Police warn of SMS scams as 'blaster' is used to send texts | Hacker News Reader

Police warn of SMS scams as 'blaster' is used to send texts

theguardian.com

5 pointsPaulHoule6 comments

Here's another article on the topic that explains it pretty well with a hilarious AI generated image at the top:

https://frankonfraud.com/sms-blasters-the-fraud-machine-anyo...

Notably the 'blaster' is a fake cell phone station like a Stingray that bypasses any filtering your carrier does by... bypassing your carrier completely.

Where exactly is the ancient 2G still needed, these days?

If any Brit politician could spell "competent", it seems like a good first move would be to disallow the sale of any phone which had had 2G enabled.

Why do we still have SMS. It seems to be solely used for weak 2FA, account takeovers and scams.

Right? It's simultaneously becoming a unique identifier for aggregating a profile about you across the web as well as the way your account is snatched away from you. What cools my cockles is how not all phone numbers are allowed (VOIP, prepaid).

When sites ask for a phone number what they are really saying is: give us this identifier that you can only acquire with a government-issued ID and a paid up ransom to a telecom. And if you later stop paying the ransom we can hand over your account to anyone who picks up the payment.

Despite the weaknesses in it, SMS has some pretty huge advantages over the alternatives.

Generally I ask, "Why do social platforms like Bluesky still support DMs?" On any platform that has DMs you get messages from randos who say "Hey!" who, if you reply, seem to start qualifying you for a romance scam ("How old are you?")

I've been collecting "signatures of hostility" from Bluesky profiles and "No DMs" is one of the most common, common enough that my agent [1] and I don't see it as a "no follow" sign.

[1] Still unnamed since it is in pieces on the floor, it probably gets named after a Tsunako character. KUrUMi?

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