Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy, 09/24

[SVPete]

Secret Service Busts Massive Network Used in Swatting Attacks Against Marjorie Taylor Greene, Other Republicans

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2025/09/23/secret-service-busts-massive-network-capable-of-crippling-new-yorks-cell-network/

The U.S. Secret Service has uncovered a massive network of more than 100,000 SIM cards and 300 servers located within a 35-mile radius of New York City. The operation, believed to be run by foreign “nation-state threat actors” and criminals, was uncovered during an investigation into a surge of swatting calls targeting high-ranking government officials, including members of Congress and the Trump administration.

Targets of the swatting calls reportedly include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), and Nikki Haley. The Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit, in collaboration with various law enforcement agencies, traced the swatting signals to several locations in the New York tri-state area. Upon further investigation, they found a sophisticated network of SIM servers capable of generating enormous amounts of phone traffic while rapidly switching out SIM cards to evade detection.

According to Matt McCool, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s New York field office, the network posed an “imminent threat” to the agency’s protective operations. The servers, strategically positioned around New York City’s cellular network infrastructure, could have overwhelmed cell towers and disrupted cell service for the entire city. Furthermore, the network was powerful enough to send an encrypted, anonymous text message to every person in the United States within just 12 minutes.

While no arrests have been made in connection with the operation, early forensic analysis suggests that the network has been utilized by cartels, human traffickers, and terrorists. “It is absolutely well funded and well-organized,” McCool stated, emphasizing the gravity of the situation.

Sounds like this network was set up to sell its "services" to any criminal or terror org (or individual) willing to pay. Sounds like the "services" could include:

* SWATting someone (putting their lives at risk);

* Sending police on a wild goose chase or into and ambush with a false report;

* Isolate areas by overwhelming cell towers in the area, similar to a DDoS attack;

* Be a for-hire communications network for criminal/terror groups carrying out something.

I wonder if this bust took out a service Antifoids used to coordinate their actions. Hopefully, the Secret Service, FBI, etc. find the operators of this nework.

[SVPete]

Jan. 6 subcommittee zeroes in on paid informants at the Capitol riot

https://justthenews.com/government/security/jan-6-subcommittee-zeroes-paid-informants-capitol-riot

The chairman of the new House subcommittee aimed at uncovering the truth behind the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., says his panel is concerned about the dozens of paid, federal informants present during the demonstrations, and is concerned that the intelligence they gathered was not properly shared with law enforcement.

“One thing that we have learned, and this came on the tail end of the Biden administration, when their Department of Justice admitted that they had many, I mean, more than two dozen, paid informants embedded in the crowd,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show yesterday.

How many informants? And what were they paid to do?
“And so my question is, you know…our FBI does pay to have informants through different organizations, and their primary job is intelligence, you know, to provide information. But, with that many paid informants being in the crowd, we want to know how many were in the crowd, how many were in the building, but I also want to know, were they paid to inform or instigate?” Loudermilk continued.

Was it "just" LIHOP, or were some inciting crowds? That LIEden and Pelosiroo kept their presence obscure suggests that there was more than LIHOP.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Jan. 6 subcommittee zeroes in on paid informants at the Capitol riot

Was it "just" LIHOP, or were some inciting crowds? That LIEden and Pelosiroo kept their presence obscure suggests that there was more than LIHOP.

They went HARD after people for the most frivolous offenses, or even no offense at all, but they ignored someone like Ray Epps until the pressure got to be too much and then they let him off with a slap on the wrist while this supposed dumb hick's law firm was Perkins Coie.

Yes, there was incitement from the Swamp.

[SVPete]

FWIW:

White House calls for an investigation into UN escalator malfunction

https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/white-house-calls-investigation-un-escalator-malfunction

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday called for an investigation into an escalator malfunction at the United Nations (UN), which had stopped working when President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were on it.

The malfunction occurred on the president's way to give an address at the United Nations' general assembly in New York City and was just one of the technological malfunctions that interrupted the president's schedule. His teleprompter also did not work.

Leavitt's call for an investigation comes after the Times of London reported Sunday that UN staffers joked that they may switch off the escalator during Trump's visit.
...
A UN spokesperson later told Fox News that a member of the U.S. delegation ran up and down the escalator before Trump was off of it, which triggered an alarm and stopped it.

"A subsequent investigation, including a readout of the machine's central processing unit, indicated that the escalator had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator," the spokesperson said. "The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing."

IMO, the UN explanation is non-credible for these reasons:

* People running up or down escalators is fairly common and doesn't trigger stoppages;

* Running up and down an escalator triggered a safety function that prevents stuff getting trapped and pulled into the mechanism? Seriously?!

* Error logs are manipulable.

[DLR Pyro]

FWIW:

White House calls for an investigation into UN escalator malfunction

I couldn't .  Liberals on an escalator...

https://youtu.be/5AjWJlYprxA?si=eMjZC_9KFgZoJgVY

[SVPete]

UPDATE: Two ICE Detainees Dead in Dallas Sniper Attack; Shooter Dead of Self-Inflicted Gunshot

https://pjmedia.com/athena-thorne/2025/09/24/breaking-sniper-shoots-three-at-dallas-ice-facility-n4944048

In an escalation of protests and unrest targeting the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a rooftop sniper targeted the Dallas ICE facility, critically wounding three people. The shooter is reported dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Sources place the shooter's body on the rooftop of a nearby immigration attorney's office. The attack occurred around 8 a.m. EDT on Wednesday.
...
Of the shooting victims, two are reportedly ICE detainees, according to CNN.
...
[UPDATE 9:34 a.m. EDT] NBC News is reporting that two of the shooting victims have died of their wounds. Both were ICE detainees. A third detainee was wounded. No ICE agents were injured.

This is WTH-grade. Did the shooter F up and hit detainees instead of ICE agents? Was the shooter targeting the detainees to keep information from being learned?

[Rick]

UPDATE: Two ICE Detainees Dead in Dallas Sniper Attack; Shooter Dead of Self-Inflicted Gunshot

https://pjmedia.com/athena-thorne/2025/09/24/breaking-sniper-shoots-three-at-dallas-ice-facility-n4944048

This is WTH-grade. Did the shooter F up and hit detainees instead of ICE agents? Was the shooter targeting the detainees to keep information from being learned?

And who is the shooter, do we have another tran's?

[enslaved1]

Secret Service Busts Massive Network Used in Swatting Attacks Against Marjorie Taylor Greene, Other Republicans

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2025/09/23/secret-service-busts-massive-network-capable-of-crippling-new-yorks-cell-network/

Sounds like this network was set up to sell its "services" to any criminal or terror org (or individual) willing to pay. Sounds like the "services" could include:

* SWATting someone (putting their lives at risk);

* Sending police on a wild goose chase or into and ambush with a false report;

* Isolate areas by overwhelming cell towers in the area, similar to a DDoS attack;

* Be a for-hire communications network for criminal/terror groups carrying out something.

I wonder if this bust took out a service Antifoids used to coordinate their actions. Hopefully, the Secret Service, FBI, etc. find the operators of this nework.

I'm fascinated from a technical standpoint.  That sounds like a massive system that could be used for a whole lot of bad intentions.  Not sure which is scarier, a foreign agency being able to set up such a network, or a small group being able to. 

[SVPete]

And who is the shooter, do we have another tran's?

Nothing on that, yet, but, https://x.com/Julio_Rosas11/status/1970873734161715240 :

Dallas FBI special agent in charge on ICE facility shooting in Dallas: "We’ve seen from rounds that were found near the suspected shooter contain messages that are anti-ICE in nature."

Engraving "messages" on shell casings? Why does that sound familiar?

[Rick]

I'm fascinated from a technical standpoint.  That sounds like a massive system that could be used for a whole lot of bad intentions.  Not sure which is scarier, a foreign agency being able to set up such a network, or a small group being able to.

And, are there other net works set up, and were?

[SVPete]

Bolton Was, Indeed, Hiding Classified Files in His Office

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/09/24/bolton-was-indeed-hiding-classified-files-in-his-office-n3807129

Bolton, though, is just a grey man, the kind of which you can find in any regime. He has an agenda, but that isn't the same as having principles, and his loyalty is to that agenda, and he is utterly ruthless in pursuing it. I see him almost as more of a type than a complete person, so I just can't get myself worked up about his actions any more than I can get angry at an obstacle in a road.

So it gives me no particular pleasure (or pain) to see that Bolton got caught doing something illegal, in the way it would evoke schadenfreude to see Anthony Fauci or Peter Strzok pay for their many crimes.
...
The evidence is piling up that Bolton — whose complaints about Trump's handling of classified documents were bitter — appears to have broken the law regarding them.

Did Bolton have those documents legally - with Presidential permission - and illegally retain them? Or did he obtain them illegally?

[CC27]

UPDATE: Two ICE Detainees Dead in Dallas Sniper Attack; Shooter Dead of Self-Inflicted Gunshot

https://pjmedia.com/athena-thorne/2025/09/24/breaking-sniper-shoots-three-at-dallas-ice-facility-n4944048

This is WTH-grade. Did the shooter F up and hit detainees instead of ICE agents? Was the shooter targeting the detainees to keep information from being learned?

A federal source close to the investigation identified the gunman as Joshua Jahn, 29.

[SVPete]

What Abba can teach Greta Thunberg

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/abba-teach-greta-thunberg-165926385.html

When Greta Thunberg set sail with a 51-vessel flotilla from Barcelona last month, she no doubt knew that her attempts to “break the illegal siege of Gaza” would face pushback. But she might not have expected to be serenaded with Abba songs on the high seas.

Greta and her activists claim that Israeli drones hacked their radios just off the coast of Crete, blasting the Swedish band’s 1980 hit Lay All Your Love On Me through the speakers.

Putting aside how much of this is true or not, and whether a flotilla of activists is the answer to the Israel-Gaza war, I, for one, am very glad that Greta got the chance to listen to some Abba. They may have some good advice for her current predicament.

I know a Beatles song that would be appropriate.