Yeah those things have been around a while. Web scrapers and sneaker bot operators are fond of them. Sometimes they run racks full of real phones so they can put downloaded phone apps on them for nefarious purposes, instead of having to try to fool the apps with virtualization.

The thing about shutting down the cell network sounds like alarmism unless there was something unusual that they weren’t saying.

More info: https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/09/us-uncovers-100000-sim-cards-that-could-have-shut-down-nyc-cell-network/

SPAM MACHINE

Yes, these are all SIM cards.

More images from the article: all the SIMs, same machine at half capacity.

Yet another take: https://open.substack.com/pub/cybersect/p/that-secret-service-sim-farm-story

I see two potential uses: spam and scam on one side, and DDOSing the cellular network on the other.

I rather suspect the second.