, and not be able to do ddos over a whole city.
Identify devices (Score:2)
Re:Identify devices (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Identify devices (Score:4, Interesting)
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THANK YOU! Rather than the political speculation, how about we talk about the tech? I'd like to hear from someone familiar with this.
Better article (Score:4, Informative)
CNN has a much better article going into far more detail [cnn.com] than the BBC blurb.
The main thing that got these on the radar of the Secret Service was swatting and threatening government officials (both Democrat and Republican) via phone calls and texts from these devices. After several months of tracking the SIMs these calls were originating from, and trying to find their physical locations, they discovered these SIM servers.
The sheer volume of them - 100,000 unique SIM cards housed in 300 servers spread across multiple locations (rented apartment spaces and the like) is way, way more than needed to just harass government officials. That volume of devices could easily overload the cellular network and bring it down.
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The sheer volume of them - 100,000 unique SIM cards housed in 300 servers spread across multiple locations (rented apartment spaces and the like) is way, way more than needed to just harass government officials.
That's because that's not their primary purpose. They were used to send SMS spam, bots to click on links on facebook, youtube, etc. They got busted because one of their customers used them for something nefarious.
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If I were a betting man, someone set those up to do illegal telemarketing and then decided to sell access to folks who paid more than telemarketing did. I did notice a sudden drop in spam calls recently. It was 9 times a day and now it is only 1 every 2 days.
Nothing to see here (Score:3)
Move along now. These are just more advanced versions of phone farms. Back in the old days, people used to get dozens (hundreds) of second hand phones and use them to generate SMS spam for telemarketing. These are just a more hardware efficient means of doing so.
Seized actual SIM cards? That's so last decade. These things are mainly eSIM now. Law enforcement tries to kick down your door and shut you down? The virtual SIMs can be moved to new servers across the country in a few milliseconds. Long before the battering rams finish work on your front door.
Anecdote: We have a few farms in a town near me: Bothell, WA. My telco (with a good sense of humor) identifies them on caller id as originating in "Bot-hell".
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Then why not use an internet->SMS gateway that doesn't need any phones, whatsoever?
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Then why not use an internet->SMS gateway that doesn't need any phones, whatsoever?
Because SMS is just ONE of the several things they are used for. They are used to get 100s of thousands of different IP addresses to click on links at websites for all kinds of fraud and manipulation. Ad revenue theft, voting on polls, posting bot comments with fake accounts, etc.
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Then why not use an internet->SMS gateway that doesn't need any phones, whatsoever?
Because SMS is just ONE of the several things they are used for. They are used to get 100s of thousands of different IP addresses to click on
No, you don't need those for IP spoofing.
The only possible answer is: This massive arrangement's purpose is to DOS the cell phone network in New York City.
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That's like saying the only possible purpose of a stick of dynamite is to blow up a visiting dignitary's vehicle, ignoring the whole plethora of other uses from mining, farming, construction and general amusement.
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That's like saying the only possible purpose of a stick of dynamite is to blow up a visiting dignitary's vehicle, ignoring the whole plethora of other uses from mining, farming, construction and general amusement.
The analogous context would be: A number of arson attacks where buildings were burned down, were traced to three secret installations in abandoned buildings immediately surrounding the United Nations. In each apartment, they found thousands of sticks of dynamite, equivalent to a small nuclear bomb aimed at the U.N Building.
However, since the discovery was made by the Secret Service, FBI, and other federal agencies, and we don't like Donald Trump, the most likely explanation is that this was just going to be
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AP News Story On It (Score:3)
Different pictures, a bit more verbage.
https://apnews.com/article/ung... [apnews.com]
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Now it makes more sense. This was an sms spam and bot farm. Because someone used it to threaten politicians it suddenly became a problem and was dealt with. Otherwise it would still be spamming away and doing advertiser fraud.
Thanks, Secret Service! (Score:1)
I hope this leads to a decrease in the amount of SMS spam I get.
Vlad says... (Score:2)
"How'd THAT get there? Somebody must have misplaced it..."