404 Media

2025-08-14 16:54:06

ICE Adds Random Person to Group Chat, Exposes Details of Manhunt in Real-Time

Members of a law enforcement group chat including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies inadvertently added a random person to the group called “Mass Text” where they exposed highly sensitive information about an active search for a convicted attempted murderer seemingly marked for deportation, 404 Media has learned.

The texts included an unredacted ICE “Field Operations Worksheet” that includes detailed information about the target they were looking for, and the texts showed ICE pulling data from a DMV and license plate readers (LPRs), according to screenshots of the chat obtained and verified by 404 Media. The person accidentally added to the group chat is not a law enforcement official or associated with the investigation in any way, and said they were added to it weeks ago and initially thought it was a series of spam messages.

The incident is a significant data breach and operational security failure for ICE, which has ramped up arrest efforts across the U.S. as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. The breach also has startling similarities to so-called Signal Gate, in which a senior administration official added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to a group chat that contained likely classified information. These new ICE messages were MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service messages, meaning they weren’t end-to-end encrypted, like texts sent over Signal or WhatsApp are.

“Going to need to roll out at 1000,” one of the messages, sent at 09:25 a.m. on Wednesday to the group, called “Mass Text,” reads.

“Copy. We can break it down at 10,” comes the reply.

💡
Do you want to contact me securely? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

404 Media has verified that one of the members of the chat is an ICE official, and another appears to be from the U.S. Marshals Service.

The person accidentally added to the group chat, which appears to contain six people, said they had no idea why they had received these messages, and shared screenshots of the chat with 404 Media. 404 Media granted the person anonymity to protect them from retaliation.

“At first I thought it was just another series of spam messages like I get all the time from home improvement, car insurance , business loans, etc. Then I saw the rap sheet and license plate numbers and was like WTAF,” the person said in an online chat.

Screenshots of the messages. Redactions by 404 Media.

A DHS official not affiliated with the group chat told 404 Media, “This breach strikes me as indicative of the current carelessness of officers. They're concerned about pumping up arrest numbers, not about operating with the level of care and rigor we should expect from law enforcement officials.” 404 Media granted the source anonymity as they weren’t permitted to speak to the press.

404 Media only obtained text messages from the group sent on Wednesday and only learned of the issue at that time. They start early in the morning with one of the participants, which 404 Media has identified as an ICE official, sending a screenshot of the ICE field operations worksheet. This document names the target, lays out their criminal history, and includes personal information such as their Social Security Number, country of citizenship, and driver’s license number.

The target is a person who was previously convicted of attempted murder according to the document, and a search of the ICE Online Detainee Locator System returned no results.

Nearly an hour later, another member of the group replies with a series of license plates. The name registered to that number matches that of a U.S. Marshals Criminal Investigator, according to a freely available phone lookup tool and LinkedIn searches.

Screenshots of the messages. Redactions by 404 Media.

“Running those plates,” the ICE officer then replies. “In the mean time he has two vehicles,” the ICE officer adds, before uploading two photos of car registration data which appear to come from a DMV; one of the photos shows a PDF filename which includes “DMV.” ICE is able to access DMV data in many circumstances. The respective DMV for the state this investigation took place in acknowledged a request for comment but did not provide a response in time for publication.

Immediately after, the ICE official wrote “no LPR hits since March.” LPR cameras are made by various companies and are stationed all across the United States. These cameras typically scan any vehicles driving by them, recording the vehicle’s license plate, model, and color, and makes a timestamped record of where that car, and by extension person, was. For example, more than 9,000 ICE agents had access to an LPR database run by Vigilant Solutions, according to records the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained in 2019. 404 Media also revealed that local police were tapping into Flock cameras on behalf of ICE and for immigration enforcement, sometimes in violation of the law.

“It’s possible it’s still a connected address. Could be family. The last name matches the female co-reg on one of his vehicles,” the ICE official writes, appearing to refer to some of the data he’s pulled up.

“Copy,” another participant replies.

“Ok I’ll call you,” another says.

By the time the chat members say they’re going to “roll out at 1000,” appearing to mean they will move at 10am, the ICE official says “I’ll have someone sit and try and get a pattern of life/pid.” Pattern of life is a general term law enforcement and intelligence agencies sometimes use to describe where someone may live, go to work, or spend their time.

The source who was accidentally added to the group chat said they haven’t received any more messages since then.

Neither DHS or the U.S. Marshals Service responded to requests for comment.

Recently ICE officials have raided incorrect addresses; potentially violated court orders banning the agency from racial profiling people at Home Depots; detained U.S. citizens (including for days without water); and deported U.S. citizen children, one of which had cancer, with their families to Honduras, all while aggressively rounding up undocumented people many of whom have no criminal record and denying due process to some. Around half the people in ICE detention, nearly 30,000 people, do not have criminal records, according to the Deportation Data Project.

Previously senior administration officials gave ICE a quota of 3,000 arrests a day. The administration has since claimed that no such quota exists.

With its new budget injection and overarching mass deportation goal, ICE is about to go on a social media ad recruiting blitz, 404 Media previously reported. On Tuesday DHS said it had received more than 100,000 applications for roles at ICE. At the end of July, the agency said it had issued more than 1,000 tentative job offers since July 4.

Trump border czar Tom Homan wants ICE to dramatically hike illegal migrant arrest quota after 'big beautiful bill' cash infusion

Trump signed the nearly 900-page bill into law on July 4, opening the door for ICE to hire 10,000 new officers and double its capacity to detain illegal immigrants.

^{Jennie Taer (New York Post)}

minioctt

2025-08-15 12:21:17

riempimento della squachiavanza porta la morte ad essere dischica… (Sharkey prende troppo spazio ed è un problema)

È doloroso trovarmi qui ad ammetterlo a me stessa ma, ancora una volta, scopro che i miei piani di dominazione del mondo sono stati troppo ambiziosi; almeno per ora, in questa fase più iniziale. Ovviamente tutto bene col mio codice, anche se è ancora nelle fasi iniziali… i problemi inaspettati sono piuttosto arrivati con Sharkey, che nell’arco di una settimana mi avrà sequestrato almeno 1 GB di disco col suo database di merda, e non penso di dover spiegare quali calcoli fare per capire che una situazione del genere è insostenibile. Quindi, ho dovuto per il momento abbassare il tiro, prima che il disco del server mi si riempia in misura da costringermi a levare tutto quanto… 😖

Il problema è sostanzialmente una combinazione di 3 fattori: la mole di dati in ingresso generata da migliaia di utenti di migliaia di istanze ogni giorno è gigantesca (e il mio server non ha problemi a processarla, ma ecco, sono troppi miliardi di byte), il database è strutturato di merda (con troppi dati derivati che occupano inutilmente spazio, nonché francamente colonne inutili)… e, soprattutto, il software non ha alcun meccanismo per cancellare dati vecchi, quindi per ripulire periodicamente le note di utenti di istanze terze, o comunque quei dati che sono riottenibili. E per Misskey è da anni che la gente chiede aiuto per questo problema, ma la richiesta continua a naufragare, si vedano #13157 e linkate… e per Sharkey ugualmente è da un po’ di tempo che si parla di questo schifo, ma, forse, il fato per una buona volta mi vuole bene: 3 settimane fa in #1017 qualcuno sembra aver preso interesse a lavorarci… 😨

Comunque sia, il problema per me è ora, e quindi ho come minimo dovuto disattivare i relay, che sono dei cosi che si aggiungono per far scambiare i messaggi tra la propria istanza ed altre pur senza avere relazioni di follow con migliaia di utenti (…perché non so chi cavolo seguire io, e a me pochi mi cagano), e così l’influsso di note e allegati è passato da decine di migliaia al giorno a poche decine e basta al giorno, che è persino meno di quanto ho sulla Spacc BBS… Ma questo quindi significa direttamente che, per il momento, non avrò un flusso costante estremamente sparso e variegato di conversazioni che posso passare all’intelligenza artificiale per farla funzionare in modo completamente autonomo e a dir poco extracircostanziale. (Non che io avessi finito di scrivere il codice per questa parte, eh, ma prima o poi quello sarà pronto… e i dati allora mancheranno.) 💨

Avrei quasi la mezza idea di, pur non sapendo se questa mossa potrebbe in parte rompere l’applicazione (ma, come si suol dire, cip ciop fa l’uccellino, YOLO fa il cormorano… e in ogni caso farei un backup prima), creare uno script per fare in modo grezzo la pulizia del database… ma purtroppo non è affatto una stronzata filtrare tutto per cancellare solo i dati effettivamente ridondanti, ossia le note solo da server terzi (e fin qui ok) che non hanno relazioni internamente alla mia istanza (niente reazioni o commenti o boost da parte dei miei utenti, non sono salvate tra i preferiti, e così via), e poi cancellare anche i file a queste associati dall’altra tabella (aiuto!!!). E oltre alle note, che sono rogne, e agli allegati, che invece mi fanno proprio incazzare visto quanto occupano pur essendo solo metadati (il contenuto dei file non viene scaricato!), volendo pulire pure gli utenti è la fine… 😭

Vabbè, viste le parole (…poco attendibili?) di quella persona sconosciuta di cui sopra, però, mi conviene evitare di sbattermi, e piuttosto semplicemente pregare affinché tale promessa si trasformi in codice… al più presto. Se la mia speranza (e i miei bot potentissimi…) proprio deve morire, allora lo farà solo dopo la mia istanza, non prima!!! 😾

#1017 #database #Misskey #server #Sharkey #spazio #storage

Database Retention/Purge Policies (#1017) · Issues · TransFem.org / Sharkey · GitLab

What feature would you like implemented? The problem After running an instance...

^GitLab