WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.920 JACK: When I was a teenager, I was really into skateboarding. Often-time I’d go with my friends 00:00:04.920 --> 00:00:10.760 and roll around behind buildings or in drainage ditches or at abandoned stores. Pretty much 00:00:10.760 --> 00:00:17.560 wherever we’d go skate was a place where no one was around. But one day a kid a few years older 00:00:17.560 --> 00:00:24.240 than me showed up to where my friend and I were skating. He came up looking all tough and told us 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:30.200 to give him our skateboards, not in a ‘hey, let me show you a trick’ kinda way, but more like ‘give 00:00:30.200 --> 00:00:34.840 it to me or else’ kinda way. [MUSIC] But then he got right up on top of me and shoved me off 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:40.360 my board. He went to pick up my skateboard, but my friend pushed him from behind and he fell over. I 00:00:40.360 --> 00:00:46.080 grabbed my skateboard; my friend and I took off as fast as we could skate. The guy got up and started 00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:52.320 chasing us. We got to the street which was pretty busy, but we darted across traffic in a crazy, 00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:56.800 dangerous kinda way. The older kid was right behind us, running through traffic, too. 00:00:56.800 --> 00:01:01.800 I saw there was a bank across the street, so I told my friend head for that. We jumped off 00:01:01.800 --> 00:01:05.160 our boards, picked them up, and ran right to the door of the bank, opened it up, 00:01:05.160 --> 00:01:10.480 went inside, and sat down in the waiting area. The other kid came in, looked around; 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:15.160 he saw us and walked over. He looked around real quick and then back at me. He looked me 00:01:15.160 --> 00:01:20.960 in the eyes and then punched me in the face, and then ran out of there. It’s moments like 00:01:20.960 --> 00:01:26.320 these that define us. I learned that day that I’m not the fighting type, 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:31.480 but I also learned that I don’t like giving my stuff up to a bully. Hell no. What’s mine is 00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:36.680 mine. Even after taking a punch to the face, I didn’t give him my skateboard. At least I 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:43.480 know that much about me. But what I don’t know is how many punches in the face I would take before 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:53.657 giving it up. Everyone’s got a breaking point when it comes to protecting our personal possessions. 00:01:53.657 --> 00:01:56.040 (INTRO): [INTRO MUSIC] These are true stories from the dark side of 00:01:56.040 --> 00:02:19.396 the internet. I’m Jack Rhysider. This is Darknet Diaries. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] 00:02:19.396 --> 00:02:20.480 JW: Happy Thursday. 00:02:20.480 --> 00:02:26.840 JACK: Happy Thursday, yes. So, you started your Twitter account when? 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:33.320 JW: Oh, gosh. What year did Twitter launch? ‘06, 00:02:33.320 --> 00:02:38.680 ‘07? Somewhere – six months, five months after it launched, originally. 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:45.400 JACK: This is JW. At least, that’s what he goes by on Twitter. JW is just a two-letter 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:51.280 username which is rare indeed. He created it just months after Twitter launched, which is 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:56.040 why he was able to grab it. Not many users were on the site back then. JW works as a software 00:02:56.040 --> 00:03:00.480 designer and has done a lot of work for different mobile applications, so he’s a bit of an early 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:05.880 adopter when it comes to things like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, which launched in 2006. 00:03:05.880 --> 00:03:13.200 JW: The internet was a smaller place. It was just a small community and I didn’t know personally 00:03:13.200 --> 00:03:20.480 the team behind Twitter, but I knew people who knew them. So it’s just, you try it out, 00:03:20.480 --> 00:03:24.880 everything that people put out on the web. Like oh, that looks cool; let’s give it a shot. 00:03:24.880 --> 00:03:27.220 JACK: Twitter was really different back then, too. 00:03:27.220 --> 00:03:35.680 JW: Because Twitter was text-based and the limitation was the number of characters that you 00:03:35.680 --> 00:03:43.600 could fit into an SMS, which again was originally the 140 characters that Twitter became known for, 00:03:43.600 --> 00:03:51.200 your username came out of that count. So, there was an incentive to have a short username. It 00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:57.040 made – gave people the ability to effectively send a few more characters your direction if 00:03:57.040 --> 00:04:01.640 they didn’t have to use so many characters in their username. So, what’s the shortest 00:04:01.640 --> 00:04:06.700 possible way that someone could reach me? My initials, you know. So, let’s roll with JW. 00:04:06.700 --> 00:04:12.040 JACK: He was able to snag the same handle, JW, for his Instagram when it came out, too, 00:04:12.040 --> 00:04:16.360 giving him two super-short usernames on two of the biggest social media platforms 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:22.160 around. They just weren’t big yet. As time went on, JW started meeting others 00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:25.980 who had snagged two-letter usernames too, and he got to know some of them. 00:04:25.980 --> 00:04:31.880 JW: I know of several other two-letter usernames, 00:04:31.880 --> 00:04:37.320 and there’s a little bit of a –I’ll say a club, if you will, of – there’s some cache of like oh, 00:04:37.320 --> 00:04:40.746 you were around early enough to grab one of those really short ones. 00:04:40.746 --> 00:04:45.120 JACK: [MUSIC] Now, having a short two-letter handle like this is sought-after. It’s coveted. 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:51.400 A lot of people wish they had a short username, but JW was taken and nobody seemed to bother him 00:04:51.400 --> 00:04:58.600 about that fact, at least not for the first ten years of him having it. But after a long time of 00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:04.140 him actively using the accounts, he started to get some more direct messages about it. 00:05:04.140 --> 00:05:10.880 JW: At some point maybe five or six years ago, I noticed an uptick in DMs from randos 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:16.680 that are just like oh, hey, would you give me your username? Would you sell me your username? Again, 00:05:16.680 --> 00:05:23.800 it being JW, inevitably there’d be a John White and a James Wilson and a Jeremiah Wilcot, 00:05:23.800 --> 00:05:29.480 and everybody wants JW. They’re all looking for the initials there. 00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:34.080 JACK: Of course, JW wasn’t interested in giving his username to someone else. He really liked 00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:40.320 it. It was important to him. But the messages started coming in more and more, and at some point 00:05:40.320 --> 00:05:44.720 he got tired of answering all these people, and he just stopped responding altogether. 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:50.560 JW: I don’t reply to any of them. You get a couple a day and you just kinda 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:54.980 shrug it off and they all go into the other inbox anyhow. You don’t pay attention to it. 00:05:54.980 --> 00:06:00.160 JACK: Then he starts getting contacted not just by individuals but also by random companies and 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:04.600 brands saying hey, we’d like to buy your username. Let’s make a deal. At one point, 00:06:04.600 --> 00:06:10.040 he was even offered $5,000 for his Instagram name which flattered him, 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:12.580 but he turned it down by just not responding at all. 00:06:12.580 --> 00:06:18.320 JW: I just never had any interest. I had enough vested in the username online due 00:06:18.320 --> 00:06:22.280 to my usage across these networks, so I’ve never given that any thought. 00:06:22.280 --> 00:06:27.520 JACK: By 2017 or ‘18, the messages started to get more aggressive. People would private 00:06:27.520 --> 00:06:33.440 message him and say hey, I really want this handle. Why won’t you give it to me and why 00:06:33.440 --> 00:06:39.000 won’t you respond to my messages? It was around this time that JW started noticing other people 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:44.040 with short usernames getting the same kind of treatment. It wasn’t his name in particular; 00:06:44.040 --> 00:06:46.280 it was all names that were short and desirable. 00:06:46.280 --> 00:06:53.760 JW: I had a friend three or four years ago who had a very short Instagram name who – 00:06:53.760 --> 00:07:01.260 someone had attempted to SIM-swap his phone number in order to gain access to his handle. 00:07:01.260 --> 00:07:08.600 JACK: Uh, whoa. That’s getting a bit extreme now. SIM-swapping is when someone contacts your phone 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:14.080 company pretending to be you so they can move your phone number to their phone without your 00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:18.160 knowledge. Then once they have control of your phone number, they can go about resetting your 00:07:18.160 --> 00:07:23.440 passwords on Instagram, your e-mail, or whatever and take control of your accounts. Basically, 00:07:23.440 --> 00:07:28.600 someone tried to steal his friend’s Instagram account by hacking his phone number. Obviously, 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:33.480 this is all unsettling, to suddenly have your phone not working and realize someone else has 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:38.960 control of your phone number. But JW felt lucky because in his situation, 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:44.240 nobody was SIM-swapping him and he was just ignoring all the requests that people sent him, 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:51.480 hoping they’d get the hint and go away. But instead, things started to get strange. 00:07:51.480 --> 00:08:00.280 JW: Sometime spring of last year, so this would have been February-ish of 2020, 00:08:00.280 --> 00:08:06.400 I woke up one morning and I had a message from my mom on my phone. She lives back 00:08:06.400 --> 00:08:15.560 in Texas. It was effectively a hey, give me a call. Did you try to have pizzas delivered to 00:08:15.560 --> 00:08:19.520 us this morning? [MUSIC] I called her back. I’m like, what’s up? She’s like well, yeah, 00:08:19.520 --> 00:08:23.840 the pizza delivery guy is here. I can’t remember if it was Pizza Hut or Dominoes 00:08:23.840 --> 00:08:32.720 or whatnot. They said you wanted to deliver pizzas to us. I thought well, that’s weird. No, 00:08:32.720 --> 00:08:41.240 I didn’t send you pizzas. I definitely had a little bit of a spidey – it was one of those like, 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:45.120 this feels like a social engineering sort of thing that someone would pull, either trying 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:53.360 to get credit card numbers or a social security number. It smelled funny so I was like, don’t take 00:08:53.360 --> 00:08:58.920 any pizzas. I didn’t send any pizzas. Don’t give them any personal information. Send them back. 00:08:58.920 --> 00:09:04.720 JACK: JW hangs up the phone and is a bit confused and just weirded out by that. Whatever was going 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:11.240 on wasn’t clear. A pizza was delivered for his name but to his mom’s house who’s in 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:17.840 another state? That’s what happened, but why, and what does it mean? Was it a strange error? 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:24.240 Maybe. Was it someone screwing with him? Maybe. But none of this made sense to him. 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:32.960 JW: Then an hour later, I get a call or a text from my uncle who lives in a different city also 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:39.960 in Texas, and got the same thing; hey, did you send your grandfather and I some pizzas? We got 00:09:39.960 --> 00:09:44.880 Dominoes here. They’re wanting to deliver these pizzas. I’m like no, don’t take the 00:09:44.880 --> 00:09:52.960 pizzas. I don’t know what this is, but somebody’s trying to get some information from us. Again, 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:56.800 it’s – you work in tech long enough, you realize everything – there’s always a scam 00:09:56.800 --> 00:10:04.360 being run somewhere. So, that was weird and it was definitely one of those like, 00:10:04.360 --> 00:10:09.220 you were aware that somebody was trying to find some angle on you. 00:10:09.220 --> 00:10:14.240 JACK: Yeah, this is definitely getting weird; now two pizzas to two of his 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:19.720 family members. That’s freaky. On top of all this, the pandemic was just starting, 00:10:19.720 --> 00:10:27.240 so the world seemed scary and out of control. But then again, it’s just pizza. No one got hurt, 00:10:27.240 --> 00:10:35.200 no one got threatened, so maybe it was just some kind of weird prank. A few weeks go by and things 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:41.720 quiet down. No more strange pizzas and no clear message from anyone explaining why these pizzas 00:10:41.720 --> 00:10:48.560 came. April rolls in and so does the pandemic. People were home a lot more at this point, 00:10:48.560 --> 00:10:53.000 and you should know that JW is married and has kids, and they all live with 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:58.500 him. His daughter is a teenager and one night, something happened while everyone was at home. 00:10:58.500 --> 00:11:06.120 JW: It was about 8:00. I live in a small town, Northern California. We were working a puzzle 00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:11.920 as one did during the first couple weeks of Covid. We were doing a puzzle; my kids were 00:11:11.920 --> 00:11:18.200 in their room. My oldest daughter and my wife were shopping for some stuff online [MUSIC] 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:24.480 and my phone buzzed a couple times. Because we were doing stuff, I didn’t even flip it over to 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:30.160 take stock of who was trying to get ahold of me. A few minutes after my phone had buzzed, 00:11:30.160 --> 00:11:38.640 all of a sudden, my daughter’s phone rang and she picked it up and said hello or whatever, 00:11:38.640 --> 00:11:45.520 and ran – just bolted for the front door, ran out the front door. We called after her; 00:11:45.520 --> 00:11:51.280 I thought, what are you doing? She’s early in her teens and I thought well, that’s weird. 00:11:51.280 --> 00:11:55.440 One of her friends must have said something or done something, and she went out the door. 00:11:55.440 --> 00:12:01.920 JACK: A few minutes pass and JW’s daughter still hasn’t come back inside. But she’s a teenager, 00:12:01.920 --> 00:12:03.800 so who knows what she’s up to out there? 00:12:03.800 --> 00:12:10.080 JW: So, I continued working the puzzle and about five minutes later, my phone buzzes 00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:18.600 again. This time I did flip it over, and it was my daughter calling me, presumably from outside. 00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:25.280 I pick it up and say, you know, what’s up? She says – her voice is all trembling. She says dad, 00:12:25.280 --> 00:12:30.080 you gotta – you need to come outside right now. The police are here. I was like well, 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:34.960 what? What do they want? She’s like dad, just come outside; the police are here. So, 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:40.120 I go to the front door which again is still kinda cracked open, and I walk out on the front porch. 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:49.920 I’m greeted with a floodlight shining in my eyes and a bunch of officers with their rifles 00:12:49.920 --> 00:12:58.840 trained on me. They say sir, put your hands in the air, hands in the air. I was just flabbergasted. 00:12:58.840 --> 00:13:05.600 JACK: There were over forty officers in JW’s front yard and in the street right 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:12.200 in front of his house, and they all had their weapons drawn and pointed right at him. This 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:20.720 is such an intense and scary situation for anyone to be in. JW had no idea why any of 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:26.880 these cops were here and why they were all so focused heavily on him. But on top of that, 00:13:26.880 --> 00:13:31.320 he lives in a small town which didn’t even have this many cops total. So, 00:13:31.320 --> 00:13:36.440 it meant that county and state police were present, and the highway patrol was there, 00:13:36.440 --> 00:13:43.720 and even a SWAT team. They were all heavily armed and ready to shoot at JW for any reason. 00:13:43.720 --> 00:13:50.760 JW: The first words out of my mouth were have I been swatted? It was a little bit incredulous, 00:13:50.760 --> 00:13:56.680 ‘cause why on earth would there be a bunch of police in my yard with guns pointed at me? 00:13:56.680 --> 00:14:01.880 I was familiar with the idea of swatting. I had heard about it happening in the gaming community, 00:14:01.880 --> 00:14:07.320 and I had no idea why it would be happening to me, but that was – those were the first words out of 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:15.920 my mouth. You could see the collective shoulder sigh of all these officers. 00:14:15.920 --> 00:14:22.040 JACK: This diffuses some of the tension, but the officers were still very fixed on JW, 00:14:22.040 --> 00:14:27.160 and they were clearly here for him. They tell him to put his hands on his head and 00:14:27.160 --> 00:14:31.960 walk backwards towards them. They frisk him and [MUSIC] search him for weapons, 00:14:31.960 --> 00:14:33.640 then they start asking him some questions. 00:14:33.640 --> 00:14:39.440 JW: Where is your wife? Where are your kids? My wife’s inside. My other two 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:47.240 kids are inside doing whatever. They said, we’ve received a call that you murdered your 00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:53.840 wife and that the house is doused in gasoline and you’re holding your kids hostage. We’re 00:14:53.840 --> 00:15:04.100 gonna need to clear it. I mean, even just playing this back now, it’s just surreal. 00:15:04.100 --> 00:15:10.200 JACK: So, they sent officers and some sniffing dogs into the house to check out the situation. 00:15:10.200 --> 00:15:15.440 Of course, they find his wife and kids are all fine and there’s no gasoline in the house. 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:20.300 While that’s all going on, an officer starts to explain more details of the call they received. 00:15:20.300 --> 00:15:27.280 JW: They explained to me that they’ve received a phone call from my phone number claiming to be me, 00:15:27.280 --> 00:15:34.640 that it said, again, I’ve killed my wife, my kids are locked in the bathroom and I’ve covered the 00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:42.720 house in gasoline, and if you try to come in, I’m gonna kill cops. That was the message that 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:53.640 they told 911 when they called in under my name. So, when you say I’m gonna kill cops, 00:15:53.640 --> 00:16:02.000 that puts everybody on edge. They obviously came prepared for the worst. 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:08.040 JACK: Jeez, it’s incredible that more didn’t go wrong in this situation. Whether it was 00:16:08.040 --> 00:16:14.040 JW or his daughter who ran out the door, one bad read on this situation or incorrect move, 00:16:14.040 --> 00:16:18.480 and this could have ended in tragedy. Oh, and if you were wondering why the 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:22.120 daughter went outside first, it turns out she got a text from a neighbor 00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:26.040 asking why police were pulling up to our house. She went out and almost surprised 00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:29.040 them before they were actually ready, and they got her away from the house. 00:16:29.040 --> 00:16:34.120 JW: Credit to her for keeping a level head, because I think that helped diffuse 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:40.200 the situation in a well, no, my dad in fact has not killed my mom and he is, 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:46.680 in fact, inside the house doing a puzzle and not burying the place in gasoline. 00:16:46.680 --> 00:16:53.760 JACK: By this point, the police have realized JW wasn’t a manic killer and he indeed got swatted. 00:16:53.760 --> 00:16:58.720 That is, someone spoofed his phone number, impersonated him, and gave his name and address 00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:04.520 and reported a false emergency so the SWAT team would come scare him. But now that the police 00:17:04.520 --> 00:17:09.400 understood this, they put their weapons away and went inside the house to talk with the family. 00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:15.120 JW: We all went back inside and the local officer is like well, this swatting stuff happens. Do you 00:17:15.120 --> 00:17:22.080 have any enemies? Asking my kids, do you have – are there people at school that you’re – that you 00:17:22.080 --> 00:17:29.400 might be upset with? Asked my kids, do you play any games? Of course, my son is like well, yes; my 00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:35.760 dad and I play Mario. I’m just like, I don’t think that’s – that’s not what they’re talking about. 00:17:35.760 --> 00:17:40.960 JACK: As far as I know, nobody’s been swatted over Mario, but when online competitive games get 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:45.920 serious, people do become so enraged that they swat another player in the game. But this was 00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:52.840 not what JW or his family was involved with, so he tried coming up with any other reason why he might 00:17:52.840 --> 00:18:00.160 have been swatted, which put his family in danger and all this. But nothing came to mind. He doesn’t 00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:05.760 have enemies or rivals in the world that would be so mad at him that they would do this to him. 00:18:05.760 --> 00:18:12.920 JW: It was at that moment, somehow just wracking your brain on why would somebody do this, that 00:18:12.920 --> 00:18:19.880 my wife kinda point-blank asks [MUSIC] could this have anything to do with the pizzas? Could this be 00:18:19.880 --> 00:18:25.240 something to do with your Instagram name? It was one of those like, well, that’s a – sounds weird, 00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:32.640 but that’s a reasonable thought. So, I popped open my phone and I open Instagram. At the 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:40.440 top of my messages, there was a message from an individual with the username SIMswapper that said 00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:47.160 if you don’t give me your username, I know where you live and I’m going to continue to harass you 00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:54.400 and your wife and your children, and they left my address. At this point I showed it to the police 00:18:54.400 --> 00:19:02.280 officer and my wife opened up her Instagram. She herself had a message from the same individual, 00:19:02.280 --> 00:19:07.240 and her message said here’s your address, and if you don’t convince your husband to 00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:13.640 give me his username, JW, I’m gonna continue to harass you and your kids. 00:19:13.640 --> 00:19:18.760 JACK: There it is; the message was finally clear. The pizzas and the 00:19:18.760 --> 00:19:27.080 SWAT incident was all because someone else wanted his username. Unbelievable. This is 00:19:27.080 --> 00:19:31.460 a serious crime that they just committed so they could bully him out of his username. 00:19:31.460 --> 00:19:34.920 JW: Like, really? Someone would swat you over your username? Of course, 00:19:34.920 --> 00:19:40.000 for me, I kinda feel the same way. This is the dumbest thing. Also, just never mind the fact 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:45.680 that you could have had somebody killed. Like, my daughter could be dead. My kids 00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:52.560 are processing. You’re a half-step away from like, something goes wrong and someone’s dead, 00:19:52.560 --> 00:20:00.460 and that’s a real – that’s a very real thought that we were all processing in that moment. 00:20:00.460 --> 00:20:06.800 JACK: The police leave and JW’s heart rate returns to normal. He had a smart watch on at the time 00:20:06.800 --> 00:20:10.480 which actually measured his heart rate, and he remembers looking at the data from that night. 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:16.160 JW: At 8:15 there’s a spike where – whatever my normal rate is, is 80, 00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:19.640 89 resting, where it goes to 150 just like that. 00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:25.320 JACK: We’re gonna take a quick break but stay with us because after the break, the investigation 00:20:25.320 --> 00:20:31.840 begins. JW can’t believe all this happened to him, but he starts thinking about his other 00:20:31.840 --> 00:20:37.040 friends who also have short usernames, and so he starts messaging them to tell them what happened. 00:20:37.040 --> 00:20:41.320 JW: I text and say hey, this happened to me. Somebody sent my family member pizzas 00:20:41.320 --> 00:20:46.520 a couple weeks ago and I was swatted tonight, and this is really messed up and it appears 00:20:46.520 --> 00:20:54.560 to be over my username. This friend immediately messages me back and his message his holy shit, 00:20:54.560 --> 00:21:01.800 I’ve been getting pizzas sent to my house for the past two weeks. That was 00:21:01.800 --> 00:21:07.400 one of those chills-up-your-spine moment and I was like well, man, 00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:12.867 what – you know. It didn’t end well here. So, this friend is like well, I know X, 00:21:12.867 --> 00:21:19.040 Y, Z other people who also have common usernames or short usernames, and within a couple minutes, 00:21:19.040 --> 00:21:27.200 we’ve spun up a text thread and it turns out – we found seven people right off the bat that are 00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:36.160 also receiving pizzas. It’s at this moment that it’s one of those like, oh, this is a thing. 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:41.040 JACK: Together, JW and this texting group start sharing as much information 00:21:41.040 --> 00:21:45.840 as they can with one another, trying to find patterns in these threats. At the same time, 00:21:45.840 --> 00:21:49.800 they also opened up a case with the FBI, and they’re feeding the FBI information. People are 00:21:49.800 --> 00:21:54.120 sharing screenshots of messages and numbers that they’ve been receiving, and they start putting 00:21:54.120 --> 00:21:59.400 all these pieces together. JW’s friends also contacted their local police saying hey, look, 00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:03.640 I might get swatted and you should know I’m not a dangerous person and would never do something like 00:22:03.640 --> 00:22:10.440 that. Sure enough, just after they told the police that, one of his friends got swatted. Because he 00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:15.480 tipped off the police early, this really made the case that this is a serious problem going around, 00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:20.160 that someone is willing to commit a string of crimes to get usernames for a particular 00:22:20.160 --> 00:22:25.280 group of people. So, the FBI was more interested in the case after that incident. 00:22:25.280 --> 00:22:30.680 [MUSIC] Now, when someone dials 911, the call is recorded, and the feds were reviewing these calls, 00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:37.320 looking for patterns. The feds noticed that it was the same voice on the 911 calls that JW and 00:22:37.320 --> 00:22:41.800 his friends were getting. There was evidence suggesting that this was all orchestrated 00:22:41.800 --> 00:22:47.760 by a small group of people, like two or three. Whoever was behind this wasn’t slowing down. They 00:22:47.760 --> 00:22:53.080 continued to harass more people over their Twitter and Instagram names. You might be wondering why 00:22:53.080 --> 00:22:57.600 these people would be so interested in getting these usernames; well, it’s because there’s a 00:22:57.600 --> 00:23:02.720 market for this kind of thing. There are websites out there which you can list and sell short and 00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:08.800 special user accounts for social media sites. A short, two-letter username might go for $5,000, 00:23:08.800 --> 00:23:15.640 $10,000, maybe as high as $100,000. So, people sometimes go to great lengths to get control 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:21.640 of these usernames and then put them on the gray market and sell them to make thousands of dollars. 00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:27.240 This has opened up a whole new world of criminal behavior; hacking into accounts and changing 00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:32.680 passwords, SIM-swapping people to try to gain access to an account, or straight-up bullying 00:23:32.680 --> 00:23:38.200 and harassment. If you get enough creepy pizza deliveries or even swatting attempts, 00:23:38.200 --> 00:23:43.560 eventually you’ll want it to stop and may just give in to the bullying. Everyone has 00:23:43.560 --> 00:23:50.360 a breaking point. So, that’s the problem. These people were harassing these people to 00:23:50.360 --> 00:23:55.960 try to get their accounts to sell and make money from it. I assume it was working, 00:23:55.960 --> 00:24:00.800 because they kept going. They were sending more pizzas to more people, and they were doing it by 00:24:00.800 --> 00:24:05.680 just ordering online and telling the pizza shop that it’ll be paid on delivery. You might wonder 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:11.360 how they knew these people’s addresses. Well, it’s no surprise that so much of our data is out there. 00:24:11.360 --> 00:24:15.600 If you have someone’s full name, you can probably pop it into a people search and get tons of 00:24:15.600 --> 00:24:20.440 information on it. But if you know where they work or what city they’re in or what age they are, 00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:25.280 that’ll help you even more. From there, you can get their full address, phone number, 00:24:25.280 --> 00:24:31.000 date of birth, e-mail addresses, and more. In my opinion, we’re living in a time where 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:36.960 our personal information is spilling all over the place, polluting the internet, 00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:42.680 and it’s going to be incredibly hard to fix when the next generation wakes up and demands 00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:49.520 this stop. But the current reality is that it’s extremely easy to get information on any person 00:24:49.520 --> 00:25:00.440 today, which as you can see, can be horribly exploited. One week after JW’s swatting incident, 00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:07.800 the same person that swatted him tried to swat another person. Here’s the actual 911 call. 00:25:07.800 --> 00:25:10.720 OPERATOR1: This is Elena. How can I help you? 00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:13.980 IMPOSTER: Ma’am, I just shot someone. 00:25:13.980 --> 00:25:17.060 OPERATOR1: You just shot somebody? What’s your address? 00:25:17.060 --> 00:25:21.478 IMPOSTER: Yes, ma’am. 00:25:21.478 --> 00:25:21.511 OPERATOR1: What’s your address? 00:25:21.511 --> 00:25:21.549 IMPOSTER: I’m at 53 [CENSORED] Road. 00:25:21.549 --> 00:25:22.640 OPERATOR1: Can you spell that for me? 00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:25.200 IMPOSTER: I’m gonna fucking kill myself, ma’am. 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:27.680 OPERATOR1: Hold on, hold on. I need to know; who is it that you shot? 00:25:27.680 --> 00:25:31.920 IMPOSTER: Some girl I met on an app. 00:25:31.920 --> 00:25:34.500 OPERATOR1: Okay. Is she still breathing? 00:25:34.500 --> 00:25:37.023 IMPOSTER: No, ma’am. She’s dead. 00:25:37.023 --> 00:25:38.320 OPERATOR1: Okay, are you sure she’s dead? 00:25:38.320 --> 00:25:39.429 IMPOSTER: [Inaudible] twenty minutes ago. Dead. 00:25:39.429 --> 00:25:41.840 OPERATOR1: You saw her twenty minutes ago? 00:25:41.840 --> 00:25:43.480 IMPOSTER: Yes. 00:25:43.480 --> 00:25:47.500 OPERATOR1: Do you know why you shot her? 00:25:47.500 --> 00:25:51.500 IMPOSTER: I don’t know, ma’am. 00:25:51.500 --> 00:25:53.780 OPERATOR1: Okay, and what is your name? 00:25:53.780 --> 00:25:55.880 IMPOSTER: My name’s Mark. 00:25:55.880 --> 00:25:57.680 OPERATOR1: I’m sorry, what? 00:25:57.680 --> 00:25:59.960 IMPOSTER: Mark. 00:25:59.960 --> 00:26:01.900 OPERATOR1: Mark, what’s your last name? 00:26:01.900 --> 00:26:06.000 IMPOSTER: Herring. I just want to kill myself, ma’am. 00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:08.480 OPERATOR1: I need you to stay on the phone with me, okay? 00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:08.949 IMPOSTER: I can’t take this anymore. 00:26:08.949 --> 00:26:10.332 OPERATOR1: I need you to stay on the phone with me. 00:26:10.332 --> 00:26:11.040 IMPOSTER: I don’t want to go to jail. 00:26:11.040 --> 00:26:14.900 OPERATOR1: Mark, what’s your phone number that you’re calling from? 00:26:14.900 --> 00:26:19.469 IMPOSTER: I don’t know at this moment, ma’am. 00:26:19.469 --> 00:26:21.400 OPERATOR1: What’s the girl’s name? 00:26:21.400 --> 00:26:24.300 IMPOSTER: I don’t know. I met her on an app. 00:26:24.300 --> 00:26:26.849 OPERATOR1: You met her on an ad? 00:26:26.849 --> 00:26:29.240 IMPOSTER: [Inaudible] and then we hooked up and I killed her. 00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:33.120 OPERATOR1: Okay. Do you know where she came from? 00:26:33.120 --> 00:26:35.520 IMPOSTER: No, ma’am. 00:26:35.520 --> 00:26:36.150 OPERATOR1: Okay. 00:26:36.150 --> 00:26:39.640 IMPOSTER: I can’t remember. It is a few kilometers away. 00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:43.940 OPERATOR1: Okay. How long – it’s a few kilometers away? 00:26:43.940 --> 00:26:47.060 IMPOSTER: Yes. That’s what it said on the app. 00:26:47.060 --> 00:26:50.300 OPERATOR1: Okay, where are you calling from? 00:26:50.300 --> 00:26:53.240 IMPOSTER: I’m calling from the house, ma’am. 00:26:53.240 --> 00:26:55.200 OPERATOR1: You’re calling from where? 00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:56.700 IMPOSTER: The house. 00:26:56.700 --> 00:26:59.880 OPERATOR1: Okay, and what’s your house? What’s your house address? 00:26:59.880 --> 00:27:03.800 IMPOSTER: I already said, ma’am. It’s 53 [CENSORED] Road. 00:27:03.800 --> 00:27:08.440 OPERATOR1: You said that she came from a few kilometers away? 00:27:08.440 --> 00:27:11.520 IMPOSTER: That’s what it said on the app. I don’t know if it’s right or not, 00:27:11.520 --> 00:27:15.720 but it – that’s what it said. You asked where she came from, 00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:22.600 so I’m just telling you what it said, ma’am. I just want to kill myself. 00:27:22.600 --> 00:27:23.240 OPERATOR1: Okay. 00:27:23.240 --> 00:27:23.960 IMPOSTER: I can’t… 00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:25.960 OPERATOR1: Where’s the weapon right now? 00:27:25.960 --> 00:27:29.240 IMPOSTER: It is by my side, ma’am. 00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:32.440 OPERATOR1: Is there anybody else in the house with you? 00:27:32.440 --> 00:27:37.140 IMPOSTER: No, no. I’m gonna blow this place all up, ma’am. I can’t do this. 00:27:37.140 --> 00:27:39.880 OPERATOR1: Are there any other weapons with you? 00:27:39.880 --> 00:27:44.150 IMPOSTER: No. Just a pipe bomb that’s from [inaudible] gun. 00:27:44.150 --> 00:27:46.840 OPERATOR1: Where is the pipe bomb? 00:27:46.840 --> 00:27:54.760 IMPOSTER: I put it at both doors; in the back and at the front. Ma’am, I’m gonna 00:27:54.760 --> 00:28:01.100 go now. I’m gonna go kill myself. I can’t do this anymore. I just don’t want to go to jail. 00:28:01.100 --> 00:28:03.678 OPERATOR1: Okay, okay. Well, I want you to stay on the phone with me. 00:28:03.678 --> 00:28:03.700 IMPOSTER: [Inaudible]. 00:28:03.700 --> 00:28:05.560 OPERATOR1: What was your last name again? 00:28:05.560 --> 00:28:07.140 IMPOSTER: Herring. 00:28:07.140 --> 00:28:10.240 OPERATOR1: How do you spell your last name? 00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:12.790 IMPOSTER: H-E-R-R-I-N-G. 00:28:12.790 --> 00:28:18.800 JACK: That’s what a swatting call looks like. That was not Mark Herring who made this call. 00:28:18.800 --> 00:28:25.360 That was someone in the UK. This was a prank call. Mark is from Tennessee and was sixty 00:28:25.360 --> 00:28:29.800 years old in 2020 when this happened. Strangely enough, just before this, 00:28:29.800 --> 00:28:34.520 a few unwanted pizzas arrived at Mark’s home. Well, despite the slip-up of the 00:28:34.520 --> 00:28:38.920 person saying kilometers instead of miles, this call was still convincing enough for 00:28:38.920 --> 00:28:46.000 the dispatcher to call in all available units to rush over to Mark Herring’s house. But who 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:50.100 is this Mark Herring guy? Well, here’s an interview I found of him from 2002. 00:28:50.100 --> 00:28:53.840 HOST: You know, when would you say that you first 00:28:53.840 --> 00:28:57.880 found out that there are these things called BBSs out there? 00:28:57.880 --> 00:29:04.520 MARK: I remember it was January of 1979. I had just started at becoming a consultant, 00:29:04.520 --> 00:29:10.800 computer consultant. I was nineteen years old and I ended up getting a project that was from 00:29:10.800 --> 00:29:17.040 the RKO Radio Network. RKO had stations in New York. Memphis was one. That’s where I was based, 00:29:17.040 --> 00:29:24.400 in Memphis, at the time. RadioShack had a 300 Baud Cat II modem that you could drop your phone into, 00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:29.120 and we started playing around with that. [MUSIC] It was about that time I discover that there was 00:29:29.120 --> 00:29:34.240 such a thing as bulletin boards out there. But I didn’t actually connect to my first bulletin 00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:40.280 board until March of 1979. I will never forget that when I actually connected to it. It was 00:29:40.280 --> 00:29:46.080 just so magical. I thought that here it was; my computer in my bedroom was actually communicating 00:29:46.080 --> 00:29:52.240 with another computer located somewhere else. I knew I had to learn all I could about it. 00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:58.760 JACK: Mark had a lifelong passion for computers and technology. He learned to program and 00:29:58.760 --> 00:30:04.680 eventually developed a QWK protocol. If you ever used BBSs to check your e-mail back in the 90s, 00:30:04.680 --> 00:30:09.640 QWK was a way for you to read your e-mails offline. It was Mark Herring who developed 00:30:09.640 --> 00:30:15.320 that. In 2007, just after Twitter came out, Mark registered for an account at the site, 00:30:15.320 --> 00:30:22.080 and he chose the username @Tennessee because he lived in and loved the state of Tennessee, 00:30:22.080 --> 00:30:29.200 and nobody had that name yet. You guessed it; that’s what this prank 911 call was for. They 00:30:29.200 --> 00:30:35.720 were trying to harass Mark into giving up his @Tennessee Twitter handle. But the police did not 00:30:35.720 --> 00:30:43.880 know that this was a fake 911 emergency. Over a dozen police cruisers rushed over to Mark’s house, 00:30:43.880 --> 00:30:49.200 expecting to see an armed person who may explode some pipe bombs. The police arrived 00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:53.920 in full force at Mark’s house. [MUSIC] He was inside watching TV with his girlfriend. 00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:59.200 He heard something going on outside, but didn’t know what. It sounded serious though, 00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:02.460 and he was a little worried. His daughter explains what happened next. 00:31:02.460 --> 00:31:07.720 DAUGHTER: He went out the house with a gun because he heard someone was on his property, 00:31:07.720 --> 00:31:12.240 and he sees all these cops around him. They ask if he is Mark Herring; 00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:17.700 put your hands up. So, he tosses the gun away from him to show he’s not a threat. Hands up. 00:31:17.700 --> 00:31:24.760 JACK: Mark was scared. He didn’t know why all these police had guns drawn on him. He threw 00:31:24.760 --> 00:31:32.560 his gun away, but that could have easily went wrong, and he knew it. His pulse was racing. 00:31:32.560 --> 00:31:38.520 His adrenaline was spiked. The officers shouted at him to keep his hands up and to come towards 00:31:38.520 --> 00:31:44.480 them. He couldn’t get the gate open on his back porch to come towards them. He shouted back; 00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:51.040 it’s stuck. The police said jump over the gate. He shouted back, I’m a sixty year old fat man; I 00:31:51.040 --> 00:31:57.920 can’t do that. He was getting increasingly worried and more upset. The police had their weapons 00:31:57.920 --> 00:32:05.040 pointed right at him and he could see that. He had absolutely no idea why the police were locked on 00:32:05.040 --> 00:32:11.600 him. The police told him to crawl under the fence towards them. He tried, but it was a small opening 00:32:11.600 --> 00:32:16.640 under the fence that he had to lay down on the ground and crawl on his belly to get through. 00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:23.760 It wasn’t easy for him, but he eventually made it through. As he stood up, on the other side, 00:32:23.760 --> 00:32:32.120 he had a heart attack and collapsed. The police raced him to the hospital but it was too late. 00:32:32.120 --> 00:32:38.120 Mark Herring died from the heart attack. He died because someone was trying to bully him to give 00:32:38.120 --> 00:32:42.240 up his Twitter account so they could make a few thousand dollars on it. The police found 00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:46.840 no dead woman in the house or pipe bombs, and figured out this was a fake emergency 00:32:46.840 --> 00:32:53.000 and notified the FBI. This allowed the FBI to collect even more evidence on this criminal or 00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:57.680 group of criminals who did this. It turned out that Mark had received a bunch of text messages 00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:02.440 from someone demanding they give him his Twitter account, and he refused of course, which led to 00:33:02.440 --> 00:33:08.800 this. But this was more evidence the FBI was able to collect; more phone numbers, more 911 audio, 00:33:08.800 --> 00:33:14.160 more usernames from chat logs. This kind of stuff can be tracked by the FBI to figure out who all 00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:21.020 this belongs to. It was with this extra evidence that the FBI was finally able to crack the case. 00:33:21.020 --> 00:33:26.640 JW: I received a phone call from our local FBI field agent and 00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:32.480 she informed me that they had arrested individuals, one in Memphis, Tennessee, 00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:42.440 and another in Michigan, and that somebody had also been involved in the UK as well. 00:33:42.440 --> 00:33:48.200 JACK: The FBI called JW because the person who swatted Mark Herring was the same person 00:33:48.200 --> 00:33:54.760 who swatted JW and his friend. So, the FBI called JW to let him know they caught the guy, 00:33:54.760 --> 00:34:01.560 and the guy responsible was a seventeen-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee named Shane Sonderman. 00:34:01.560 --> 00:34:09.760 JW: It was a sense of relief just to know that dots had been connected and they led somewhere, 00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:12.560 there were a couple of us who had been swatted but not everyone, 00:34:12.560 --> 00:34:16.200 and [MUSIC] to have this feeling of like, okay, you can kinda take that off the table 00:34:16.200 --> 00:34:23.280 for those who they hadn’t gotten to yet, so to say. Of course, at the same time, again, 00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:33.880 I – you’re watching news coverage of Breonna Taylor who was killed in a botched, messed-up 00:34:33.880 --> 00:34:42.640 police raid. Her circumstances were different. She was black. She did not live in a neighborhood 00:34:42.640 --> 00:34:49.680 where they thought to call ahead, you know? That sort of stuff kinda sits with you of like, jeez. 00:34:49.680 --> 00:34:55.040 JACK: That’s probably the scariest part, is the possibility of these situations going 00:34:55.040 --> 00:35:00.960 all wrong. When everyone has their weapons drawn on you, it’s easy to make a mistake, 00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:08.600 which can mean the end for everything. He and his daughter were very lucky to not have been harmed, 00:35:08.600 --> 00:35:15.120 let alone killed. Swatting is extremely dangerous, especially when the callers are telling the first 00:35:15.120 --> 00:35:21.040 responders that they’re going to kill the cops. Sadly, this is not the first time someone has 00:35:21.040 --> 00:35:29.760 died from a swatting incident. Back in December 2017, a few people got into a fight over the 00:35:29.760 --> 00:35:34.560 Call of Duty video game, a first-person shooter game. Two teams, Shane and Tyler, 00:35:34.560 --> 00:35:38.920 were arguing about who’s better in the game or something stupid. It got pretty heated; 00:35:38.920 --> 00:35:42.840 Tyler started threatening Shane, and Shane gave him his address and said here, go ahead, 00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:47.840 try something. Another teenager, Casey, dared Tyler to call 911 on Shane and said 00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:53.680 he’s give him $1.50 if he’d do it. Tyler had sort of a history of doing this to people, 00:35:53.680 --> 00:36:01.000 so he took the $1.50 bet and called 911 and impersonated Shane. Here’s that actual 911 call. 00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:02.340 TYLER: Hello? 00:36:02.340 --> 00:36:10.080 OPERATOR2: This is 911. What’s going on? Hello? 00:36:10.080 --> 00:36:11.980 TYLER: Yeah. 00:36:11.980 --> 00:36:16.320 OPERATOR2: This is 911. What’s going on? 00:36:16.320 --> 00:36:20.360 TYLER: I recently got disconnected. I had told you 00:36:20.360 --> 00:36:24.720 guys everything that happened. I was arguing with my mom and dad. 00:36:24.720 --> 00:36:32.940 OPERATOR2: Okay. What’s your address? Hello? 00:36:32.940 --> 00:36:41.010 TYLER: Yeah, it’s 10 [CENSORED] Street. 00:36:41.010 --> 00:36:44.840 OPERATOR2: Okay. Tell me exactly what happened. 00:36:44.840 --> 00:36:49.400 TYLER: We were arguing and I shot him in the head, and he’s not breathing anymore. 00:36:49.400 --> 00:36:53.000 OPERATOR2: Okay. Do you have any weapons on you? 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:54.840 TYLER: Yeah, I do. 00:36:54.840 --> 00:36:56.680 OPERATOR2: What kind of weapons do you have? 00:36:56.680 --> 00:37:00.160 TYLER: A handgun. 00:37:00.160 --> 00:37:02.840 OPERATOR2: What kind of handgun is it? 00:37:02.840 --> 00:37:05.200 TYLER: I don’t know. It’s my dad’s. 00:37:05.200 --> 00:37:07.200 OPERATOR2: What color is it? 00:37:07.200 --> 00:37:10.060 TYLER: It’s black. 00:37:10.060 --> 00:37:15.200 OPERATOR2: Where exactly are you at in the house? 00:37:15.200 --> 00:37:18.600 TYLER: By the closet. 00:37:18.600 --> 00:37:22.660 OPERATOR2: Okay, what closet? 00:37:22.660 --> 00:37:24.600 TYLER: My mom’s. 00:37:24.600 --> 00:37:26.600 OPERATOR2: Where’s that at in the house? 00:37:26.600 --> 00:37:33.760 TYLER: In her room which is where she’s at, and my little brother. 00:37:33.760 --> 00:37:36.400 OPERATOR2: You have a little brother? 00:37:36.400 --> 00:37:40.320 TYLER: Yeah. I was on the phone with you guys 00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:44.220 earlier telling you guys about it. I just got disconnected. 00:37:44.220 --> 00:37:47.280 OPERATOR2: Okay. Well, we’re gonna try to get you some help. 00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:49.920 JACK: The police rushed over to the address they heard on 00:37:49.920 --> 00:37:53.120 that phone call. They shouted at the house and told the people, 00:37:53.120 --> 00:37:57.880 come outside. Someone came on the front porch. The police said to come out of 00:37:57.880 --> 00:38:04.120 the house and put your hands up and walk towards us. Here’s the audio from their bodycam footage. 00:38:04.120 --> 00:38:10.394 OFFICER: Walk this way. Walk – [GUNSHOT] 00:38:10.394 --> 00:38:16.480 JACK: A police officer misread the situation and shot the man who stepped onto the porch, 00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:22.440 and that one single bullet killed him. His name was Andrew Finch, and here’s the worst part of 00:38:22.440 --> 00:38:29.000 it all; this was not even Shane’s house. Shane had given Tyler the wrong address, 00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:34.000 so when Tyler called 911 and gave that address, the police went to this other guy’s house who was 00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:41.480 totally unrelated to the whole argument. Tyler, Casey, and Shane were all arrested for this. Casey 00:38:41.480 --> 00:38:48.200 got fifteen months in prison for daring Tyler to do it for $1.50. Shane has to go to court for 00:38:48.200 --> 00:38:53.560 this for giving the wrong address and inciting violence. Even though this happened in 2017, 00:38:53.560 --> 00:39:01.440 Shane’s trial is still underway. Tyler, well, he got twenty years in prison for making this prank 00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:09.040 911 call. The family of Andrew Finch filed a civil lawsuit against the police, but so far there’s 00:39:09.040 --> 00:39:16.120 been no legal punishment for either the officer who shot him or the police department. Okay, back 00:39:16.120 --> 00:39:22.160 to JW and Mark Herring’s story. The guy the FBI arrested was seventeen-year-old Shane Sonderman, 00:39:22.160 --> 00:39:26.760 which is not the same Shane from the story I just talked about. They arrested Shane Sonderman in 00:39:26.760 --> 00:39:33.400 2020, but they kept this quiet. It wasn’t until 2021 when Shane went to trial that this story 00:39:33.400 --> 00:39:38.560 broke to the world, even appearing on the nightly news. Here’s a clip from Nashville’s ABC News. 00:39:38.560 --> 00:39:43.480 HOST2: New tonight; it’s called swatting. It is a growing problem across the country. [Inaudible], 00:39:43.480 --> 00:39:45.960 we told you about a victim who found himself in 00:39:45.960 --> 00:39:50.520 the middle of a swatting call after he refused to give up his Twitter handle. 00:39:50.520 --> 00:39:52.980 JACK: JW remembers seeing the story. 00:39:52.980 --> 00:39:58.560 JW: I was refreshing Twitter and I think it was just – yeah, whatever local Memphis station 00:39:58.560 --> 00:40:03.920 or whatever of like oh, here’s this trial or sentencing of the guy that killed this 00:40:03.920 --> 00:40:09.360 guy in a swatting incident. I was like well, that pertains to my interest. So, I clicked 00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:20.760 on it and it was like, it was my god, it’s the same kid. I had no idea that he was also the 00:40:20.760 --> 00:40:30.440 perpetrator in the incident involving Tennessee. That was heavy. I immediately sent it to my wife, 00:40:30.440 --> 00:40:35.560 and you take a deep breath because that’s – of course in the moment when it happens, 00:40:35.560 --> 00:40:42.160 that’s your first thought; it’s like, somebody’s gonna get killed, [MUSIC] and somebody did. 00:40:42.160 --> 00:40:49.720 JACK: The stuff that happened to JW happened to Mark Herring, too. They both got unwanted 00:40:49.720 --> 00:40:55.920 pizzas. They both got swatted, and both by the same attackers. But the difference is, 00:40:55.920 --> 00:41:02.120 JW lived through it, which gives him the shivers thinking about this incident all over. 00:41:02.120 --> 00:41:14.560 JW: So, yeah, I just – you think about that and this poor guy, you know? Shit’s messed up. 00:41:14.560 --> 00:41:22.200 JACK: Shane Sonderman turned twenty years old in 2021 and took his case to trial. It turns out he 00:41:22.200 --> 00:41:28.000 wasn’t working alone. There was another juvenile involved, a teenager from the UK. They worked 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:33.520 together to try to harass people and get their accounts. The UK team is who made all these phone 00:41:33.520 --> 00:41:38.960 calls. Together, they targeted six people with harassment campaigns to get peoples’ accounts in 00:41:38.960 --> 00:41:44.400 order to sell them. One was a woman they harassed who had a two-letter Instagram name, and what they 00:41:44.400 --> 00:41:50.000 did to her was really spooky. They got on Grindr, a dating app, and connected with some people in 00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:55.840 her town and then gave someone her address and said come on over, but just walk in when you come 00:41:55.840 --> 00:42:02.440 by. So, a person, a total stranger came to her house and tried to walk into her house. Crazy, 00:42:02.440 --> 00:42:06.880 huh? It also came out that when Shane was arrested, he was processed and then let out 00:42:06.880 --> 00:42:12.200 on bond. When he got back home, victims started seeing more text messages, harassment messages, 00:42:12.200 --> 00:42:17.440 which led me to believe he just went right back to doing what he was doing before he was arrested. 00:42:17.440 --> 00:42:24.040 Well, this resulted in him being re-arrested. In court, he apologized to his victims, saying he had 00:42:24.040 --> 00:42:30.240 an addiction and just couldn’t stop. He blamed it on some psychiatric conditions like being bipolar. 00:42:30.240 --> 00:42:35.960 During his apology, he broke down crying and his mom pleaded with the courts to be lenient on him, 00:42:35.960 --> 00:42:41.480 but the judge was not lenient on him at all. The jury decided Shane was guilty for calling 00:42:41.480 --> 00:42:47.440 in fake emergencies and harassing people, and the judge insisted he get the maximum penalty for his 00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:53.560 crimes. So, Shane was sentenced to five years in prison for his action. The judge said he would 00:42:53.560 --> 00:42:59.680 have given him more if it was possible. That other teen in the UK, well, the feds were unable to 00:42:59.680 --> 00:43:04.880 extradite him because of his age, and we have no idea what the UK courts did with him. I couldn’t 00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:09.880 track it, and no journalist I know could track it, because he was a minor at the time and we 00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:14.960 don’t know his name. The UK courts aren’t very forthcoming about what happens to people that 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:22.400 get arrested there. [MUSIC] So, what can be done about this? Well, it’s a complicated scenario that 00:43:22.400 --> 00:43:27.880 has no simple solution, but I believe the bigger issue here is just online harassment in general. 00:43:27.880 --> 00:43:32.840 It’s out of hand not just towards people with good usernames, but for much smaller reasons, 00:43:32.840 --> 00:43:39.480 too. There’s so much online harassment towards women and minorities, and these can often lead 00:43:39.480 --> 00:43:43.960 to some horrific stuff happening to the victim. Even though in this case 00:43:43.960 --> 00:43:49.960 the harasser was arrested and put in prison, scores of cases go unsolved and the harasser 00:43:49.960 --> 00:43:55.200 just walks away with no consequences. I think the first place to start with defending against 00:43:55.200 --> 00:43:59.600 this is just making sure your digital life is secure. I’ve got five suggestions for you, 00:43:59.600 --> 00:44:03.680 and I think they’re pretty effective at helping you be more secure. First is use a 00:44:03.680 --> 00:44:08.560 password manager. This will allow you to make a unique, long, complex password that’s different 00:44:08.560 --> 00:44:14.280 for every website you have a login for. Reusing passwords is a huge no-no. Oh, and change your 00:44:14.280 --> 00:44:19.680 passwords whenever you change relationships if that person may have your password somehow. All 00:44:19.680 --> 00:44:23.200 the people in this story see a constant attack on their accounts of other people 00:44:23.200 --> 00:44:28.520 trying to guess their passwords or reset it, so make it hard for anyone who’s trying to do this. 00:44:28.520 --> 00:44:33.040 Second, keep your software and operating system up to date. I mean on your computer, 00:44:33.040 --> 00:44:36.400 your tablet, your phone; all the apps, all the operating systems. You should 00:44:36.400 --> 00:44:40.440 just update them all whenever you have a chance to do it. Third, antivirus scans are 00:44:40.440 --> 00:44:46.040 generally a good idea to run regularly. Fourth is use two-factor authentication whenever you can, 00:44:46.040 --> 00:44:51.320 and fifth is to use encrypted messaging apps like Signal. Doing this will make it harder for people 00:44:51.320 --> 00:44:57.720 to infiltrate your digital life. I’m also a huge online privacy advocate and if you see me online, 00:44:57.720 --> 00:45:03.160 you know I don’t give out my location or show my face or any personal details. This is why. 00:45:03.160 --> 00:45:08.560 I don’t want this kind of thing to happen to me ever, so I keep a degree of separation between 00:45:08.560 --> 00:45:14.760 my online digital life and my real-world private life. You should, too. But if you already let out 00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:20.040 too much stuff about you, it’s okay. You can work on taking some of that back off the internet. I 00:45:20.040 --> 00:45:25.320 recommend the book Extreme Privacy: What It Takes to Disappear or The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy. 00:45:25.320 --> 00:45:28.920 There’s helpful information in these books to help you remove your personal data from 00:45:28.920 --> 00:45:32.000 the internet and to remain private. But you know what? There’s actually too much 00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:36.400 advice for me to list here, so I rounded up my favorite links and put them on my site. Just 00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:42.040 go to darknetdiaries.com/stalkerware to see it all. I’ll have a link in the description, 00:45:42.040 --> 00:45:48.720 too. But of course, it’s not all on you to keep yourself private and secure. Software, websites, 00:45:48.720 --> 00:45:54.800 apps, and operating systems, they need to be secure in order for us to be secure. Some of them 00:45:54.800 --> 00:46:00.440 can and should do more to stop online harassment, and the police should become more knowledgeable 00:46:00.440 --> 00:46:04.480 and take this more seriously and learn how to investigate this kind of harassment more 00:46:04.480 --> 00:46:14.980 effectively. [MUSIC] I hope things get better, but in the meantime, stay safe and protect yourself. 00:46:14.980 --> 00:46:24.640 (OUTRO): A big thank-you to JW for sharing this horrific story with us. You can find him on 00:46:24.640 --> 00:46:29.840 Twitter; just look for those two letters, JW, and that’s him. If you’re sick of hearing ads on this 00:46:29.840 --> 00:46:36.320 show, you’re in luck. There’s a way to never hear ads again. Just go to patreon.com/darknetdiaries 00:46:36.320 --> 00:46:40.680 or sign up for Darknet Diaries Plus on Apple Podcasts. You’ll get an ad-free feed 00:46:40.680 --> 00:46:46.080 for supporting the show there, and it also helps with the production of the show, so thanks. Also, 00:46:46.080 --> 00:46:50.920 as a reminder, there are full transcripts for every episode, as well as original artwork on 00:46:50.920 --> 00:46:57.280 darknetdiaries.com, so check that out, too. This show is made by me, who likes pineapple on pizza, 00:46:57.280 --> 00:47:02.920 Jack Rhysider. This episode was produced and sound designed by the zippy-grippy Andrew Meriwether. 00:47:02.920 --> 00:47:07.880 Our transcriptions are done by the key-clacking Leah Hervoly. Our associate producer just back 00:47:07.880 --> 00:47:13.000 from the lo-fi luau is Ray [redacted] and our theme music is by the bumping buddy, 00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:25.720 Breakmaster Cylinder. I love pressing the F5 key. It’s so refreshing. This is Darknet Diaries.