Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Wired)

When hackers exploited a bug in Parler to download all of the right-wing social media platform's contents last week, they were surprised to find that many of the pictures and videos contained geolocation metadata revealing exactly how many of the site's users had taken part in the invasion of the US Capitol building just days before . But the videos uploaded to Parler also contain an equally sensitive bounty of data sitting in plain sight: thousands of images of unmasked faces, many of whom participated in the Capitol riot. Now one website has done the work of cataloging and publishing every one of those faces in a single, easy-to-browse lineup.

Late last week, a website called Faces of the Riot appeared online, showing nothing but a vast grid of more than 6,000 images of faces, each one tagged only with a string of characters associated with the Parler video in which it appeared. The site's creator tells WIRED that he used simple open source machine learning and facial recognition software to detect, extract, and deduplicate every face from the 827 videos that were posted to Parler from inside and outside the Capitol building on January 6, the day when radicalized Trump supporters stormed the building in a riot that resulted in five people's deaths. The creator of Faces of the Riot says his goal is to allow anyone to easily sort through the faces pulled from those videos to identify someone they may know or recognize who took part in the mob, or even to reference the collected faces against FBI wanted posters and send a tip to law enforcement if they spot someone.

Enlarge / Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC July 29, 2020. (credit: Getty | Graeme Jennings )

A second lawmaker announced that she has tested positive for COVID-19 days after bunkering with Republican colleagues who “recklessly” and “cruelly” refused to wear a mask amid the attack on the Capitol building.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) revealed her positive test late Monday in a scathing statement , linking her infection to the events of January 6 and blasting her colleagues across the aisle for putting others’ health at risk.

“Too many Republicans have refused to take this pandemic and virus seriously, and in doing so, they endanger everyone around them. Only hours after President Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, our country, and our democracy, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic—creating a superspreader event on top of a domestic terrorist attack,” Jayapal said in the statement.

Enlarge / Workers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) clean an entry to the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2021. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg )

The attending physician to Congress on Sunday sent an alert to lawmakers warning them that they may have been exposed to the pandemic coronavirus while huddled in a safe room during last Wednesday’s violent insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of President Trump.

As Ars has previously reported , there was clear risk of mass disease spread at the insurrection. Mostly maskless rioters not following social distancing recommendations may have spread the virus amongst themselves and to lawmakers as they rallied and stormed the Capitol building. In addition, lawmakers and staff who likewise eschew basic public health guidance added to the risk of a superspreading event as members of Congress hunkered down together during the attack.

In the Sunday email alert sent to all members of Congress, attending physician Brian Monahan focused on the latter risk, writing:

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

Twitter has permanently suspended President Donald Trump's personal Twitter account due to repeated incitement of violence, the company announced Friday night.

"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them—specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter—we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," Twitter said in a company blog post this evening.

On Wednesday, in the wake of the insurrectionist violence at the US Capitol, Twitter gave Trump a 12-hour suspension and required him to delete three tweets that it saw as continuing to promote, endorse, or glorify the violent event.

Enlarge / The seditionists who broke into the US Capitol on Wednesday were not particularly subtle and did not put any particular effort into avoiding being identified. (credit: Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images )

Law enforcement agencies trying to track down insurrectionists who participated in yesterday's events at the US Capitol have a wide array of tools at their disposal thanks to the ubiquity of cameras and social media.

Both local police and the FBI are seeking information about individuals who were "actively instigating violence" in Washington, DC, on January 6. While media organizations took thousands of photos police can use, they also have more advanced technologies at their disposal to identify participants, following what several other agencies have done in recent months.

Several police departments, such as Miami, Philadelphia, and New York City, turned to facial recognition platforms —including the highly controversial Clearview AI —during the widespread summer 2020 demonstrations against police brutality and in support of Black communities. In Philadelphia, for example, police used software to compare protest footage against Instagram photos to identify and arrest a protestor. In November, The Washington Post reported that investigators from 14 local and federal agencies in the DC area have used a powerful facial recognition system more than 12,000 times since 2019.

Enlarge / A mask is left behind in a hallway at the US Capitol January 7, 2021, in Washington, DC. The US Congress has finished the certification for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' Electoral College win after pro-Trump mobs stormed the Capitol and temporarily stopped the process. (credit: Getty | Alex Wong )

Yesterday's disgraceful and violent insurrection will stand as one of the darkest moments in American history. But it could also be yet another dark point in the ongoing pandemic, which—in case you got distracted—is still spreading out of control and devastating much of the country.

As marauders entered the United States Capitol building Wednesday, health officials around the country logged more than 243,000 new cases of COVID-19. Hospitals tallied nearly 132,500 COVID-19 patients in their beds. And at least 3,793 American lost their lives to the pandemic virus. With surge upon surge of disease, over 21 million people in the US have been infected and over 352,000 loved ones are dead.

Fuel on the inferno

The pandemic did not pause for those in the District of Columbia on Wednesday. Like many places, Washington has seen an increase in cases and deaths amid winter holidays. During the president's insurrection, the capital reported 316 new cases—a sharp rise from the seven-day rolling average of 86 new cases per day logged on November 1. There were also five new deaths Wednesday, up from an average of one November 1. Overall, the city of more than 700,000 residents has reported a total of nearly 30,500 cases and over 800 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.