Wave of bomb threats occur across America.

Police respond to a bomb threat at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado. NBC News. 

A wave of bomb threats across America caused widespread panic before being revealed as a hoax. NBC News. The bomb threats were sent via e-mail and hit New York City, Oklahoma City, and Littleton Colorado. Threats were also sent in Canada. Most of the threats involved an extortion attempt in bitcoin. Nobody is known to have paid the extortion. Many of the threats came from legitimate accounts that were hacked.

My Comment:

A fairly disruptive story that is only notable for how widely it spread. It pretty much seems to have hit everywhere and even affected local businesses in my area. Indeed, it seems very few places in America were spared this scam. 

Though it was fairly obvious that the whole thing was a hoax, it was extremely disruptive. Police and businesses had to act as though the attacks were real which required a response and in some cases evacuation. The combination of police response and loss of productivity probably cost the country a large amount of money. 

Given how widespread this attack is, if they attacker is found and prosecuted he is likely to go away for a very long time. Each case was a terrorist threat, which is a felony, plus there is extortion charges as well. Assuming they find this guy and successfully convict him, he will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. I do wonder if the attacker planned to have this attack hit so many businesses at once. It's possible that this was a more limited attack that blew up out of control. 

If the idea was to make some money I think this attack failed. It doesn't sound like anyone paid so whoever did this risked the rest of his life in prison for basically no gain. Given the widespread media coverage and quick police response, there was basically no way that this scam would have succeeded. 

However, there is a chance that the bitcoin extortion was just a red herring. This may have been a more traditional terror attack. Though nobody was hurt perhaps the goal was to cause a panic and waste resources. If that was the case then this attack was a success.