The threats started in spring. 

In April 2024, a mysterious someone using the online handles “Waifu” and “Judische” began posting death threats on Telegram and Discord channels aimed at a cybersecurity researcher named Allison Nixon. 

“Alison [sic] Nixon is gonna get necklaced with a tire filled with gasoline soon,” wrote Waifu/Judische, both of which are words with offensive connotations. “Decerebration is my fav type of brain death, thats whats gonna happen to alison Nixon.” 

It wasn’t long before others piled on. Someone shared AI-generated nudes of Nixon.

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These anonymous personas targeted Nixon because she had become a formidable threat: As chief research officer at the cyber investigations firm Unit 221B, named after Sherlock Holmes’s apartment, she had built a career tracking cybercriminals and helping get them arrested. For years she had lurked quietly in online chat channels or used pseudonyms to engage with perpetrators directly while piecing together clues they’d carelessly drop about themselves and their crimes. This had helped her bring to justice a number of cybercriminals—especially members of a loosely affiliated subculture of anarchic hackers who call themselves the Com.