Nate Anderson, Ars Technica Security Jul 28, 2026 7:30 PM A Typo Landed an Innocent Gamer in Prison for 18 Months How much could a single underscore in a username really matter? Just ask Brandon Klayme, who served 18 months in prison before realizing how authorities arrested, charged, and convicted the wrong man. Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images Save this story Save this story One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months. A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise. Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”), but they accidentally requested records for the username “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”). This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme. (Readers may recognize “fus ro dah” as the Unrelenting Force “dragon shout” from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim .) Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges . He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term. Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered. On Thursday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned Klayme’s conviction , writing: “Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted.” One Underscore The case began in 2018. From August through December of that year, a 12-year-old Wisconsin girl communicated with an adult male through the Kik messaging service. During a check of the girl’s phone, her mother found an “inappropriate” photo of the male and called local police. The Dane County Sheriff’s Department responded. A deputy took the phone, and the department ran a forensic search on it. The report identified 125 Kik messages between the girl and an adult with the username “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”). To identify this person, the cops contacted Kik, but their subpoena accidentally requested information about the Kik user “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”). Kik provided Klayme’s email address in response. Google records showed that this email address was used to access Google services from an IP address in Canada, so the Dane County investigators turned the case over to Halifax Regional Police. Halifax police took the IP address they had been given to local internet provider Bell Aliant. Bell connected the IP address to the physical address of their subscriber, Brandon Klayme. The cops then obtained a search warrant for Klayme’s residence and took phones and laptops from his bedroom. Searching these devices produced no evidence relevant to the case. Nothing linked Klayme to the girl. No intimate images were found. Klayme did have a Kik account, but cops couldn’t even show that he had accessed the service during the period in question. Still, Klayme was arrested and hit with three charges: Luring a person under 14 years of age by means of telecommunication Providing sexually explicit material to a child Possession of child pornography The case went to trial, where Klayme was found guilty. He then went to prison for 18 months. No one involved, even on the defense side, appears to have noticed the username confusion. The Appeal Klayme continued to press his appeal, but only late in the process did his team figure out what had happened. Here’s how Klayme describes the discovery: In the latter stages of preparing my appeal arguments, it was discovered that the subpoena contained a subtle mistake that changed the course of my life. Instead of requesting details for the username “fus__ro_dah,” the subpoena requested details for the username “fus_ro_dah.” The police officer did not notice that the perpetrator’s Kik username “fus__ro_dah” contains a double underscore. This discrepancy went completely unnoticed at the trial. It was never brought to the attention of the trial judge. After this was pointed out, prosecutors took another look. They agreed that Klayme’s appeal should be allowed. Had the case been properly investigated, the court says now, evidence “would have identified an individual whose first name is Jay whose IP address appears to be in California.” Given this, the Court of Appeal last week acquitted Klayme on all charges. His sentence (including his ongoing probation) was vacated. How could such a crucial mistake have been missed for so long? No one seems to know. As the court puts it, “Although the information about the usernames was available at the time of the trial, there is no evidence confirming or explaining how it went unnoticed.” This story originally appeared on Ars Technica . Comments Back to top Join the discussion Comments Back to top You Might Also Like In your inbox: Inside WIRED’s newsroom with Katie Drummond Trump mocked Zuckerberg and Bezos by showing off fawning texts Big Story: I found Jesus at a drone show Apple is making your older iPhone run faster and stay alive longer WIRED event: PepsiCo’s once-in-a-generation transformation Nate is a senior editor at Ars Technica, where he covers technology law, politics, and culture. He holds an MA in English literature from the University of North Carolina, where he also taught freshmen how to craft sentences, think clearly, and use semicolons. (Surprisingly, the semicolons proved most difficult.) In ... Read More Topics Ars Technica video games privacy Online Gaming Internet Crime Police Read More Ebay Has to Pay $55.7 Million in Settlement for Its Unhinged Harassment Campaign For months on end, eBay employees and contractors made life hell for a couple that had criticized the company. Six years later, the company is finally paying up. Lauren Goode Apple’s Hide My Email Service Fails to Hide Your Email Plus: Alleged Scattered Spider hacking member extradited, dozens of license plate reader errors, and Indian officials are concerned about WhatsApp’s username rollout. Matt Burgess The ACLU Is Arming Lawyers to Expose State Surveillance Secrets A new toolkit for attorneys in Massachusetts targets the technologies police use—and conceal—to build criminal cases, from facial recognition to AI-written police reports. Dell Cameron Your Period Tracker Is (Probably) Spying on You Plus: Russian cyberspies turn to infrastructure hacking, DHS repeatedly fails to realize it’d been hacked, a breach exposes an AI music generator’s scraping ways, and more. Andy Greenberg European Researchers Say Big Tech Is Blocking Access to Their Data EU law gives researchers unprecedented rights to scrutinize social media data. Researchers say TikTok, X, and Meta impede their attempts to look inside. Anna Desmarais ICE’s Internal Watchdog Is Now Investigating Online Critics The Office of Professional Responsibility has opened more than 100 cases over what ICE officials call “incidents of doxing and threats” against ICE employees. Maddy Varner Pickup Artist Mystery Has an AI Girlfriend A new book claims that Mystery, who teaches awkward men how to hit on women, had sex and smoked weed with an AI chatbot named Miss Shira Always. Miles Klee States Want ICE Agents to Show Their Faces. The Trump Administration Is Blocking Them Federal lawyers say anti-mask laws would endanger immigration agents, citing an ICE face-recognition art project that doesn’t actually work. Maddy Varner A Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes the New Reality of Urban Surveillance The SFPD’s exposure of hours of videos from drone platform Skydio reveals how broadly it’s watching the city from above—and how the results can spill online. Andy Greenberg AI Found a Root Bug in Linux That Everyone Missed for 15 Years Plus: The Pentagon is training amateurs to become part of its hacker army, a Flock license plate reader error led to cops surrounding a car reviewer, and more. Dell Cameron Surfshark Promo Codes for July 2026 Save up to 87% with a Surfshark coupon code, 3 months of VPN free today, and more from WIRED. Scott Gilbertson Get 10% Off LegalZoom Promo Code for August 2026 Save on top services at LegalZoom, like LLC registration, incorporation, estate plans, and more with coupons and deals from WIRED. Parker Hall