5 ms·

Can’t read it since I don’t have a login there but i’m guessing they buy sims from all over the country and sms on matching prefixes since people will assume a

Can’t read it since I don’t have a login there but i’m guessing they buy sims from all over the country and sms on matching prefixes since people will assume a local number is less likely to be spam. This explains using such a bank. You want to cover as many prefixes as possible and you can’t match area codes with traditional sms services.

motoboi 1y ago
You don't need a login to read a single tweet.
- AnotherGoodName 1y ago
  Thanks! I was assuming it was a chain with more details than i saw there.
- edoceo 1y ago
  Twitter is inconsistent for me. From the mobile (FF, not authenticated) it's blocked but from desktop (FF, not authenticated) is visible.
  - therein 1y ago
    With Google referrer, it loads even more often, even on mobile I believe. Same for LinkedIn. It will not authwall you if you're coming from Google.
jghn 1y ago
You can also see his takes on bsky [1] or h blog he posted there [2] [1] https://bsky.app/profile/erratarob.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/erratarob.bsky.social [2] https://cybersect.substack.com/p/that-secret-service-sim-farm-story https://cybersect.substack.com/p/that-secret-service-sim-far...
- AnotherGoodName 1y ago
  The second link there is much more meaningful. I actually did see the tweet in full it turns out. It's just that there's not much content so i figured "oh it's one of those twitter thread chains i can't read".
  - jghn 1y ago
    FWIW I have found him to be a good follow over the years. Unfortunately he mostly only posts on Twitter & not Bsky so I only see his stuff when he crosses over to bsky.
- therein 1y ago
  Good post, also they use Quectel because it allows changing IMEI with a single AT command.
perching_aix 1y ago
These days the way to go is social media proxies. A popular one is xcancel. Just replace the x in the domain with xcancel and you'll land on a proxy site (somebody's Nitter instance to be specific): https://xcancel.com/ErrataRob/status/1970586083374112784 https://xcancel.com/ErrataRob/status/1970586083374112784 Still not gonna help if you have cookies disabled because of the rate limiting, but hey.
dmd 1y ago
I love how spammers do that- it works out great for me. I no longer live in my phones area code. I block the entire area code, which catches a huge amount of spam calls.
- IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
  this is a required hack, for any founder SO much value in being able to root out garbage sales calls
  - esseph 1y ago
    You don't even need to be a founder, just a person in a position that people may believe is responsible for buying products and signing checks at a company.
    - brookst 1y ago
      With marginal cost of spam being $0, I am pretty sure homeless people and Bill Gates get exactly the same amount of spam. I’d be surprised if there was any target selection.
      - esseph 1y ago
        LinkedIn scraping is rampant.
        dmd 1y ago
        It really is. I don't have my phone number on there, obviously, but when I went from being a random code monkey to having a 'Director' title at a very large institution, my sales spam went from 0 to probably 50 pieces a day.
  - trod1234 1y ago
    Also need to do something about the inherent insecurity of most phones. GrapheneOS being a pretty decent solution nowadays to control those errant radio signals won't help against profiling for your next oil change/maintenance with those TPMS sensors beaconing everywhere you go.
justahuman74 1y ago
> since people will assume a local number is less likely to be spam. Local number has become an spam signifier for me
- VoidWhisperer 1y ago
  The funny thing for me is that I still have the phone number I had when I was growing up, which is for a state halfway across the US. Most of my spam calls are in the area code of my phone number, making them pretty easy to recognize since I dont really know anyone from that area code anymore
ljf 1y ago
Things I learnt today: that mobile phone numbers in the USA are 'local' Here in the UK, all landline residential numbers start with an area code that starts 02 for London and 01 for the rest of the coountry (eg 020 for London and 0114 for Sheffield). Mobile numbers here all start 07 here, and the first 5 digits are carrier specific - but so many people port their numbers that it becomes meaningless pretty quickly. But years ago you could spot a number an know what provider the caller was on. --- Are residential and mobile numbers similar in the States?
- petesergeant 1y ago
  Also traditionally American cellphone users pay to receive calls, which will blow the mind of a Britisher.
  - rkomorn 1y ago
    And text messages. It was very shocking to me how many minutes cell phone plans had in the US when I moved there (it was ... a while ago) compared to France. But also: in the US, calling someone on their cell cost the same as calling someone on a land line. In France, calling someone on their cell from a land line was something like 4x more per minute. Really, the structure of phone costs (both land and cell) in the US was quite different.
    - hdgvhicv 1y ago
      In the 90s local calls and thus Internet was free in America, where in the U.K. it cost upto £5 an hour (in today’s money) to be online.
      - rkomorn 1y ago
        Yep. France was similar to the UK. I spent years online between 10pm and 6am to use our dialup at the off-hours cost (which wasn't free, but significantly cheaper). Not the good old days of spending money to browse the internet at 28.8kbps.
  - 1y ago
LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
If for some reason your browsing environment isn't/can't be configured to circumvent login shenanigans, at least for now, xitter can be read by inserting cancel right behind the X-part of the URL. Like so: https://xcancel.com/ErrataRob/status/1970586083374112784 https://xcancel.com/ErrataRob/status/1970586083374112784 With the additional advantage of giving you a view more like threadreader.app, or something. Without having to install anything.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
"Can't read it since I don't have a login there..." https://nitter.poast.org/ErrataRob/ https://nitter.poast.org/ErrataRob/

motoboi 1y ago

You don't need a login to read a single tweet.

AnotherGoodName 1y ago
Thanks! I was assuming it was a chain with more details than i saw there.
edoceo 1y ago
Twitter is inconsistent for me. From the mobile (FF, not authenticated) it's blocked but from desktop (FF, not authenticated) is visible.
- therein 1y ago
  With Google referrer, it loads even more often, even on mobile I believe. Same for LinkedIn. It will not authwall you if you're coming from Google.

jghn 1y ago

You can also see his takes on bsky [1] or h blog he posted there [2] [1] https://bsky.app/profile/erratarob.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/erratarob.bsky.social [2] https://cybersect.substack.com/p/that-secret-service-sim-farm-story https://cybersect.substack.com/p/that-secret-service-sim-far...

AnotherGoodName 1y ago
The second link there is much more meaningful. I actually did see the tweet in full it turns out. It's just that there's not much content so i figured "oh it's one of those twitter thread chains i can't read".
- jghn 1y ago
  FWIW I have found him to be a good follow over the years. Unfortunately he mostly only posts on Twitter & not Bsky so I only see his stuff when he crosses over to bsky.
therein 1y ago
Good post, also they use Quectel because it allows changing IMEI with a single AT command.

perching_aix 1y ago

These days the way to go is social media proxies. A popular one is xcancel. Just replace the x in the domain with xcancel and you'll land on a proxy site (somebody's Nitter instance to be specific): https://xcancel.com/ErrataRob/status/1970586083374112784 https://xcancel.com/ErrataRob/status/1970586083374112784 Still not gonna help if you have cookies disabled because of the rate limiting, but hey.

dmd 1y ago

I love how spammers do that- it works out great for me. I no longer live in my phones area code. I block the entire area code, which catches a huge amount of spam calls.

IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
this is a required hack, for any founder SO much value in being able to root out garbage sales calls
- esseph 1y ago
  You don't even need to be a founder, just a person in a position that people may believe is responsible for buying products and signing checks at a company.
  - brookst 1y ago
    With marginal cost of spam being $0, I am pretty sure homeless people and Bill Gates get exactly the same amount of spam. I’d be surprised if there was any target selection.
    - esseph 1y ago
      LinkedIn scraping is rampant.
      - dmd 1y ago
        It really is. I don't have my phone number on there, obviously, but when I went from being a random code monkey to having a 'Director' title at a very large institution, my sales spam went from 0 to probably 50 pieces a day.
- trod1234 1y ago
  Also need to do something about the inherent insecurity of most phones. GrapheneOS being a pretty decent solution nowadays to control those errant radio signals won't help against profiling for your next oil change/maintenance with those TPMS sensors beaconing everywhere you go.

justahuman74 1y ago

> since people will assume a local number is less likely to be spam. Local number has become an spam signifier for me

VoidWhisperer 1y ago
The funny thing for me is that I still have the phone number I had when I was growing up, which is for a state halfway across the US. Most of my spam calls are in the area code of my phone number, making them pretty easy to recognize since I dont really know anyone from that area code anymore

ljf 1y ago

Things I learnt today: that mobile phone numbers in the USA are 'local' Here in the UK, all landline residential numbers start with an area code that starts 02 for London and 01 for the rest of the coountry (eg 020 for London and 0114 for Sheffield). Mobile numbers here all start 07 here, and the first 5 digits are carrier specific - but so many people port their numbers that it becomes meaningless pretty quickly. But years ago you could spot a number an know what provider the caller was on. --- Are residential and mobile numbers similar in the States?

petesergeant 1y ago
Also traditionally American cellphone users pay to receive calls, which will blow the mind of a Britisher.
- rkomorn 1y ago
  And text messages. It was very shocking to me how many minutes cell phone plans had in the US when I moved there (it was ... a while ago) compared to France. But also: in the US, calling someone on their cell cost the same as calling someone on a land line. In France, calling someone on their cell from a land line was something like 4x more per minute. Really, the structure of phone costs (both land and cell) in the US was quite different.
  - hdgvhicv 1y ago
    In the 90s local calls and thus Internet was free in America, where in the U.K. it cost upto £5 an hour (in today’s money) to be online.
    - rkomorn 1y ago
      Yep. France was similar to the UK. I spent years online between 10pm and 6am to use our dialup at the off-hours cost (which wasn't free, but significantly cheaper). Not the good old days of spending money to browse the internet at 28.8kbps.
- 1y ago

LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago

If for some reason your browsing environment isn't/can't be configured to circumvent login shenanigans, at least for now, xitter can be read by inserting cancel right behind the X-part of the URL. Like so: https://xcancel.com/ErrataRob/status/1970586083374112784 https://xcancel.com/ErrataRob/status/1970586083374112784 With the additional advantage of giving you a view more like threadreader.app, or something. Without having to install anything.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago

"Can't read it since I don't have a login there..." https://nitter.poast.org/ErrataRob/ https://nitter.poast.org/ErrataRob/