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Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

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Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you point to is explicitly debunking the idea of slave patrols evolving into police forces. > The claim that modern police originated from slave patrols is a dangerous slur designed to delegitimize policing ... Bad policing must be criticized, but we should not do so by resorting to historically flimsy myths, especially myths that unfairly tarnish the reputations of those in law enforcement and cast asper…

It does not matter... he believes it, so it must be true. But it does feel weird to wander among humans, listening to the nonsense being discussed so earnestly. The truth of the matter is this: if you refuse to believe that modern policing evolved directly from slave patrols, it means you are a racist and you voted for Trump. This is undeniable, and by denying it you prove it true. Nuanced and sophisticated descripti…

> But it does feel weird to wander among humans, listening to the nonsense being discussed so earnestly.

It's even weirder when you're from any place on Earth other than the USA.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but at least have the calling number presented to the 911 operator, with various options categorised as more or less trustworthy. And 911 calls should bypass any 'calling number protection'. Someone else pointed out that the whole phone system is a dog's breakfast, which also needs to be fixed for various easy-scam-exploitation reasons as well. The only reason not to do it is that the corps that run the networks…

What specific effect would you expect “categorize as less trustworthy” have? Agreed on telephone infra in general

Non-spoofable and local number: trustworthy

Spoofable local number: slightly less trustworthy

Non-local number: less trustworthy

International number: barely trustworthy

VoIP: maybe slightly more trustworthy than international.

Said infra probably limits the ability to distinguish between these, however, so that becomes the primary issue.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#343
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. It’s good that law enforcement have the tools to deal with serious threats. You’re just throwing around a fear word. The big guns are hidden from sight anyway, and only brought out when need be. We don’t need any Oct 7th type attacks happening on home soil.

> We don’t need any Oct 7th type attacks happening on home soil. Well homegrown attacks happen DAILY. "Averaging almost 50,000 deaths from firearms annually". But no, once they're not on the news like the Oct 7th attacks where, it's fine I guess. https://www.statista.com/topics/10904/gun-violence-in-the-un...

If there are guns, there is death. Frankly, if there are no guns, there's still death.

You pulling an argumentative sleight of hand here conflating your run of the mill gun violence with terrorist attacks or mass shootings isn't cool.

It doesn't matter how the police is equipped, they can't stop a guy from walking up to his neighbor and shooting him in the face unless they're already there pointing guns at him. Although, maybe some sort of remote mind control chip is the answer there?

Also, I'm certain every shooting ends up on local news.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#344
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The militarization of law enforcement and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Do you mean for the US, rather than the human race? Some of us live in countries where the only weapons most cops carry are truncheons and tasers.

Its not just the weapons. In parts of Europe you can get arrested for posting the wrong kind of meme online. As a side note, when trying to research this you'll see weird double speak fact checks like below: > Fact Check: 11-year-old arrested on suspicion of violent disorder after riots, not ‘mean tweets’ > Sending grossly offensive, obscene, indecent, or menacing messages on public electronic communication networks…

I just read about a kid being arrested for $2 bill because the cops didn't know such bills exist. Not the first time it happens too. Some of them aren't exactly brilliant, unfortunately. And there are almost never any consequences for doing stupid while in the uniform.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, because cops never shoot someone just for being armed. They just don't. It's a combination of being armed plus (believed) criminal status, or behavior during the encounter. (And it's exceedingly rare that cops will believe an upstanding citizen who's legally armed and behaving civilly is a criminal. It happens, for instance in the two cases I cited, but it's rare. They're a rounding error in the police killing…

>It is, because cops never shoot someone just for being armed. They just don't. So you don't know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Philando_Castile

They do, they mentioned him earlier:

> They also usually involve the victim doing something that's not advisable, even if they're not doing anything legally wrong. Philando Castile, for instance, or Johnny Hurley.

“Not advisable”, of course, being a goalpost on wheels that allows them to justify police misconduct.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The militarization of law enforcement and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Do you mean for the US, rather than the human race? Some of us live in countries where the only weapons most cops carry are truncheons and tasers.

FYI this is a reference to the opening statement of the Unabomber Manifesto "Industrial Society and its Future". Don't think OP meant anything by the distinction of US/humans > The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. https://ia600300.us.archive.org/30/items/the-ted-k-archive-t...

Is this an obvious reference? Do people often know the text of this, or of bits of it?

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they can't charge him again for the same physical act. His federal guilty plea appears to admit to 375 swatting calls. So I don't think the state or local courts can subsequently charge him for any of those calls - they would need to find evidence of some separate calls.

IANAL, but some googling suggests you are wrong about that: https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/federal-crimes/is-it-doubl...

You're right, I stand corrected.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#348
post #169

I'm unwisely and unadvisedly wading into this half-cocked. Swatting wouldn't even be a thing if - Anonymous calls should be treated with high levels of suspicion as to their legitimacy - First response training that's even moderately appropriate - Situational awareness beyond what one's been informed by third parties - Empathy for all humans - Any kind of notion of that a scenario may not actually be as described by…

These are not "Anonymous" calls though. The SWATer kids call into 911/e-911 centers using a spoofed number of the victims.

That's not mentioned in the article. It does mention that the numbers of the victims were shared, but doesn't specifically say they were spoofed.

If it's that easy to spoof a phone number then that system is completely fucked and not fit for purpose.

And the efforts that a private investigator needed to go to, to track down the perpetrator, indicates that there is no way to track the source of the phone calls - that's ludicrous (but probably the norm).

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#349
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the slave patrol point, I would appreciate a single example of this phenomenon Potter, Gary "The History of Policing in the United States"[1] references Platt, Tony, "Crime and Punishment in the United States: Immediate and Long-Term Reforms from a Marxist Perspective, Crime and Social Justice 18" 1. https://www.academia.edu/30504361/The_History_of_Policing_in...

Did you read Platt? Its a mistake to grant any assertion as valid, especially given what we now know about academic fraud. The Platt article is freely available and does not reference slavery in any way that I can see from searching (the bad OCR) and quickly reading through the paragraphs. Potter: The genesis of the modern police organization in the South is the “Slave Patrol” (Platt 1982). Potter: Platt, Tony, “Crim…

I have noted we have shifted from "I can't find a single example" to "I don't trust the first provided source", and yet there are plenty of other sources, if you're searching in good faith.

The history of the United States is well documented - it was only for a brief period during reconstruction that policing was deracialized in the American South, and even saw a number of formerly-enslaved lawmen. There were numerous violent revolts against this, and in support of white supremacy in places like Oklahoma, Louisiana[1], Mississippi and elsewhere where egalitarian leaders were ran out of town, and the law enforcement (along other administrative leadership) was reconfigured against the then "new", post-civil-war ways.

Do you see any functional differences between slave patrols (membership free from white land owners or their nominees) and the group that overthrew and reconstituted reconstruction-era law enforcement (mobs drew from white landowners, or their hired grunts).

https://naucenter.as.virginia.edu/blog-page/1761

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually a bad solution. Weapons weren't much less brutal then, mostly just less precise. You'd have people accidentally shooting bystanders in armed conflicts.

We already have that: spray-and-prey is common, as are bystanders killed (even those who are just going about their lives in their own homes). But the weapons of the day were single-shot before reloading. In your argument we would only be reducing the number of bystanders reasonably shot.

The repeating air rifle with a 20 round magazine that Lewis and Clark brought on their expedition was invented over a decade before the ratification of the US Bill of Rights. If you're worried about capacity for indiscriminate violence, there were also cannons and grenades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle

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