JW created and actively used a Twitter account under the two-letter username JW.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“you started your Twitter account when?”
“He created it just months after Twitter launched”
Episode
07 December 2021 Official episode · Official transcript
cybercrime
The episode examines coordinated harassment, SIM-swapping, account-targeting, and swatting campaigns aimed at people with desirable Twitter and Instagram usernames, including incidents involving JW and Mark Herring.
Topics: SIM-swapping and phone-number-based account recovery, Swatting and fraudulent emergency calls, Caller-ID and phone-number spoofing, Social engineering and targeted online harassment, Social-media username account takeover and gray-market resale, Publicly available personal-data aggregation, Password managers and unique passwords, Software and operating-system patching, Two-factor authentication, Encrypted messaging applications, Online privacy and removal of personal data
Links published on the Darknet Diaries episode page. Not LLM output.
Qualified statements from this episode, not graph facts.
JW created and actively used a Twitter account under the two-letter username JW.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“you started your Twitter account when?”
“He created it just months after Twitter launched”
JW obtained and used the same short handle on Instagram.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“He was able to snag the same handle, JW, for his Instagram”
QWK DEVELOPED_BY Mark Herring
The episode states that Mark Herring developed the QWK protocol.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Imposter EP 106 Details
“he eventually developed a QWK protocol”
Mark Herring USES bulletin board systems
Mark Herring used bulletin board systems and connected to his first bulletin board in 1979.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Operator1 EP 106 Details
“I actually connected to my first bulletin board until March of 1979”
Mark Herring USES Twitter
Mark registered for a Twitter account in 2007.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“Mark registered for an account at the site”
Mark Herring USES @Tennessee
Mark chose @Tennessee as his Twitter username because he lived in and loved Tennessee.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“he chose the username @Tennessee because he lived in and loved the state of Tennessee”
JW swatting incident INVOLVES JW
The swatting incident occurred at JW's home and was directed at him and his family.
Explicit Confidence 99% · JW EP 106 Details
“The police are here”
“I’ve been swatted”
JW swatting incident INVOLVES Swatting
JW's home was targeted through a false emergency call that caused an armed police response.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“someone spoofed his phone number, impersonated him, and gave his name and address and reported a false emergency”
JW swatting incident INVOLVES phone-number spoofing
The perpetrator spoofed JW's phone number when making the false emergency report.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“someone spoofed his phone number”
JW swatting incident INVOLVES online harassment
The incident was part of harassment directed at JW and his family over his username.
Explicit Confidence 99% · JW EP 106 Details
“I know where you live and I’m going to continue to harass you and your wife and your children”
JW swatting incident INVOLVES Federal Bureau of Investigation
JW and the other victims opened a case with the FBI and supplied it with evidence.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“they also opened up a case with the FBI, and they’re feeding the FBI information”
JW swatting incident ATTRIBUTED_TO Shane Sonderman
The FBI identified the person who swatted JW as seventeen-year-old Shane Sonderman from Memphis, Tennessee.
Attributed Confidence 97% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“the guy responsible was a seventeen-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee named Shane Sonderman”
Mark Herring swatting incident INVOLVES Mark Herring
The false emergency was directed at Mark Herring's home and impersonated him.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“That was not Mark Herring who made this call”
Mark Herring swatting incident INVOLVES Swatting
A fake 911 emergency caused police to conduct an armed response at Mark Herring's house.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“That’s what a swatting call looks like”
Mark Herring swatting incident INVOLVES phone-number spoofing
The caller impersonated Mark Herring during the false emergency call.
Explicit Confidence 96% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“That was not Mark Herring who made this call. That was someone in the UK.”
Mark Herring swatting incident ATTRIBUTED_TO Shane Sonderman
The episode says the same attacker who swatted JW also swatted Mark Herring, and identifies that attacker as Shane Sonderman.
Attributed Confidence 97% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“the person who swatted Mark Herring was the same person who swatted JW and his friend”
“the guy responsible was a seventeen-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee named Shane Sonderman”
Mark Herring swatting incident INVOLVES Federal Bureau of Investigation
The fake emergency and additional evidence were reported to the FBI as part of its investigation.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“The police found no dead woman in the house or pipe bombs, and figured out this was a fake emergency and notified the FBI”
Mark Herring swatting incident LEADS_TO Mark Herring
The episode states that Mark Herring suffered a fatal heart attack during the police response and died.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“As he stood up, on the other side, he had a heart attack and collapsed”
“Mark Herring died from the heart attack”
Andrew Finch swatting incident INVOLVES Andrew Finch
Andrew Finch was the man killed during the police response to a false 911 call.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“His name was Andrew Finch”
Andrew Finch swatting incident INVOLVES Swatting
The incident was caused by a false 911 call that sent police to an unrelated house.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“Tyler had sort of a history of doing this to people, so he took the $1.50 bet and called 911 and impersonated Shane”
Andrew Finch swatting incident INVOLVES Tyler
Tyler made the false 911 call and impersonated Shane, leading police to the wrong address.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“Tyler ... called 911 and impersonated Shane”
“Shane had given Tyler the wrong address”
Andrew Finch swatting incident INVOLVES Casey
Casey encouraged Tyler to make the swatting call and offered him $1.50 to do it.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“Casey dared Tyler to call 911 on Shane and said he’s give him $1.50 if he’d do it”
Andrew Finch swatting incident LEADS_TO Andrew Finch
The police response led to Andrew Finch being shot and killed.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“that one single bullet killed him. His name was Andrew Finch”
Shane Sonderman USES Swatting
Shane Sonderman and a UK teenager used fake emergency calls to harass victims and pressure them to surrender accounts.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“They worked together to try to harass people and get their accounts”
Shane Sonderman USES online harassment
Shane Sonderman and his associate conducted harassment campaigns against account holders.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“Together, they targeted six people with harassment campaigns to get peoples’ accounts in order to sell them”
Shane Sonderman USES Grindr
The episode says the attackers used Grindr to contact people near a woman they were harassing and direct someone to her address.
Derived Confidence 92% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“They got on Grindr, a dating app, and connected with some people in her town”
Shane Sonderman USES Account takeover
The broader scheme included attempts to gain control of social-media accounts through password attacks and SIM-swapping.
Explicit Confidence 91% · Jack Rhysider EP 106 Details
“hacking into accounts and changing passwords, SIM-swapping people to try to gain access to an account”
Shane Sonderman ASSOCIATED_WITH Federal Bureau of Investigation
No claim extracted; the FBI investigated and arrested Shane but did not operate him.
Works mentioned in the transcript. Distinct from show-note sources.
Model gpt-5.6-luna · prompt 1.5.19 · schema 1.5.19 · 2026-09-13T07:23:07.559311+00:00