This feels to me like a person with some sort of mental illness or breakdown and delusions of grandeur and persecution. Their explanation doesn't make much sense. If I were Daniel, I wouldn't respond any further.
The $15k figure implies that's either a bill the hackers ran up on an AWS instance or what they valued their development at
Edit: The blackmail line sounds like a ransomware attack
If you read the follow-up emails - and apologies for the armchair psychiatry - I think this person is very likely in a psychotic state. Their messages sound very similar to what you find in the "BadBIOS" and other "gangstalking" communities. It's not really tethered to reality.
I think it's extremely likely the author is not a troll and possesses a sincere and high-confidence belief that powerful entities are tracking and persecuting him and that backdoors in lots of software, including curl, were placed by sinister organizations and used to facilitate spying on and attacking him. The software is perceived as a WMD or pathogen partly responsible for this incursion into his life and the damage he thinks has resulted. He's mad because he thinks Daniel is like the mayor of Flint, MI: the water is poisoning people and he's doing absolutely nothing about it. Of course you'd be angry!
This is why it's generally best to not reply to messages as extreme as these. Daniel will never be able to convince him he isn't actually the metaphorical Flint mayor. You just get sucked into a world that's very real to them and not real to you or almost anyone else. It's not possible and not a good idea to try to reason with someone like that.
Indeed. But one shouldn't underestimate the chance that this wouldn't be the first report about this person. Lots of similar reports like this may actually cause them to do something.
It ended up with a broken back wheel (she kicked it) and a damaged phone (she took it out of my hand when I wanted to take a picture of the license plate and threw it on the ground).
She was clearly unhinged, but I was stupid as well. I should of just let it go; no one who starts a social interaction with "pissy little cunt" is likely to be calmed down by reason. You have nothing to gain from trying, and much to potentially lose.
That said, I think the real lesson for you is: don't make yourself more vulnerable (e.g. letting her touch you or your stuff) if you decide to try to start a conversation!
It also points to a theory I've been considering about personhood, and how people like your driver lady is in a mindstate where, in her mind, you're not a person. It's a very, very dangerous situation, because if they don't think you're a person, then there is nothing immoral about saying or doing anything to you, including violence.
I didn't "let" her, she just did it.
I know you mean well and that you probably didn't intend it like this, but this comment comes off as victim blaming quite a bit.
As for the rest: thus far I've never managed to talk random strangers down from these kind of rages; but maybe I just don't have the charm shrug Last time I tried was with my neighbour and he ended up calling the police three times over a four-day period on me. My crime? I kindly asked him to not play his music so loudly all day long at the start of the lockdown (especially at 7am) and not backing down when he tried to shout me away. I had "invaded his home" by knocking on his front door... This isn't a fit of anger, some people are just like this.
Because the earlier interaction I mentioned went sideways (including, among other things, her literally getting within 4 inches of my face while she was not wearing a mask), I decided to video record this most recent interaction on my phone so I would have evidence if anything went wrong that I could take to the landlord. I knew this would create an inherently more antagonistic vibe, but I felt like I had no choice after the prior incident.
Let's just say this interaction also went bad, culminating in a very minor physical assault (I was not injured -- she slapped the hand I was holding my phone in, because she did not like the fact I was recording), and a restraining order.
End of story, right?
Wrong. That restraining order, it was taken out by her against me. Her petition filing is literally nothing but gaslighting trying to paint me as the aggressor when I literally have video evidence to the contrary.
Unfortunately, due to COVID shenanigans, the court date was delayed a couple of times, and I ended up not being served notice of the actual hearing, which means I lost in a default judgement. I filed a motion to terminate her restraining order and a counter petition of my own, both of which I am currently waiting on a hearing for.
And, like your situation, because it was a neighbor, and because I have to walk past her door to get to and from my apartment, I simply don't have the choice to not interact with this person. Basically anything I could have done would be a lose / lose. Rock, meet hard place, I guess. Le sigh.
As for your neighbor, yes, it sounds like he's a crazy person. And the lockdown has taken even moderately crazy people and pushed them over the edge!
There are some people who will try to bully their way through life. They will apply violent behavior (e.g. breaking your phone) to get their way. The way to stop that is to make it clear that you can apply violence, too.
Most of society works by peacefully interacting with each other. But it is crucial that everyone knows that there is a threat of violence (e.g. the police) to keep everyday life peaceful.
I wonder if I am just imagining it, but I took martial arts lessons as a kid. I've always felt like just the knowledge that I could fight has caused others to deescalate and be respectful.
Please do not give terrible advice that will kill people.
So, yes, I agree with you somewhat, but I think the balance of consequences tends to favor not acting in cases like this rather than attempting to do anything.
There's a name for this incident - "road rage". Very real and dangerous indeed.
People get completely irrational and agitated. Probably due to effect of being locked up, in a way, non-free inside their cars.
When I'm biking, at times I too get mad at some careless and obnoxious drivers encroaching my freedom, I guess they may be finding me just as annoying for simply missing the fatter wheels and a comparable scale on the shared road. Irrational!
As cyclists we are literally more exposed on the road. So whenever such inevitable bout of irrational fury pops, I find the safest option for myself is to steam-off using similar vocabulary. It's more efficient than reasoning with the unreasonable.
Just to be even safer, I'd let the offending four-wheeled furia be gone before naming the whole piece of that motorized content in precisely spoken choice of words...
It takes practice though. Be safe!