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The Serial Swatter

nytimes.com

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Re: The Serial Swatter

#81

Post by someguydave »

hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #71
btown wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, there isn't. The metadata is washed away when the VOIP call hits the Signaling System Seven switch.

A simple policy fix would solve this problem: Treat any caller willing to threaten police with death but unwilling to reveal his identity with great suspicion.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#82

Post by r00fus »

dragontamer wrote: post #54
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.

Cross-state crimes have always been a major issue for law enforcement. You would think that the local SWAT team would investigate, except most SWAT teams are only county based. All of the calls for "small local government" come to bite us in the ass when a punk from California calls a SWAT team in Ohio. Lets presume a simple VPN setup here: California Punk buys VPN in Switzerland, creates a Google Voice Account for O…

Why are 911 calls honored from Google voice or other VOIP numbers?

I've only had scam calls from numbers I could trace to GV or magic jack.

Re: The Serial Swatter

#83

Post by jackgavigan »

dragontamer wrote: post #54
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.

Cross-state crimes have always been a major issue for law enforcement. You would think that the local SWAT team would investigate, except most SWAT teams are only county based. All of the calls for "small local government" come to bite us in the ass when a punk from California calls a SWAT team in Ohio. Lets presume a simple VPN setup here: California Punk buys VPN in Switzerland, creates a Google Voice Account for O…

> Cross-state crimes have always been a major issue for law enforcement.

Isn't that the whole point of the FBI, though?

Re: The Serial Swatter

#84

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Serial Swatter

#85

Post by onewaystreet »

awalton wrote: post #35
onewaystreet wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SWAT is only called in when there is an imminent threat. The problem is that the swatters can make up whatever story they need to. There's no good way for the SWAT team to actually confirm the story without going in.

When someone says they're robbing a bank, they send in the SWAT team, but the first thing they do is set a perimeter and try to make contact with the people inside. Zero of these incidents that I've read about have tried to make any contact with people inside. They just break down the door and invade the house, guns drawn, smoke grenades in cribs, whatever it takes to make entry. I have no idea why it isn't protocol…

Bank robberies and hostage situations are not imminent threats. Remember, a swatter can make up any story they want. The kind of stories they make up are more along the lines of: A guy is massacring people. With the multiple mass shootings in recent years and now the terrorist attack in Paris, this gets taken seriously.
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