Federal agents on Thursday announced the arrest of a suspect charged with planting the two pipe bombs discovered near the US Capitol complex on the eve of January 6, 2021. Authorities identified the man as Brian J. Cole Jr., a resident of Woodbridge, Virginia. The arrest marks a major break in a case that has vexed authorities for nearly five years.

Cole, 30, is charged with transporting an explosive device across state lines with the intent to kill, injure, intimidate, or destroy property and with attempting to damage and destroy the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees by means of an explosive device. If convicted, he would face the prospect of decades in prison.

According to an affidavit, investigators linked Cole to the bombs through a combination of surveillance footage, historical cell-site data, and years of purchase records showing he bought each major component used to construct the devices. Agents allege Cole acquired the same model of galvanized pipe, matching end caps, and nine-volt connectors, among other items, across multiple hardware stores in northern Virginia in 2019 and 2020.

Cole continued buying components used in bomb-making after his bombs in the Capitol were discovered, agents allege, listing the purchase of a white kitchen timer and two nine-volt batteries from a Walmart on January 21, as well as galvanized pipes from Home Depot the following day.

Senior Trump administration officials quickly cast the arrest as a vindication of their own leadership, claiming the case had gone cold. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she hoped the arrest would restore public trust following what she characterized as a “total lack of movement” on a case that had “languished for four years.” In their telling, the breakthrough was proof that the case only advanced once they were empowered to “go get the bad guys” and stop “focusing on other extraneous things,” as FBI deputy director Dan Bongino put it.

“Though it had been nearly five years, our team continued to churn through massive amounts of data and tips that we used to identify this suspect,” said Darren Cox, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division.

The bombs were planted near the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees the night of January 5, 2021, as Congress prepared to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Donald Trump. Both failed to detonate, but their discovery the following day added to the chaos and confusion unfolding as a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol building, causing millions of dollars in damage and injuring approximately 140 Capitol and Metropolitan Police Department officers.

As for Wilcox, he’s long been one of that small group of privacy zealots who buys his SIM cards in cash with a fake name. But he hopes Phreeli will offer an easier path—not just for people like him, but for normies too.

“I don’t know of anybody who’s ever offered this credibly before,” says Wilcox. “Not the usual telecom-strip-mining-your-data phone, not a black-hoodie hacker phone, but a privacy-is-normal phone.”

Even so, enough tech companies have pitched privacy as a feature for their commercial product that jaded consumers may not buy into a for-profit telecom like Phreeli purporting to offer anonymity. But the EFF’s Cohn says that Merrill’s track record shows he’s not just using the fight against surveillance as a marketing gimmick to sell something. “Having watched Nick for a long time, it’s all a means to an end for him,” she says. “And the end is privacy for everyone.”

Merrill may not like the implications of describing Phreeli as a cellular carrier where every phone is a burner phone. But there’s little doubt that some of the company’s customers will use its privacy protections for crime—just as with every surveillance-resistant tool, from Signal to Tor to briefcases of cash.

Phreeli won’t, at least, offer a platform for spammers and robocallers, Merrill says. Even without knowing users’ identities, he says the company will block that kind of bad behavior by limiting how many calls and texts users are allowed, and banning users who appear to be gaming the system. “If people think this is going to be a safe haven for abusing the phone network, that’s not going to work,” Merrill says.

But some customers of his phone company will, to Merrill’s regret, do bad things, he says—just as they sometimes used to with pay phones, that anonymous, cash-based phone service that once existed on every block of American cities. “You put a quarter in, you didn’t need to identify yourself, and you could call whoever you wanted,” he reminisces. “And 99.9 percent of the time, people weren’t doing bad stuff.” The small minority who were, he argues, didn’t justify the involuntary societal slide into the cellular panopticon we all live in today, where a phone call not tied to freely traded data on the caller’s identity is a rare phenomenon.

Three Greater London councils struck by a cyber attack last week are receiving response support from cyber security experts at NCC Group as they continue to pursue multiple investigations into the incident.

The three neighbouring authorities, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), and Westminster City Council – which operate a number of shared systems between them, first identified the incident on 24 November.

Of the three, RBKC has already disclosed that some historical data has been copied and exfiltrated from its systems, although it has not been encrypted or destroyed.

NCC’s teams were deployed alongside the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), London’s Metropolitan Police, and the National Crime Agency (NCA), with its operatives focused primarily on containing the impact of the attack and managing the three councils through the disruption, with a focus on restarting affected systems and public-facing services as soon as possible.

“Attacks on our public services require a diverse team to respond. Our team is working around the clock and under immense pressure as part of a coordinated effort to limit the impact of this incident and to work towards the continued delivery of essential services,” said NCC CEO Mike Maddison.

“As we have seen time and again in similar scenarios, the road to achieving a safe recovery of digital services can be challenging and will take time. This will be a difficult period both for residents in the impacted boroughs and the team members across the tri-borough partnership who are working tirelessly to address this issue,” he added.

Elizabeth Campbell, leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, added: “Being given the news that we are under attack is what no Council leader wants to hear, but like any public body, there was always that possibility.

“To counter this threat, we had invested significantly in our digital, data and technology services and had up to date cyber defence systems. That system worked well mitigating the damage. Our IT team has been fighting back, investigating the cause, and assessing the impact,” she said.

“We are certain that we are taking all the right steps and we are hugely grateful to have the expertise of NCC Group to advise and support us. Their wealth of experience helping the British Library, universities and other authorities recover from cyber attacks is reassuring as we begin to recover and rebuild,” said Campbell.