A 41-year-old man in Hsinchu has been charged for sending a bomb threat to Taiwan High Speed Rail's chatbot, a case that ended without any public panic but still carries criminal charges.

• The man typed a message claiming there was a bomb on the high-speed rail into the company's automated customer-service chat in April.
• He sent it from his office computer using a private browsing window, which did not stop police from tracing him.
• Rail staff alerted police, and railway investigators tracked him down and handed him to prosecutors.
• Prosecutors in Taoyuan charged him only with obstructing rail employees from doing their jobs, since the message never reached the public.

Outlook: The case now goes to court, where the limited charge suggests a lighter penalty than a full public bomb-threat case would bring.