The Intercept
· collected 2026-09-10 · by C. Frances
On August 26, the State Department announced far-reaching sanctions against the Italian collective, which provides web-hosting services to a swath of the international far left.
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which → announce → left
The U.S. government categorized A/I, as it’s also known, as a “specially designated global terrorist” and accused it of being an “extremist group that builds and operates the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells.
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that → categorize → cells
A/I maintains digital infrastructure utilized by thousands of leftists and left-wing organizations across the globe, including anonymous email accounts and servers powering its NoBlogs.org hosting platform.
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I → maintain → platform
The designation could force many of the sites offline — threatening much of what the A/I Collective has built.
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Collective → force → what
Two days later, the site came under a different kind of attack.
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site → come → attack
Hackers took aim at the NoBlogs site itself.
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Hackers → take → site
A cyberattacker gained access to the platform, vandalizing its homepage and potentially accessing internal user data.
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cyberattacker → gain → data
Just two minutes after the vandalized homepage was captured by an internet archive, the attack was publicized on X by someone using the handle “AstraRCE” and soon promoted by prominent far-right accounts, including “DataRepublican,” the online moniker of Jennica Pounds.
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attack → vandalize → Pounds
Until June, Pounds was a member of the Pentagon press corps — famous mostly for trolling the left — but allowed her credentials to expire at the end of the month.
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credentials → troll → month
In late August, it was revealed that Pounds had been employed by the Pentagon since July, as part of a larger operation launched by the federal government to recruit right-wing influencers into jobs at President Donald Trump’s Department of War.
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Pounds → reveal → War
The relationship between DataRepublican and AstraRCE goes back through several prominent hacks of the left.
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relationship → go → left
The pair have a long and involved history of posting to each other about hackers’ exploits online, raising questions about the relationship between a Trump administration employee and an anonymous online personality posting real-time updates on hacks against the left.
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pair → have → left
DataRepublican and AstraRCE are part of a wider circle with huge followings that are often the first to mention hacks against left-wing digital infrastructure.
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that → mention → infrastructure
They publish screenshots, share each other’s posts, offer snide commentary, and congratulate their associates — messages that frequently verge into bestowing credit for the hacks.
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that → publish → hacks
The federal government’s support for an influencer who praises domestic hacking efforts would mark a major escalation in the Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent, said Harlo Holmes, the chief security programs officer at Freedom of the Press Foundation.
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Holmes → praise → Foundation
“It’s the difference between open-source intelligence, that is often used in surveillance, and ever increasingly used in surveillance, and actually jumping into people’s machines,” Holmes said.
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Holmes → ’ → machines
“That is a line that is always worth noting and ringing the alarm bell when crossed.”
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that → note → bell
Though members of the A/I Collective weren’t able to attribute the hack to anyone, the cyberattack would eventually achieve its apparent aim.
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cyberattack → attribute → aim
Beset by the pressure of terrorism sanctions, a hostile cyberattack, and continued scrutiny from the U.S. government, the group announced on September 6 that, after 25 years, it would disband.
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it → Beset → years
“We cannot engage in a fight or expose ourselves to manipulations that threaten the lives of these people and their loved ones, leaving them at the mercy of autocrats, fascists, and agencies that take extra-legal courses of action,” the group wrote in a statement.
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group → engage → statement
“The Autistici/Inventati collective is shutting down and will soon discontinue all of the services we provide.”
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we → shut → services
Publicizing NoBlogs Hack
DataRepublican frequently publishes reports, visualizations, and data leaks that target leftist groups involved in protests and activism across the country.
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that → publicize → country
Before Pounds’s assignment at the Department of War, DataRepublican regularly posted inside information about hacks, nodding to the involvement of other far-right social media personalities, among them AstraRCE.
DataRepublican and AstraRCE were the first people to publicize the NoBlogs hack online.
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DataRepublican → post → hack
Taking a celebratory tone, they linked to and replied to one another’s post.
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they → take → post
In one instance, AstraRCE claimed apparent inside knowledge about the federal government’s possession of internal user data from NoBlogs.
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AstraRCE → claim → NoBlogs
DataRepublican confirmed the claim.
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DataRepublican → confirm → claim
AstraRCE’s initial X post about the hack showed a screenshot of the vandalized NoBlogs homepage, which now displayed a message that said, “All user data has been saved and given to the United States government” — alongside an altered banner that read “TRUMPBLOGS.”
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that → show → TRUMPBLOGS
AstraRCE later offered a mocking congratulations to NoBlogs for its “rebrand.”
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AstraRCE → offer → rebrand
Just four minutes after AstraRCE pointed to the screenshot of the hack, DataRepublican’s X account reposted the image, alongside a caption characterizing NoBlogs as a “platform shared by Antifa and far-left Marxists.”
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account → point → Antifa
“The State Department designed them as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group yesterday,” DataRepublican wrote.
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DataRepublican → design → group
“And now … they’re TrumpBlogs.”
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they → ’re → ?
Later, DataRepublican’s website published a visualization tool that allows users to view thousands of NoBlogs sites dispersed across a map, naming the tool Trumpblogs, in what appears to be a reference to the hack.
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what → publish → hack
Shortly after the tool went online, AstraRCE posted on X to say that the trumpblogs.org domain would now be redirecting to DataRepublican’s site.
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domain → go → site
The Pentagon has thus far declined to reveal what assignment Pounds or other right-wing media influencers have been given, and it’s unknown if activities like producing the visualization tool would be part of these duties.
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activities → decline → duties
(The Department of War did not reply to a request for comment.)
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Department → reply → comment
“They’re hiring people who have a history of sort of dirt digging,” said David Greene, who serves as legal counsel at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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who → hire → Foundation
“And they’re digging for information about their enemies, and both trying to identify their enemies and build dossiers on them.”
Holmes, of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that determining responsibility for cyberattacks like the one that targeted NoBlogs can be incredibly difficult, especially for smaller organizations.
“Attribution is really hard to prove definitively,” Holmes said.
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Holmes → dig → organizations
“But, also, there are a lot of imbalances there because the folks at Autistici don’t necessarily have the ability to perform the type of forensics and response that normally leads to successful attribution, or at least not quickly.”
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that → be → attribution
Partners in Posting
DataRepublican and AstraRCE steer clear in their posts of explicitly claiming responsibility for hacks.
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Partners → steer → hacks
They frequently, however, offer kudos to fellow travelers.
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They → offer → travelers
…and 67 more, not listed.
