JD Vance, referring to his childhood experiences:

“Seeing people insult, scream, and sometimes physically fight was just a part of our life. After a while, you didn’t even notice it.

I always thought it was how adults spoke to one another.”

1/

https://twitter.com/HackingButLegal/status/1814010148438045147

“Over time, I started to like the drama.

Instead of hiding from it, I’d run downstairs or put my ear to the wall to get a better listen. My heart would still race, but in an anticipatory way, like it did when I was about to score in a basketball game. [...]

This thing that I hated had become a sort of drug.”

2/

The origins of some alleged commenters on #HeritageFoundation's website.

Why are they involved in U.S. politics?

https://twitter.com/HackingButLegal/status/1811068855902462404

Here's an example of the fun we can have here:

Match suspicious comments to suspicious IP addresses. Here we have "Clint" who asks,

"I am not sure who told you that 'Space-based interceptors present the best option for a boost-phase missile defense.' Can you point me to a technical study? This Air Force (ex-AF) officer says the opposite is true: that space based missile defense is not feasible [links]

So I am confused -- it seems space based missile defense is not the most sensible thing to do. If you have any other information to share on this issue that would be good. Thanks."

"Clint" 🤡 made this particular comment from an IP address originating from Kathmandu, Nepal.

I am reviewing this alleged hack of The Heritage Foundation.

I have identified very embarrassing data within this dataset. Why so many Chinese IP addresses? 🤔

https://twitter.com/ZachTheW0lf/status/1810849402980028634

The zipped file contains one single file:

"daily-signal_dev_database_new.sql"

This appears to be a combined set of exports from a SQL database. Here are the first lines

New report from @FDD:

China, Russia, and Iran are waging an information war against the United States, yet many Americans do not realize they are under attack.

Nor do they appreciate that developments on the battlefield of ideas and beliefs can have a decisive impact on the security and way of life Americans enjoy.

This lack of awareness is ideal for Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran — predators like nothing better than hunting slumbering prey.

Americans may not realize they are already in an information war because adversaries attempt to conceal their activities.

To make matters worse, Americans often think of international conflict consciously or subconsciously in the context of kinetic war — soldiers, ships, and aircraft battling one another on land, at sea, or in the air.

So, when there is no overt conflict, Americans can be lulled into a false sense of security.

This propensity works to the advantage of China, Russia, and Iran, which view conflict with the United States more like a dial than a two-way switch.

These adversaries turn the dial’s intensity up or down as needed, but hostile intentions toward the United States and attacks in the information domain remain constant regardless of whether a ‘shooting war’ is underway.

So, what exactly does this information warfare look like?

Read: fdd.org/analysis/2024/… China's approach:

- Aims to become a "discourse superpower" by shaping global narratives.
- Uses state media, social media platforms, and influencers to spread propaganda.
- Spends billions annually on its discourse ecosystem.

BREAKING: Parolee and known douchebag Martin Shkreli has been identified by cryptocurrency crime investigator @ZachXBT as the creator of the $DJT token, and after being publicly doxed as such, now claims he's running it for Trump

Not sure he's allowed per his release terms! 1/ Arkham is an intelligence company for blockchains. They posted a bounty for the identity of the cryptocurrency token's creator earlier in the day.

https://x.com/zachxbt/status/1803240784436797871

While the editorial staff at the Washington Post is under the microscope, perhaps folks there also want to take a look at the son of a Russian propagandist who started on the games desk but has already moved over to foreign affairs.

WaPo has previously been notified. In fact, they were notified while he was still working on stories about gaming. He was later reassigned

🚨 BREAKING: The below images indicate that an organization identifying itself as "America First" is engaging in illegal voter intimidation tactics!

A Texas voter allegedly received the below mailings via USPS and posted a @Reddit thread which was censored by mods just as it was picking up steam! First, the thread was locked so new replies could not be added. Now, the images have been fully removed.

Good thing I saved a copy! 👁️👄👁️

1/ Whose dark money PAC or campaign is paying for this criminality? (Yes, this is illegal asf)

2/ The images show what appears to be a fearmongering voter intimidation tactic, claiming to send an "official list" to Trump of Republicans who fail to vote for him in an upcoming election runoff.

It states "Public records show that YOU HAVE NOT VOTED" and threatens to report the recipient to Trump if they don't vote early by a certain deadline!

This kind of misleading and intimidating mailing is very likely illegal under U.S. election laws. Federal law prohibits any acts that intimidate, threaten or coerce voters, or attempt to do so.

Sending deceptive mailings that shame or pressure people to vote a certain way by claiming their voting record will be reported would almost certainly violate these voter intimidation statutes. State laws also prohibit various forms of voter intimidation and deception. While campaigns and PACS have broad 1A rights for political speech, communications that cross the line into false statements, threats and intimidation tactics targeting voters are not protected and are subject to criminal penalties!

Election authorities will likely view these mailings as unlawful attempts to coerce voting behavior.

The specific sender could face legal consequences if reported and investigated!!

The owner of this platform has made many small changes to allow bad actors to run wild.

Death by 1,000 cuts.

Just off the top of my head:

- Free API gone, new API insanely expensive
- Followers/following no longer in order
- Block list cannot be exported through Archive
- Most tweet engagement stats now censored
- Twitter Analytics remains mostly broken
- Can't view tweets without login, eliminating third party website embeds and scraping
- Twitter's public academic research into influence actors (previously downloadable) has been eliminated
- Community Notes often hijacked/seemingly manipulated
- Only blue checks get visibility
- Random shadowbanning of activist accounts
- Trust & Safety tools now used for censorship
- Reporting ToS violations rarely results in suspension

Twitter has completed its transformation to an information warfare platform. These changes limit major research activities into influence actors to those who can pay exorbitant API cost. Some will say, that's just good business! But in cybersecurity, we call it something like "imposing cost", or "increasing the cost of an attack to reduce its likelihood".

"The Army falsely denied that General Flynn was ever on the call"

The call in question?

One in which senior Pentagon leaders made decisions about whether to send the National Guard to protect the Capitol while we Americans watched countless livestreams with horror as our democracy failed.

One particular participant wasn't even supposed to be there. He had no leadership responsibility. Yet he was there, speaking, and at least one other participant lied to the media about his presence. He is still a serving 4star General and his brother actively runs election-related psyops on Americans.

Follow @jimstewartson and @Heidi_Cuda who doggedly report on these topics and will not be intimidated away from the truth. Source: "Oversight Subcommittee, "3 Years Later: D.C. National Guard Whistleblowers Speak Out on Jan 6 Delay", The Committee on House Administration, YouTube, April 17, 2024

👋 🔊 Happy New Year, Readers!
It's my first annual roundup! 🎉 🥳 🪩

I migrated to Substack and spent some time in film school (I'll branch out to video in 2024!)

I was cited by various publications including MIT Technology Review, Bloomberg Law, and RFA Asia!

1/ Let's go! 🧵 2/ Jan: Investigative journalist Michael Hastings' mysterious 2013 death resurfaces in recent tweets by Joseph Flynn, sparking questions about the circumstances surrounding Hastings' fatal car crash and potential connections to influential figures.

hackingbutlegal.com/p/michael-hast…

1/ For anyone who might be new to my feed and confused about what is happening here, for the past year I have been researching sick individuals who participate in Internet communities to engage in abusive and criminal behaviors: targeted harassment, doxing, stalking, swatting. 2/ My methodology to produce useful information, which allows me to more completely profile these individuals, has led me to a practice of direct engagement as opposed to avoidance—often simply to confirm investigative possibilities or likely conclusions.

1/ Note:

If you search @Heritage's Project 2025 manifesto for the term "CISA", you'll find detailed information describing the very specific harm the Right clearly plans to wreak onto America by fucking over, among many other things, our cybersecurity agency @CISAgov!

#infosec

https://twitter.com/HackingButLegal/status/1715373600717291531

2/ No surprise "immigration hardliner" (known racist) Cuccinelli authored this 💩!

He hates CISA for stoping disinfo, helping secure elections. They attempted a fascist takeover at DHS by making up a job for him, making him 2nd in command. Got fired by judge—after harm was done!

1/🧵 Hmm, so Jim's crazy, huh? That's what all of the very aggressive trolls who circle him have to say! #BlueAnon 🤡

Besides everything already said, let's spend 5 mins to catch up this one political chaos actor: James Brower.

What has he been up to? ⬇️ #ElectionInterference

https://twitter.com/jimstewartson/status/1641134037493497856

2/ Nov 9, 2016: Donald Trump supporters chant "lock her up" during an election party. Trump employee Brower is front and center.

Source: telegram.com/story/news/pol…

1/13🧵 A recent @ABC report revealed troubling details abt fmr. Trump official Kash Patel's charity, "Fight With Kash". According to @MLevineReports, Patel may be illegally blurring lines btwn charitable work & political agenda.

Him + his 501(c)3 is suing @jimstewartson for $10M

https://twitter.com/jimstewartson/status/1669380230367309825

2/13 This charity, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is supposed to be non-partisan and devoid of political campaign engagement per IRS regulations. However, Patel’s vocal support for Trump appears to be intimately tied to the charity’s operations.

Sounds like a conflict of interest to me!

Today I logged into Duolingo w/ my acct created in Feb 2022 using Apple private email relay. Workflow didn't allow the user to set an initial password (handled by Apple).

Upon login, I was presented a message from Duolingo: many other accounts had used the same password. The password appears to be an 8-character password which is not known to me (I cannot reset the pw myself).

Did Apple configure the same password for every user of private email relay, and if so, for how long? The implications for this would be painful.

🧵1/8 A horrible man shot people at a mall in Dallas, and he believed in white supremacy.

Some people are shocked because the killer was Hispanic.

But guess what?

Latinos can also believe in white supremacist ideas. 🧵2/8 Looking at Garcia’s online posts, he clearly had racist and sexist thoughts.

Even Texas police said he was into "neo-Nazi" ideas.

Only Elon Musk said otherwise 🤡

A bunch of fake blue checks showed up to convince me these were bugs and not intentional.

F-U Elon

https://twitter.com/HackingButLegal/status/1660126243172360192

https://twitter.com/CJ_NFA/status/1660280154030063617?s=20

Hey @elonmusk you have a bug in your tech stack which is telling me that I'm your subscriber, but we both know in fact you have me on some kind of a special monitoring list.

It happened on a day I replied to you and QT your Trust & Safety henchwoman, Ella Irwin.

Might wanna fix (Elon Musk does not subscribe to me and other people don't see this)

Today on OnAForums:

A user makes a "specific actionable threat" ("hunt down and kill") to "named person" (Actress Jenna Ortega), then after being "moderated" (comment not removed) tells his fellow posters he's truly depressed. The only thing that makes him feel better...👇

1/🧵 ...is "Lucyposting", which involves creating threads featuring hundreds of images of Lucy Lawless, some with swastikas on her body, interspersed with open racism and Nazi music.

81 pages of "discussion" on just a single thread (!)

#DropOnAForums
#DropKiwiFarms

2/

.@davetroy penned a thought-provoking piece which dives into the interconnectedness of libertarian ideologies, cryptocurrency advocacy, far-right extremism, and global fascist movements.

Let's simplify this complex landscape 🧵 👇

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1658770513081122817

Historically, influential figures such as Robert LeFevre & Ludwig von Mises strongly advocated for limited government and a return to the gold standard.

These ideologies have seeped into conservative politics & set the stage for current political and economic discourse.

2/

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, previously stated on CNBC:

“Elon Musk is an amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator is the Henry Ford of our time”

He's a liar and a fake.

https://twitter.com/JGreenblattADL/status/1658465143393595393

I'm sorry to have to say it. But I saw his bit. It was adoring. He knew what he was saying.

I'll never even think about trusting @ADL again until he's long gone.

haaretz.com/us-news/2022-1…