Thousands of devices in the service of scammers: an underground industry of illegal software trading is flourishing in China.
A shadowy industry has flourished in China, manufacturing and selling smartphone motherboards, as well as software to manage thousands of such devices simultaneously. As the Chinese Central Television (CCTV) found out during the investigation, the end users of these products are operators of so-called "smartphone farms" — ecosystems of many devices used to commit various fraudulent actions and crimes on the Internet.
The report showed special units equipped with 20 motherboards. These boards were connected to a common monitor that displayed the screens of each device. In addition, the film crew demonstrated entire data centers, the racks of which were packed with similar blocks. Each rack combined up to 1,000 smartphones running simultaneously.
Smartphones are registered with a unique account, and their IP addresses are constantly changing to hide from detection systems and surveillance authorities. With the help of such systems, criminals place fake comments, likes with SEO links on the Internet, create fictitious orders on trading platforms, carry out spam attacks and other illegal operations.
For a system of 20 devices, operators charge between 3,000 and 6,000 yuan ($417 to $ 834). The manager of one of these centers admitted to CCTV that he does not know anything about the identities of his clients and usually does not ask unnecessary questions.
CCTV notes that the farms activities clearly violate article 53 of China's telecommunications regulatory rules. According to local laws, any equipment that connects to public networks must be licensed. Major trading platforms such as Taobao and Pinduoduo already block search queries related to such illegal activity.
However, operators find workarounds, offering customers "cloud" smartphones and supposedly legitimate software for remote management and file transfer between devices. Some people disguise their systems as tools for developing and testing games.
As noted in Jiemian News, despite the obvious illegal nature of the business, less than 3% of such enterprises face real sanctions, although more than 23% came to the attention of law enforcement officers.
A shadowy industry has flourished in China, manufacturing and selling smartphone motherboards, as well as software to manage thousands of such devices simultaneously. As the Chinese Central Television (CCTV) found out during the investigation, the end users of these products are operators of so-called "smartphone farms" — ecosystems of many devices used to commit various fraudulent actions and crimes on the Internet.
The report showed special units equipped with 20 motherboards. These boards were connected to a common monitor that displayed the screens of each device. In addition, the film crew demonstrated entire data centers, the racks of which were packed with similar blocks. Each rack combined up to 1,000 smartphones running simultaneously.
Smartphones are registered with a unique account, and their IP addresses are constantly changing to hide from detection systems and surveillance authorities. With the help of such systems, criminals place fake comments, likes with SEO links on the Internet, create fictitious orders on trading platforms, carry out spam attacks and other illegal operations.
For a system of 20 devices, operators charge between 3,000 and 6,000 yuan ($417 to $ 834). The manager of one of these centers admitted to CCTV that he does not know anything about the identities of his clients and usually does not ask unnecessary questions.
CCTV notes that the farms activities clearly violate article 53 of China's telecommunications regulatory rules. According to local laws, any equipment that connects to public networks must be licensed. Major trading platforms such as Taobao and Pinduoduo already block search queries related to such illegal activity.
However, operators find workarounds, offering customers "cloud" smartphones and supposedly legitimate software for remote management and file transfer between devices. Some people disguise their systems as tools for developing and testing games.
As noted in Jiemian News, despite the obvious illegal nature of the business, less than 3% of such enterprises face real sanctions, although more than 23% came to the attention of law enforcement officers.
