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John Scott-Railton Profile picture
@jsrailton
Mar 4, 2021 • 8 tweets • 9 min read • Read on X
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Wild story: Meet Kurt Jantz (rap name Forgiato Blow aka 'Donald Trump's Nephew').

By his telling, he's the grandson of Auto Trader's founder.

Jantz flew to DC in a private jet on January 6th... 1/

Pics: Parler, Facebook. ImageImageImage
2/ Jantz and entourage then went to the #Capitol and filmed the pro-Trump "We Outside" rap video restricted grounds.. in the middle of the siege.

Lyrics like:
"my president is Trump never be sleepy Joe.."
"free all my people at last or Imma have to hit em with the gas"" ImageImageImageImage
3/ Jantz jetted home. His spokesperson told @donie @CNN he didn't enter the #Capitol building.

He did keep up the flow of music videos, which bring us to him dancing with Roger Stone at CPAC.

4/ This was for a music video mocking the investigation. Featuring #ProudBoys leader Enrique Tarrio

Refrain: "the feds did a sweep they was knocking at the front door, patriots pulling up they was knocking on the #Capitol"

Check out @donie's piece.👇
ImageImageImage
5/ Why is this interesting? Jantz is a (niche) cultural figure recasting the #Capitol siege in a positive light... away from the huge stigma it has for most...marketing it and making it look cool while taunting the feds in the process.
6/ Lest you think Forgiato Blow is completely marginal: he did a remixed Ice Ice Baby video with @vanillaice & @RickRoss in 2019. He also toured with Vanilla Ice for a minute.

More: koncrete.com/florida-rapper… ImageImageImageImage
7. Please, someone do a piece on the #MAGAhadeen aesthetic. Forgiato Blow is just the volume-knob-to-11 of the #tacticool look that is all over a certain kind of American's wardrobe right now. ImageImageImageImage
8/ Can someone help me figure out whether Kurt Jantz is actually a @usairforce veteran? ImageImageImage

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More from @jsrailton

John Scott-Railton Profile picture
May 6
BREAKING: jury awards massive $167 million in punitive damages against spyware company NSO Group.

Precedent-setting win against the notorious #Pegasus spyware maker.

Congratulations to @WhatsApp on sticking this case through since 2019. Some thoughts 1/
2/ After years of every trick & delay tactic it only took a California jury one days deliberation to the heart of the matter:

NSO makes millions hacking mostly-🇺🇸American tech companies... so that dictators can hack dissidents.

Their conduct deserved to be punished.
3/ NSO Group emerges from the trial severely damaged.

The verdict ($167,256,000 punitive, $440K+ compensatory) is big enough to make your eyes water.

The case is ALSO a huge blow to NSO's secrecy, with their business splashed all over a courtroom.

This will scare customers...
Read 14 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
May 1
Friends don't let friends get their eyeballs scanned to buy a coffee.

Sam Altman's Orwellian "Tools for Humanity" says this dystopia machine could help distinguish between #AI agents & humans... or verify at Point of Sale..or..?

Looks to me like a big biometric data grab 1/ Image
2/ Surely they didn't just start with the idea of invasively harvesting eyeball scans...and then look around for potential justifications.

And then add in some AI hype.

Right? Image
3/ Throwback to Tools for Humanity's previous (but non-portable, guys!) eye-scanning thing: WorldCoin.

Remember that? A global biometric data grab rife with documented exploitation in Africa & Latin America.

Still not clear what real value it delivered to the ppl who gave up their biometrics.Image
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Read 4 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Apr 28
Fear is dictatorship glue.

You can't imprison everyone with a dissenting thought.

Or inconvenient factual observation.

But fear teaches self censorship. It's a scalable system of control.

The autocrat's challenge is to keep the fear going. 1/ A detention center’s interrogation rooms — Untersuchungshaftanstalt Hohenschönhausen, Vernehmungstrakt (2004) (© Daniel & Geo Fuchs) Image source: https://hyperallergic.com/151019/mundane-horror-in-abandoned-stasi-spaces/
2/ In the 20th century, keeping fear alive required massive human investment.

Informants... archives...exemplary punishments... information control.

Looked like a linear scale.

A post-cold war school of thought said: once everyone is connected, these systems won't work. Hohenschönhausen investigation prison: monitoring room Daniel & Geo Fuchs Via https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/stasi-secret-rooms-communist-east-germanys-eerie-interrogation-cells-haunted-prisons-1467734
BStU Zentralarchiv Berlin archives (2004) (© Daniel & Geo Fuchs) URL: https://hyperallergic.com/151019/mundane-horror-in-abandoned-stasi-spaces/
"There are several images of staged Stasi arrests carried out for training purposes. Dissidents, in some case already serving long prison terms, were sometimes made to re-enact their own arrest for the camera. " Simon Menner BSTU Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23986385
3/ But tech isn't, by nature, a dictatorship antidote.

It can be an expedient.

Just ask China.

In 20 years the CCP empirically developed technologies & private sector partnerships for scaling fear and self censorship to >1.4 billion ppl.

Log scale. A display shows surveillance technology capable of analyzing body motion for specific actions like fighting, theft or fall during Security China 2018 in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018. Photo/Ng Han Guan
Surveillance cameras are mounted on a post at Tiananmen Square as snow falls in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Qilai Shen https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/huawei-ai-firms-filed-to-patent-tech-that-could-identify-uighurs-report-says.html
Read 6 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Mar 19
🚨NEW REPORT: first forensic confirmation of #Paragon mercenary spyware infections in #Italy...

Known targets: Activists & journalists.

We also found deployments around the world. Including ...Canada?

And a lot more... Thread on our @citizenlab investigation 1/Image
Image
2/ So #Paragon makes zero-click spyware marketed as better than NSO's Pegasus...

Harder to find...

...And more ethical too!

This caught our attention @citizenlab & we were skeptical.

By @iblametom forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…Image
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3/ We got a tip about a single bit of #Paragon infrastructure & my brilliant colleague @billmarczak developed a technique to fingerprint some of the mercenary spyware infrastructure (both victim-facing & customer side) globally.

So much for invisibility.

What we found startled us.

citizenlab.ca/2025/03/a-firs…Image
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Read 18 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Feb 6
BREAKING: #Paragon reportedly terminates spyware contract with #Italy.

Right on heels of reported targeting of journalist & activists in Italy.

BIG DEAL: puts Italian government in the hot seat, since they denied knowing about it only hours ago.👇
Image
2/ Read this slowly.

The implication is clear: the Italian government was a #Paragon customer & had their contract terminated...

Even as @GiorgiaMeloni's office was issuing denials.

Likely to make the scandal worse.

Exceptional reporting from The Guardian
theguardian.com/technology/202…Image
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3/ Big picture:

#Paragon's carefully constructed image of being a clean mercenary spyware company that wasn't susceptible to abuses has been replaced by a more familiar tale of...

Abuses...

And #Italy is now saddled with an unfolding crisis around spyware abuse.
Read 7 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Feb 1
NEW: @WhatsApp says Israeli mercenary spyware company #Paragon targeted scores of users around world.

The infection happened with no interaction. No link to click or attachment to open.

This is called a "zero-click" attack.

WA says targets included journalists & members of civil society.

They dismantled the attack vector & notified users.

Good.

We at @citizenlab shared some info instrumental to their investigation of the vector.

This is a BIG deal. Here's why 1/Image
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2/ For a few years the only source of information about #Paragon... has been Paragon.

They marketed themselves as the anti-NSO.

(NSO makes the notorious #Pegasus spyware)

It's easier to frame yourself as virtuous in the spyware game if nobody can look over your shoulder.

By @iblametom
forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…

By @RonanFarrow
newyorker.com/magazine/2022/…Image
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3/ Late last year, partly on the strength of their promised virtue #Paragon seemed closer than ever to landing the industrys juiciest of prices.

Market access into the USA.

This is the goal of a lot of spyware companies & their investors...

At the time, there simply were no pesky reports on Paragon that showed anything might be other than rosy.

Story @criticalvas
wired.com/story/ice-para…Image
Read 12 tweets

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