A Texas grand jury this week indicted a man for using an animated GIF to cause Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald to suffer a seizure, in what could be the first case to legally consider a GIF to be an assault weapon.
Eichenwald, who has epilepsy, suffered a seizure after he received a GIF in December from the defendant, John Rivello, according to the FBI's criminal complaint. The GIF, which Rivello sent via Twitter, contained an animated strobe image embedded with the statement, "You deserve a seizure for your post."
Rivello's tweet was sent shortly after Eichenwald appeared on Fox News to discuss his claim that President Donald Trump was once institutionalized in a mental hospital. As the Washington Post notes, there is no evidence to support that claim.
The FBI arrested Rivello, of Salisbury, Maryland, on Friday and charged him with violating a federal cyberstalking law. A Dallas grand jury indicted him for using Twitter and the GIF as a "deadly weapon," the Post reports.
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Defense attorney Tor Ekeland told NBC News that Rivello's case is likely the first time someone has been indicted for using "the internet as a weapon that causes physical harm."
The case is also noteworthy for how the FBI used cybersleuthing methods to identify Rivello as the perpetrator. Rivello sent the seizure-inducing tweet from a fake account using data from a prepaid SIM card that he purchased with cash, according to the complaint. The FBI obtained the phone number from a search warrant sent to Twitter, which revealed the phone number associated with the fake account.
Agents then requested subscriber data for that phone number from AT&T, the provider of the SIM card. Although there was no subscriber data because the account was prepaid with cash, AT&T records did show that the SIM card was used in an iPhone 6. Yet another search warrant to Apple revealed that the iPhone was linked to Rivello's iCloud account.
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