Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 419 posts

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

#371

Post by PittleyDunkin »

tptacek wrote: post #327
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like he was a child when he made most of these calls. Regardless, this is unlikely to be much of a deterrent. The police need to be held accountable at some point.

The police didn't hurt anybody in this case, despite this person's attempt to make them do so. What are you holding them accountable for?

I never said the police's problems were on display with this case. In fact i think the case is largely meaningless to the topic. the threat of swatting is going to remain until the police can be brought under some kind of democratic control.

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

#372

Post by janalsncm »

bcdtttt wrote: post #365
janalsncm wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a genetic fallacy. Police might have been former slave patrollers at one time in some places. That doesn’t mean all US police are the same or have anything in common with them. I’m not sure what it means for US police to have “evolved out of” slave patrols in places that never had slaves, like New York City (northern states didn’t want to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act), or even in places like Hawaii…

Police forces have roots in protecting capital, for example warehouse guards or for another slave patrols. They still exist for that purpose in the US. They do not exist to protect people. They are a tool of the state and capital. The years post slavery still were used to enforce Jim Crow laws, segregation, and violence against minorities. They still used dogs to attack peaceful protestors. SWAT teams are a continuat…

This is a genetic fallacy. The origins of policing don’t give you sufficient information to judge its present quality. Further, as many have also pointed out, many places didn’t even have slave patrols. Drawing a connection between contemporary Waco cops and Jim Crow is dubious but drawing that connection to e.g. LAPD is entirely unjustified. Bad police departments resemble something more akin to the Catholic Church than the KKK.

Assuming you are not making the entirely reductionist argument that requires every law be tied back to capital (in other words, murder is illegal because it brings down property values or something) this is an extremely narrow view of the purpose of police. This everything-is-capital framing doesn’t explain consumer protections or environmental laws or labor laws.

The purpose of police is to enforce the laws. Many of those laws have been significantly and disproportionately controlled by corporate and monied interests but again there are too many clear counterexamples to conclude as you did.

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

#373

Post by tptacek »

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #371
tptacek wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police didn't hurt anybody in this case, despite this person's attempt to make them do so. What are you holding them accountable for?

I never said the police's problems were on display with this case. In fact i think the case is largely meaningless to the topic. the threat of swatting is going to remain until the police can be brought under some kind of democratic control.

I don't know, you brought it up. I'm asking: in this case, what do you want them held accountable for?

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

#374

Post by soraminazuki »

tzs wrote: post #331
soraminazuki wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's more than a decade less than what Chelsea Manning or John Kiriakou was sentenced to. It's absurd that the punishment is much harsher for unspecified theoretical harm caused by whistleblowing than the very real harm caused by literal murder attempts.

Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months not 30 years . As far as harm goes Manning's leaks exposed the identities of a lot of people who cooperated with the US or the Afghanistan government against the Taliban. When the Taliban found out about such people they would go after them. We probably will never know how many, if any, people got killed from being exposed in the leaks because there is no way to know if the Taliban…

> Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months not 30 years.

My bad, but still egregious nonetheless.

> As far as harm goes Manning's leaks exposed the identities of a lot of people

You're after different people. It's Luke Harding and David Leigh from the Guardian that published the password to the unredacted files.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/09/unredacted_us...

> We probably will never know how many, if any, people got killed from being exposed in the leaks

This is exactly what I meant by "unspecified and theoretical." The government had over 2 decades to point to any instances of harm. Where are they?

Also again, Chelsea Manning didn't publish the unredacted files. It's rich to blame her for Afghanistan deaths while ignoring the actions of Bush and every president after him, where the ultimate responsibility lies.

> A crucial difference is that when the teen sent someone to your house they were not there to kill you.

No, the crucial difference is intent. Swatting kills people, swatters know that, but they do it anyways for their own pleasure. Obviously, swatters aren't sending trigger-happy cops so that their victims can survive.

Meanwhile, Chelsea Manning exposed war crimes. This is whistleblowing, not some selfish "leak." The intent here is to save lives, the exact opposite of swatting. I don't know how anyone can demonize whistleblowing while trivializing swatting.

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

#375

Post by phendrenad2 »

telgareith wrote: post #369
xenadu02 wrote: post #361

I've made this comment before but technology could help here. If the call was tagged as landline, cell, or VoIP along with approximate location info it would help a lot. A landline call tagged as "same town" or cell call tagged as "pinged tower near reported location" could be treated more seriously than a VoIP call from "Fly-by-night VoIP Gateway Plc".

No, just no. The solution here is to not show up guns a-blazing. The reason why swatting exists is because it seriously harms the victim. This is no more complicated than grade school playgrounds: don't give the bully what they want.

"No, just no"? Really? Do you think we're in some Realtime Strategy Game where we have to choose one option and then press "end turn"?

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

#376

Post by phendrenad2 »

I always thought that SWATting was done by a foreign adversary to try to make people lose faith in their government. Guess I was wrong.

> "According to court records, Filion was also part of a high-profile international swatting group that targeted several prominent figures"

...or was I right?

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

#377

Post by sangnoir »

adolph wrote: post #362
sangnoir wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 numerou…

Don’t “good faith” me with a reference that you claim supports your assertion but in actuality does not. You made an assertion and can defend it or abandon it. If evidence for your claim was as plentiful as you claim, you would just add another link. You didn’t.

> If evidence for your claim was as plentiful as you claim, you would just add another link.

I gave examples of 3 southern states (and a link to one, detailing how the law enforcement was devolved to antebellum mores in Louisiana)

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

#378

Post by shermantanktop »

hereforcomments wrote: post #96

In Europe this would have been a completely different story. It's highly unlikely (compared to the US) that a SWAT team equivalent would kill anyone. The guy could have got away with 5-7 years max. I know it's a museum, but I prefer to live here.

It’s a nice museum!

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

#379

Post by robertlagrant »

michaelt wrote: post #310
robertlagrant wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The previous comments weren't specific to America. This is a global website.

> the modern police, at least in the US,

Oh, how did I miss that!?

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

#380

Post by jmye »

edanm wrote: post #139
jmye wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s more than two people per day. But sure, let’s nitpick the definition of “regular” because that’s absolutely the important issue, here.

Agreeing on facts is always important, because if not, nothing else matters in a discussion. We should never criticize people for actually bringing real numbers into a conversation to clarify things. I didn't know that statistic, and I suspect many "disagreements" are things where if the actual numbers and facts were known to all, they would actually agree.

The criticism was not about “bringing facts”, it was about pedantically parsing word choices. Whether you think 2.5ish people per day is “regular” is irrelevant to the larger point.
Post reply on HN