2/ "...our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights."
By November 2020 there is talk among the conspirators of the need to get violent..
By Dec. 20 hotel reservations are made by CALDWELL for the 6th... and CROWL has attended a North Carolina training camp.
3/ By Dec 30, WATKINS (Ohio) confirms to CALDWELL (Virginia) that her group will come. They discuss staging, logistics..
CALDWELL says a "full bus 40+" people coming from North Carolina.
[Observation: I suspect we will learn a lot more about NC folks in coming weeks]
4/ "That way the boys don't have to try to schlep weps on the bus"
-CALDWELL to WATKINS on Dec 30, explaining that an unnamed [PERSON THREE] will drive up a truck with weapons separately from one of the bussed-in contingents.
"Leadership only" conference call is named "DC op"
5/ Chats describe how CROWL & WATKINS (and others) will "link up" with the "North Carolina crew" On the 4th they depart Ohio, headed for DC.
On the morning of January 6th, they kit up for battle and head to the #Capitol.
6/ Here they are: CROWL, WATKINS & others in a disciplined, geared-up line... moving up the #Capitol steps on the East side.
Per the indictment, they forced their way past police and into the building.
7/ Meanwhile, over on the West side of the #Capitol, CALDWELL & unnamed others are in the mob fighting through police lines, up the stairs, and eventually breaching the doors.
By 3:05pm he reports making it inside.
8/ After the storming of the #Capitol they start trying to hide their tracks, deleting messages, etc.
WATKINS & CROWL return to Ohio. But after they are identified on the 14th (see tweet👇👇) they head to Virginia to stay w/ CALDWELL.
A "damaging" leak of tools from a five eyes exploit developer?
Concerning. We need to know what's under this rug.
Big picture: "trusted, vetted" private sector players offensive cyber are not immune to losing control of tooling... with national security consequences 1/
2/ If true, a tooling leak at boutique firm Trenchant wouldn't be the first time that exploits from commercial offensive vendors wind up... in the wrong place.
Many questions.
In the meantime. Remember when Russian APT29..was caught with exploits first used by NSO & Intellexa?
3/ There will always be a push for states to turn towards the private sector to meet offensive needs.
It's appealing. For some, it's very lucrative.
But in practice it brings unavoidable counterintelligence & national security downside risk that shouldn't be downplayed.
NOW: US court permanently bans Pegasus spyware maker from hacking WhatsApp.
NSO Group can't help their customers hack @WhatsApp, etc ether. Must delete exploits...
Bad news for NSO. Huge competitive disadvantage for the notorious company.
Big additional win for WhatsApp 1 /
2/ Although the massive punitive damages jury award against NSO Group ($167m) got reduced by the court, as is expected in cases where it is so large (to 9x compensatory damages)...
This is likely cold comfort to NSO since I think the injunction is going to have a huge impact on the value of NSO's spyware product.
Comes as NSO Group has been making noises about getting acquired by a US investor & some unnamed backers...
3/ NSO also emerges from the @WhatsApp v NSO case with just an absolute TON of their business splashed all over the court records..
NEW: fresh trouble for mercenary spyware companies like NSO Group.
@Apple launching substantial bounties on the zero-click exploits that feed the supply chain behind products like Pegasus & Paragon's Graphite.
With bonuses, exploit developers can hit $5 million payouts. 1/
2/ Apple is introducing Target Flags which speeds the process of getting exploits found & submitters rewarded.
This faster tempo is also a strike against the mercenary spyware ecosystem.
And the expanded categories also hit more widely against commercial surveillance vendors.
3/ If I contemplating investing in spyware companies I'd want to carefully evaluate whether their exploit pipeline can match what @apple just threw down.