The Route of a Text Message (2019)

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53 points·dewey··6 comments

I think the idea for the format is brilliant. However the piece as written fails to deliver a systemic perspective of text messages, and indeed is borderline incorrect in a few places.

Examples:

- It is incorrect to characterize the SMS as whole as an "SS7" protocol. SMS is a transaction of TP-data protocol units (3GPP 23.040) bridged between several protocol domains, which may include SS7 in the core network areas.

- The SIM is not a party to the SMS transactions as such. It is used as a source of the SMSC Address (SMA) datum, to persist messages (on older devices), and of course for authenticating the phone (UE) as a whole.

I think even those two points add up to a piece that misses its conceptual goal of adding clarity to what is already an extremely complex system.

There used to be a Google page that showed you the route of an email and went as far as detailing different Google data centers and even showing the physical security guards, and I think how they would shred hard drives no longer in use, and all sorts of detail.

Discussed at the time:

The Route of a Text Message - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18921434 - Jan 2019 (63 comments)

Should also mention that it's almost certainly recorded for all time for the government.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzdn8n/the-route-of-a-text-m...

https://archive.is/FWnlT

(yes it's an archive of an archive. But linked archive page is slow)

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