StellarCrowandClaude Fable 5.1
499fd61f79
Until now only cases 357+ (plus a few older ones) had their linked URLs fetched; the other 252 dossiers held just the text pasted into the spreadsheet, often only the lede. This pass fetches every linked URL for those cases so the full text is on file before link rot takes it. - stage_all.py: new --include-sheet-cases flag that lifts the skip on cases holding spreadsheet articles. Resumable as before. - staging/: raw extracts and index.json for the 252 cases. - sourced-articles.json, case-files-manifest.json: 188 new UNTRIMMED blocks. 179 cases gained at least one fetched article; 73 got none (49 BLOCKED, 18 THIN, 9 DEAD, 4 video/social, 3 ERROR). - sources/*.txt: rebuilt with build_cases.py --all. Sheet pastes are kept; fetched blocks sit beside them under the NOT YET TRIMMED banner. Files previously committed with CRLF are now LF. - wayback-availability.json: Wayback snapshots exist for 73 of the 98 failed URL slots; input for an archive-fetch pass. - README-START-HERE.md: progress note and next step. verify_all.py PASSES (1836 checks). Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GZZENdTLzNGsbNy4DyF1yt
167 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
167 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
================================================================================================
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CASE 001 | Hal Finney | December 29, 2014 | USA
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================================================================================================
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DATABASE RECORD
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id 1
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date December 29, 2014
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original_date December 29, 2014
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year 2014
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month 12
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quarter 2014-Q4
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victim Hal Finney
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location Santa Barbara , California
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country USA
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scenario Swatting
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description Bitcoin developer SWATted after months of harrassment & extortion
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kidnappings 0
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violence_torture 0
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drugs_alcohol 0
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weapons 1
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theft 0
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life_taken 0
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money_wanted (null)
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coin_type (null)
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reports Wired
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notes 1 year extorsion turned into a swatting situation
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has_processed_date 1
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created_at 2025-11-13 05:44:45
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AI SUMMARY [generated at bulk import, NOT verified against sources]
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**Victim:** Hal Finney
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**Attackers:** Unknown individual(s) through false police report
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**Attack Method:** Swatting
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**Violence Used:** Armed police response (false report)
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**Crypto Stolen:** No theft completed
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**Status:** Investigation ongoing
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LINKED SOURCES
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[url] https://www.wired.com/2014/12/finney-swat/
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NOTES ON THIS FILE
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* matched to sheet row 2: exact match on victim + year, unique on both sides
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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ARTICLE 1
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Source Wired
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URL https://www.wired.com/2014/12/finney-swat/
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Origin reported_K&R sheet, row 2, column "Articles"
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Length 4,825 chars
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin’s Earliest Adopters
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By Robert McMillan 12.29.14
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The call came while Hal Finney was in the final stages of his five-year battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. When the phone rang, his wife Fran was giving him a shower, with help from his nurse. Fran took the call, which came from a 911 emergency dispatch operator. “Are you OK?” the voice asked. “Is anyone being attacked in your house?”
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Fran didn’t quite know what to make of the bizarre call, and the operator kept talking, in rather pleasant tones. “I need to let you know that you are about to have a SWAT team come to your home,” the voice said, “and they’re going to ask you to leave.”
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When Fran poked her head out the door of her Santa Barbara home, she found the building surrounded by police, and a helicopter buzzing in the air above. It was just days after a disturbed young man named Elliot Rodger had killed six people near Santa Barbara’s University of California campus and the police were especially concerned. The cops yelled at her to drop her telephone and come out onto the lawn, and that’s what she did, leaving her disabled husband, her son Jason, and the nurse in house behind her.
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The police eventually cleared the building, and Hal Finney, a noted computer cryptography expert, waited on the lawn for a half hour, shivering in the morning air. Fran worried that Hal, who was unable to swallow, might choke on his own saliva. “I was just panicking that he was going to need suction or something,” she says. “He didn’t have anything with him except his ventilator.”
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The Finneys were the victims of a “swatting,” a nasty online hoax where the perpetrator calls up emergency dispatch using a spoofed telephone number and pretends to have committed a heinous crime in the hopes of provoking an armed police response to the victim’s home. In this case, the caller phoned 911, announced that he had just murdered two people, and said was going to kill himself too.
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For a year, the caller had been demanding that the Finneys pay an extortion fee of 1,000 bitcoin—worth more than $400,000 at the time—and according to Fran Finney, the FBI agents working the case believe that Hal was just one of several people extorted in this way by the caller. The incident further exposes the rather bizarre and often criminal element that continues to hover around bitcoin, a digital currency that grew out of the internet underworld but has since expanded into the mainstream.
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Previously, Fran Finney has not publicly spoken about this incident for fear of compromising the investigation, but she spoke with WIRED after the investigating agent gave her the go-ahead. The FBI did not have a comment for this story.
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What I’m angry about is it took away some of the peace that he could have had for the last few months of his life.
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When someone calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto first proposed the idea of bitcoin back in 2008, his ideas went largely unnoticed. But Hal Finney paid attention. He quickly became one of the world’s first bitcoin users. That early enthusiasm proved lucrative for Hal Finney, allowing him to join the digital currency’s network and “mine” many bitcoins during the early days. The stash helped the Finneys cover Hal’s medical expenses, but it also came at a price.
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Hal Finney died in August, and his wife Fran says he spent his final months being harassed by the online extortionist. He called the Finney’s home number nine times in the two months after the attack, threatening to assault family members and expose their personal information. “What I’m angry about is it took away some of the peace that he could have had for the last few months of his life,” she says. “This was taking up a lot of his emotional energy.”
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Roger Ver, another early bitcoin adopter, believes he was victimized by the same person the week before the Finney family was swatted. That’s when someone using the names Nitrous and Savaged hacked into Ver’s email accounts and demanded that he cough up 37 bitcoins—about $20,000 at the time—in order to prevent his private information from being published online. Ver refused, and the hacker apparently backed off after Ver put a 37 bitcoin bounty on his head.
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Ver, who was himself sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for illegally shipping explosive across state lines, believes that Savaged is not only the same person who swatted Hal Finney, but also the person who gained access to Satoshi Nakamoto’s email account earlier this year. And he’s mad that this extortionist hasn’t been caught.
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The “police have been devoting a huge amount of resources to track down peaceful people engaged in voluntary trade like Charlie Shrem and the operators of the Silk Road Market,” Ver says, “while evil hackers were busy terrorizing quadriplegic Hal Finney and his family.”
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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FETCHED ARTICLE 1 [RAW EXTRACT — NOT YET TRIMMED]
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!! This is the whole page as extracted. It still contains site furniture,
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!! and may contain teaser headlines for UNRELATED cases. Trim on read-through.
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!! Do not quote from it without checking the passage belongs to this case.
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Source wired.com
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URL https://www.wired.com/2014/12/finney-swat/
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Field url
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Retrieved 2026-09-05T12:57:14+00:00 via raw HTTP retrieval, deterministic extraction (HTTP 200)
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Language unknown
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Kept paragraphs ALL 36 paragraphs, untrimmed
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Length 6,971 chars
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Integrity sha256 18f9d9c4f5d74128b1a95c4236e698e0f271ad78da78665f4d72ed3aa44d7539
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Trimmed NOT TRIMMED. Full page extract; trim on read-through.
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Caveat retrieved from a live page on the date above. Unlike text copied
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from the spreadsheet, there is no second copy to hash it against.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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ORIGINAL (unknown, verbatim as retrieved)
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An Extortionist Has Been Making Life Hell for Bitcoin's Earliest Adopters | WIRED
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The call came while Hal Finney was in the final stages of his five-year battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. When the phone rang, his wife Fran was giving him a shower, with help from his nurse. Fran took the call, which came from a 911 emergency dispatch operator. "Are you OK?" the voice asked. "Is anyone being attacked in your house?"
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Fran didn't quite know what to make of the bizarre call, and the operator kept talking, in rather pleasant tones. "I need to let you know that you are about to have a SWAT team come to your home," the voice said, "and they're going to ask you to leave."
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When Fran poked her head out the door of her Santa Barbara home, she found the building surrounded by police, and a helicopter buzzing in the air above. It was just days after a disturbed young man named Elliot Rodger had killed six people near Santa Barbara's University of California campus and the police were especially concerned. The cops yelled at her to drop her telephone and come out onto the lawn, and that's what she did, leaving her disabled husband, her son Jason, and the nurse in house behind her.
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The police eventually cleared the building, and Hal Finney, a noted computer cryptography expert, waited on the lawn for a half hour, shivering in the morning air. Fran worried that Hal, who was unable to swallow, might choke on his own saliva. "I was just panicking that he was going to need suction or something," she says. "He didn't have anything with him except his ventilator."
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The Finneys were the victims of a "swatting," a nasty online hoax where the perpetrator calls up emergency dispatch using a spoofed telephone number and pretends to have committed a heinous crime in the hopes of provoking an armed police response to the victim's home. In this case, the caller phoned 911, announced that he had just murdered two people, and said was going to kill himself too.
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For a year, the caller had been demanding that the Finneys pay an extortion fee of 1,000 bitcoin---worth more than $400,000 at the time---and according to Fran Finney, the FBI agents working the case believe that Hal was just one of several people extorted in this way by the caller. The incident further exposes the rather bizarre and often criminal element that continues to hover around bitcoin, a digital currency that grew out of the internet underworld but has since expanded into the mainstream.
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Previously, Fran Finney has not publicly spoken about this incident for fear of compromising the investigation, but she spoke with WIRED after the investigating agent gave her the go-ahead. The FBI did not have a comment for this story.
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>What I'm angry about is it took away some of the peace that he could have had for the last few months of his life.
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When someone calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto first proposed the idea of bitcoin back in 2008, his ideas went largely unnoticed. But Hal Finney paid attention. He quickly became one of the world's first bitcoin users. That early enthusiasm proved lucrative for Hal Finney, allowing him to join the digital currency's network and "mine" many bitcoins during the early days. The stash helped the Finneys cover Hal's medical expenses, but it also came at a price.
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Hal Finney died in August, and his wife Fran says he spent his final months being harassed by the online extortionist. He called the Finney's home number nine times in the two months after the attack, threatening to assault family members and expose their personal information. "What I'm angry about is it took away some of the peace that he could have had for the last few months of his life," she says. "This was taking up a lot of his emotional energy."
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Roger Ver, another early bitcoin adopter, believes he was victimized by the same person the week before the Finney family was swatted. That's when someone using the names Nitrous and Savaged hacked into Ver's email accounts and demanded that he cough up 37 bitcoins---about $20,000 at the time---in order to prevent his private information from being published online. Ver refused, and the hacker apparently backed off after Ver put a 37 bitcoin bounty on his head.
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Ver, who was himself sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for illegally shipping explosive across state lines, believes that Savaged is not only the same person who swatted Hal Finney, but also the person who gained access to Satoshi Nakamoto's email account earlier this year. And he's mad that this extortionist hasn't been caught.
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The "police have been devoting a huge amount of resources to track down peaceful people engaged in voluntary trade like Charlie Shrem and the operators of the Silk Road Market," Ver says, "while evil hackers were busy terrorizing quadriplegic Hal Finney and his family."
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Robert McMillan is a former senior writer covering the complex technologies that run behind the scenes to make your mobile apps do cool things. ... Read More
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Top Google Workspace Promo Codes for September 2026
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Boost your productivity and save with exclusive Google Workspace coupons from WIRED. Get up to 14% off plans for three months, including Starter, Standard, and Plus tiers.
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Top Theragun Promo Codes: 15% Off in September 2026
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Save on the science-backed devices you’ve been eyeing with 15% off Theragun discount code and 30% off other great deals.
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Valvoline Coupons and Promo Codes for 2026
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We've gathered all the top Valvoline coupons and promo codes for September 2026, including deals on full synthetic oil changes and other essential maintenance.
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Top 20% Off With a Brooks Promo Code for 2026
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Enjoy 20% off your first order with a Brooks coupon code, plus top discounts and deals on our favorite Brooks running shoes.
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Top Chegg Coupon Codes: Save on Textbooks, Study, and Writing
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Unlock Chegg promo codes, student discounts, and free trials for Chegg Study and Chegg Writing.
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Stream your favorite shows and save up to 50% today with HBO Max discount codes and subscription deals.
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Top AT&T Promo Codes: $50 Off This September 2026
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Whether you’re looking to upgrade your internet or get the latest phone, we’ve got you covered with our selection of AT&T coupons and deals.
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Altra Running Promo Codes and Deals September 2026
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Score big savings on Altra Running shoes with up to 50% off sale styles, 20% off select models, 10% off your first order when you sign up, plus free standard delivery on every purchase.
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Top Mattress Firm Coupons: Save up to $700
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Use a Mattress Firm promo code to save on top mattresses, score a free adjustable base, and unlock up to $300 in instant credits.
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Nike Promo Codes: 30% Off for September 2026
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Check out our deals for Nike this September 2026, including 15% off select purchases.
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Get 10% off with Wayfair promo code, up to 80% off furniture, and more top coupons.
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Save up to 60% on a selection of items at eBay, including electronics, home products, card games, car parts and more.
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================================================================================================
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generated from attacks-export-Gart-website.json + reported_K&R | case 001
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================================================================================================
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