Yeah. Sorta weird USSS is investigating this. Maybe it was originally related to some Treasury-related fraud case. We're close to budget time so they have to demonstrate congress should give them the money they asked for, so it's pretty easy to upgrade some random scam/spam texter to a terrorism case. It's sort of endearing, actually, when they get some adults back in the USSS reporting chain we'll probably see less "imaginative" press releases.
They might have randomly spammed phone numbers that have special purpose and triggered some sort of honeypot. Or someone powerful got scammed. Either way, happy they take it down and provide some photos. Would love to learn more details.
Yeah. There's another post on HN saying the investigation started when someone texted a threat to a congress-critter via this system. So I guess that tracks.
Speculation: Some gov't types wanted to shut down the scammers (or whatever they are) - but were not getting much traction with the higher-ups, to actually do something. Vs. after their case was rebranded as "this may be part of a plot to assassinate the President" - suddenly every approval and resource they could want was being push into their laps.
