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The Serial Swatter

nytimes.com

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Re: The Serial Swatter

#71

Post by hooloovoo_zoo »

btown wrote: post #67
skybrian wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean since the emergency responders can keep the source of the call confidential. In any case, exact location isn't necessary. It doesn't make sense to treat a local call and a call from somewhere in Canada the same. Most swatting attempts are from far away, so having some indication of location would make it harder to do damage. Also, most calls to 911 are not anonymous - they automatically get cal…

As other commenters have noted, it is possible to buy local area code numbers for use on Google Voice. Very difficult to distinguish a swatter from a true resident of the area.

Is there really no information in the signal that would tell you what protocols were used to encode / transmit the call?

Re: The Serial Swatter

#72

Post by masklinn »

jackgavigan wrote: post #38

> The F.B.I. doesn’t keep statistics on swatting incidents; a bureau spokeswoman says it is still working out which part of the F.B.I. should handle swatting investigations, because the crime ‘‘crosses so many of our delineated thresholds for who handles what.’’ This is pretty shocking. Speaks to an unreasonable level of bureaucracy and/or a lack of internal cooperation (not to mention common sense) at the FBI.

Especially since that's been happening for at least a decade:

> Weigman’s first swatting incident occurred in 2004 when he was 14 years old. When a girl he met through an online chat room refused to have phone sex with him, he retaliated by swatting the girl and her father, convincing a 9-1-1 operator he was holding the two at gunpoint in their Colorado home, which prompted a SWAT response.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/september/the-crime-of...

Re: The Serial Swatter

#73

Post by mikeash »

skybrian wrote: post #47

I'm wondering if a reliable caller ID that gives a rough geographical source of the call would prevent most swatting. A supposedly local emergency call that actually comes from a different country should be considered suspicious. Seems like there are some loopholes to be closed?

I imagine that would help, but how do you actually implement such a thing?

Re: The Serial Swatter

#74

Post by VonGuard »

skybrian wrote: post #47

I'm wondering if a reliable caller ID that gives a rough geographical source of the call would prevent most swatting. A supposedly local emergency call that actually comes from a different country should be considered suspicious. Seems like there are some loopholes to be closed?

Caller ID is terrible. It was never meant to be a form of security, only to be a service the phone companies could sell access to. It's so incredibly easy to fake Caller ID that it's essentially useless at a macro level. To fix it would require a completely different system, something like the ANI systems phone companies offer. But they hate offering ANIs to the public, sooooo....

Anyone interested in spoofing Caller ID can do so with an Asterisk box. You can put in whatever number you want for the Caller ID.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#75

Post by DanBC »

Ntrails wrote: post #55
DanBC wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if the very definition of a "user" is around anonymity then by declaring a personal information you kind of are attempting to make the conversation about you (which I presume is contrary to the whole point of 4chan?). we don't see the same level of hatred around people using tripcodes.

I don't understand - can you elaborate? Googling suggests that a tripcode is essentially marking posts as being from a consistent source rather than any change to the poster themselves being annonymous? The question is if someone started posting on there about being tall - would there be vitriol? My guess is not but I really don't know.

A consistent source is not anonymous. It's linked to the trip code.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#76

Post by Animats »

We need more detailed caller ID info to help stop this. At the point where a VoIP system connects to the PSTN, the ID of the VoIP system should be passed forward along with the usual CLID info. When that info reaches a PSAP, it should be displayed with a warning that the CLID info may be bogus and comes from (name of VoIP system). This would make it much harder to spoof the calling location.

That info is usually available in logs at the PSTN gateway, but often not for long, because the logs aren't kept long.[1] But it's not passed forward to the PSAP. It should be.

[1] http://www.911.gov/pdf/PublicSafetyInfo-Swatting-may2015.pdf

Re: The Serial Swatter

#77

Post by ryanlol »

Animats wrote: post #76

We need more detailed caller ID info to help stop this. At the point where a VoIP system connects to the PSTN, the ID of the VoIP system should be passed forward along with the usual CLID info. When that info reaches a PSAP, it should be displayed with a warning that the CLID info may be bogus and comes from (name of VoIP system). This would make it much harder to spoof the calling location. That info is usually avai…

How does that stop a Tor user? Why should call metadata like this be controlled so heavily when IP packets aren't?

Re: The Serial Swatter

#78

Post by ableal »

rhaps0dy wrote: post #57
cstross wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of startled that this type of crime isn't prosecuted as attempted murder. (If I go out and try to hire a hit-man to kill someone, that's how the prosecuting authorities would deal with me. If I try and trick someone else who is armed into killing someone for me? That's a very short step from paying an assassin -- there's just less money involved. That the armed someone in question is a SWAT team doesn't clea…

>QED: attempted murder What? Quod erat demonstrandum: attempted murder? Thus it is proven: attempted murder? You probably meant "Summarizing", "In summary", "All in all", or a similar expression.

'meaning "which is what had to be proven"' , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#79

Post by Animats »

ryanlol wrote: post #77
Animats wrote: post #76

We need more detailed caller ID info to help stop this. At the point where a VoIP system connects to the PSTN, the ID of the VoIP system should be passed forward along with the usual CLID info. When that info reaches a PSAP, it should be displayed with a warning that the CLID info may be bogus and comes from (name of VoIP system). This would make it much harder to spoof the calling location. That info is usually avai…

How does that stop a Tor user? Why should call metadata like this be controlled so heavily when IP packets aren't?

The phony call would come up at the PSAP as nnn-nnn-nnnn (MAY BE FORGED - source TOR via node xxxxx).

Re: The Serial Swatter

#80

Post by PretzelFisch »

cstross wrote: post #21
jgrahamc wrote: post #10

Many of the comments here about about the SWAT teams and militarization of the US police force, but the story I read is that this guy (and others) went after women gamers because of their gender. Just the other day a woman programmer told me of some of the threats and abuse she'd suffered essentially because she's a programmer, a woman and has a public profile. I find this so depressing.

I'm kind of startled that this type of crime isn't prosecuted as attempted murder. (If I go out and try to hire a hit-man to kill someone, that's how the prosecuting authorities would deal with me. If I try and trick someone else who is armed into killing someone for me? That's a very short step from paying an assassin -- there's just less money involved. That the armed someone in question is a SWAT team doesn't clea…

At the very least assault with a deadly weapon seems appropriate.
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