I extracted all the zoom-in shots from 600 hours of leaked police helicopter surveillance footage.

lav.io/notes/the-zoom…

🧵NEW: Since the 2020 election, lawmakers across the country have attempted to dramatically increase criminal penalties and law enforcement involvement in voting, our investigation finds.

It represents the most intense voter suppression threat in decades. revealnews.org/article/electi…

My first Reveal investigation is about how lawmakers are using the myth of rampant voter fraud to push legislation that increases law enforcement involvement in elections.

The data here are important, but the WAYS new election laws are affecting voters struck me most.

🧵

My first byline at The Markup! So grateful to the many helping hands that got this published, especially Ramsey for encouraging me to write about our work.

New: Earlier this year, TechCrunch obtained the core database of TheTruthSpy's stalkerware operation, so we built a lookup tool to let anyone check if their device was compromised.

Now we've analyzed the rest of the database, and it's enormous. (1/8)

techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/ins…

Today WIRED begins publishing a 6-part series excerpted from my new book, TRACERS IN THE DARK. A story I've chased for 5 years: The hunt for and takedown of the kingpin of the digital black market AlphaBay—the biggest dark web sting operation in history. wired.com/story/alphabay…

Adding this The Real Robert Evans™ and molly conger podcast here for some more info. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/som…

If you have any information about this email me at [email protected]. Or DM for Signal

Just seeing that Odette Yousef and Jenna McLaughlin 🎃👻🍁 also just put out an excellent follow up here:
npr.org/2022/10/24/112…

Officials are unsure how long it will take to find and catch whoever is behind the calls. The calls have been happening since the spring and havent stopped.

Meanwhile local LE and schools are scrambling to figure out how to deal. Read more here:

wired.com/story/school-s…

We also contact six numbers associated with recent false-reports, which were obtained either through law enforcement officials or public records requests…their responses were interesting.

According to an FBI memo we obtained, TextNow has already provided investigators with subscriber information that indicates that the account had connected to TextNow through the Ethiopian Telecommunications Company, which is owned by the Ethiopian government.

The FBI believes a single subject—a male “with a heavy accent described as Middle Eastern or African'—is behind many of these hoax calls and is using a VOIP service to call in threats to schools.

We traced phone numbers used in the hoax calls to a service called TextNow

Earlier this month, we tracked 90+ hoax calls that sent hundreds of thousands of students into lockdown in September. They haven’t stopped. Scores of schools in NJ, FL, CA, SC, SD, WI, and CT been targeted in the past three weeks
wired.com/story/swatting…

A Louisville police officer used a data-combing software called Accurint which is owned by Lexis Nexis to gather info about women then share it with hackers who'd use it to break into their Snapchat accounts to find explicit photos to exploit them with. leoweekly.com/2022/10/feds-e…

Since we published this piece, at least 3 more states have been hit by mass-swatting attacks on schools. I have to admit, it's bizarre to me how muted the reaction to this has been from people not directly impacted.