The Wire - September 23, 2025

//The Wire//2300Z September 23, 2025//
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//BLUF: SECRET SERVICE BUSTS ESPIONAGE THREAT TO UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY. RYAN ROUTH FOUND GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS.//

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-International Events-

Europe: The drone shenanigans continued throughout much of the night in Copenhagen, with footage from eyewitnesses indicating that the aircraft that were observed were much larger than the standard quadcopters that are usually the culprits regarding airspace violations.

Analyst Comment: So far there has been no indication of what this situation was all about, but the aircraft were fairly heavily documented. The aerial platforms weren't exactly operating covertly, but they did leave on their own. Considering the overall tensions in Europe, most speculation has pointed to these being Russian drones, or if not Russian in origin, something to do with the war. Either way, there's no way to know for sure at the moment.

-HomeFront-

Florida: This afternoon, Ryan Routh, the second would-be Trump assassin was found guilty on all counts pertaining to the attempted shooting at the Trump International Golf Club in September of last year. Upon the verdict being announced Routh attempted to stab himself with a pen, unsuccessfully trying to injure himself. Routh was briefly removed from the courtroom, after this incident, before being returned to conclude the trial.

Analyst Comment: As a reminder, Routh chose (and was allowed) to represent himself after he felt discrepancies with his court-appointed team of attorneys, and thus was granted more leeway during this trial. Considering that he had written a note confessing to the crime in explicit detail, his arguments were unsuccessful, leading to his conviction on all counts.

New York: Yesterday evening the US Secret Service announced the dismantling of a major telecommunications threat allegedly targeting the UN General Assembly currently underway in New York City. The USSS uncovered a series of locations concentrated around the UN building, which were configured to degrade communications around the city, mostly in the form of hundreds of SIM servers and around 100,000 SIM cards.

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Analyst Comments: At face value, these locations appear to be configured to swamp cell towers with increased traffic, so as to degrade cellular networks. As to why this attack vector was chosen, it's anyone's guess. Normally, attacks that are meant to degrade (but not exploit) a certain communications method are used as a way of social engineering...if a target's cell phone doesn't work, they might be inclined to use a different comms method that is more easily surveilled. Though this is pure speculation, what is very clear is that there is a very high likelihood that the UN General Assembly would be a target for many different malign actors, to include nationstate-level intelligence operations. There are many different ways to target a meeting of world leaders that is vastly easier than strategically renting apartments around the city, to fill with a bunch of electronic hardware. In their press release on the operation, the USSS did not comment on what exactly these sites were being used for; their statements were more generalized, and that these locations could be used for a wide range of attacks and surveillance operations. Nevertheless, this incident highlights the secret warfare undertaken on a daily basis around the world, continuing the trends of the Cold War into the modern era.

Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground
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