Probe under way to determine the origins of 347,000 seized SIM cards

 

 

Technology crime police were sent to Aranyaprathet district of Sa Kaeo province to trace the origins of the 347,000 SIM cards found in the possession of three Chinese arrested in this border province on June 11 together with about 500 mobile phones.

 

The three Chinese told police that they provided services to clients who wanted to promote their merchandises or services in the social media by using the mobile phones and SIM cards to score “like” to increase the viewership.

 

They were initially charged with working in Thailand without work permits.

 

National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission secretary-general Takorn Tanthasit, meanwhile, said officials from his office would be sent to Aranyaprathet to investigate whether the seized SIM cards were properly registered with any of the mobile phone service providers in the country or not.

 

Full Story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/probe-way-determine-origins-347000-seized-sim-cards/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2017-6-15

Quote

The three Chinese told police that they provided services to clients who wanted to promote their merchandises or services in the social media by using the mobile phones and SIM cards to score “like” to increase the viewership.

While I understand the plan I do not really see how this would work in practice.

Do they also have 347,000 phones to put the chipcards in or do they turn off one phone, take the SIM out, put another SIM in, and turn on the phone again?

It will take them months to get through the 347,000 sim cards, and how much do you earn per 1000 likes? It wont be much.

 

I could imagine people offering this service with a computer that runs a simple program:

1. request new IP-address from VPN provider

2. open FB

3. log in with one of their 300K facebook accounts (all put down in an Excel file; the computer automatically takes the next row every run)

4. find the page, click like, log out

5. start over with step 1

 

You could even do this with 20 computers in a row.

Once set up it works by itself and you can come back 2 days later and your job is done.

24 minutes ago, Bob12345 said:

While I understand the plan I do not really see how this would work in practice.

Do they also have 347,000 phones to put the chipcards in or do they turn off one phone, take the SIM out, put another SIM in, and turn on the phone again?

It will take them months to get through the 347,000 sim cards, and how much do you earn per 1000 likes? It wont be much.

 

I could imagine people offering this service with a computer that runs a simple program:

1. request new IP-address from VPN provider

2. open FB

3. log in with one of their 300K facebook accounts (all put down in an Excel file; the computer automatically takes the next row every run)

4. find the page, click like, log out

5. start over with step 1

 

You could even do this with 20 computers in a row.

Once set up it works by itself and you can come back 2 days later and your job is done.

Exactly. Their seems to be something missing or lost in translation. We often simulate a large number of users such as adding 200 users per second and at peak we got 70-80,000 users at the same time online. A typical Linux box can support up to 256 IP numbers plus submasks so on one small dedicated server I can simulate connections from 4000 different IP numbers. I suspect a multi million dollar scam in this and nothing about some Likes.

one thing is, some apps require a phone number to register and send a code via SMS to that phone and they need a unique number for every new account.

 

We Chat is a example.

I beg you pardon!? Three lil' Chinese, with three-hunderd-forthy-seven-THOUSAND- SIM-cards?! Hello!

(And the lame reaction from NBTC, going to check whether the SIM cards were 'properly registered', or not! What can you do with the bits of plastic with the tiny golden strip, when they're not registered, use them as mosaic to decorate your shower wall, or what?)

Makes a farce of the perceived need to register a single SIM card to an individual name and address.

 

Chances are that the SIM cards in use by the service providers in Thailand are manufactured and imported from China.