It can be a challenge to explain how criminals make money from scams when talking to insiders within the communications sector. Most have a deep understanding of a part of the industry but probably only have limited exposure to how the rest of it works. Criminals approach the industry differently. They identify disparate weaknesses in seemingly unrelated parts of the ecosystem. These weaknesses are then connected in ways that insiders failed to anticipate. So if it is difficult to explain to a professional audience how SMS messaging is used by organized crime syndicates to steal from phone users then it can be daunting to provide an explanation suitable for the general public. That was the task when I was invited to appear on this week’s episode of kill switch, a podcast and YouTube show hosted by Dexter Thomas.
Thankfully, Dexter is an accomplished interviewer. Dexter and his production team synthesized our conversation and extracted a narrative suitable for the 35-minute running time of their show. Like any good documentary maker, Dexter helped me find the story of how a simple ‘Hi Dad’ message sent from a simbox can be linked to modern-day slavery in Southeast Asia, or why a criminal would operate an SMS blaster underground. The result is that I also gained a fresh perspective on the tragedy of the current scamdemic. Listen to the audio version through Spotify by clicking on the player below, visit the dedicated webpage for the episode here, or click here to find the podcast at your favorite podcast provider.
