Take the case of the standard iphone. It can be used in ways that back then only the www could have offered. The average iphone can truly be used to create the illusion that you have a network of hundreds of people while in reality you'd be just one single individual. But that scale of network takes a lot of work. A lot. But it can be done, making you seem a lot bigger of a base or group of people than there really is.
Samuel Holt Gird of the now infamous Winnowars of the online gaming community (now defunct) was the sole engineer of this use of technology. He had set up literally hundreds of accounts which asked for a mobile number and used only one phone to do. He had set up a series of numbers that he rerouted through his carrier with cards he'd obtained from various vendors. Then he'd set up the numbers on the phone itself as if it were being activated for the first time. Then enter a desired number and boom like that, he'd have a brand new number until the card's time ran out. He'd buy around a dozen 10 minute cards (10 min is the lowest amount of time that a card can go) and he'd get to work setting up numerous gaming accounts and rack up those points which in turn racked up bitcoins.
He was caught doing so when he'd foolishly told another gamer the secret. And well, loose lips and all that.
Another case involved a bitchy neighbor bitty who'd watch her neighbors come and go about their daily business waiting for any sign of wrongdoing so she could rat them out to the equally old and bitter landlord. And since the age of cell phones, and iphones today, it's very rare that a landowner would know the cell number of each family member of any given caller.
Although this bitchy neighbor didn't go to the lengths of our esteemed Mr Holt Gird, she was able to deceive the landlord enough that he went after an innocent man because she didn't like him feeding the birds, in this case, the seagulls that flew around his apartment corner as it looked out over the San Diego coastline. He had built a rather large shelter atop many rungs as perches for them during storms and heavy sea tides as the area was prone to. The seagulls would always cone to the structure he'd built and of course, they can get loud. But living near the sea it just goes with the territory. This man had also a great knowledge of the gulls because he had built it on a flight path where they could gather and ride out rough weather.
The crazy old bat who didn't like the sound of gulls crying used her phone to make complaints to their landlord and then she'd use the phones of other family members to lodge complaints against the birdman as well. Making it appear that there were more calls than there actually were. Although it's quite possible that the other phone owners didn't know this was going on, the landlord never made any call backs to confirm if these complaints were legitimate. It just simply never occurred to him that this could be done. Of course the landlord paid our birdman a visit and really put him through some shit. It was discovered that the complaints were bogus when the old bat didn't like that the birdman was still living there and set about causing him more trouble by asking other people in the complex to loan her their phones for a few minutes because hers was "out of juice" and that it was an emergency. One other resident loaned her the phone but then immediately checked the history of the call made and noticed that the number was for the landowner. When that was seen, the owner of the phone called him back and asked what was said. Describing the situation, the landlord soon got an earful.
The vigilant phone owner then explained she's never had any problem the birdman.
And the landlord caught on that his old bat tenant was behind all the complaints and he then made a practice of always confirming where all calls came from.
