
The Serial Swatter - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial-swatter.html
======
jgrahamc
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.

~~~
cstross
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 clearly change the nature of the interaction.
QED: attempted murder.)

~~~
cmdkeen
The problem is that would involve the state conceding that SWAT teams don't
exercise sufficient restraint in choosing when to utilise deadly force. It
very much should be heavily prosecuted but that is why it can't be attempted
murder. Much like why the police can't "shoot to disable" it's to do with the
legal implications of what you are admitting.

~~~
rchaud
Maybe not a murder charge, but in the US, there are a number of lesser charges
that don't imply direct intent, such as negligent homicide, 3 degrees of
manslaughter and others. In the case of deliberate targeting of women based on
gender, it's possible to attach a hate crime charge as well, which would add
significantly to the possible jail time. At the very least, pursuing some of
these charges would build leverage, which may result in the defendant pleading
to a lesser charge.

That in turn would result in no trial, and circumvent the complicated question
of whether SWAT team operations disproportionately increase the risk of death
or serious injury.

~~~
gherkin0
I don't think you're going to solve this problem by merely increasing
penalties and throwing more years-in-prison at the perpetrators. Most of them
seem to be kids who seem think they're invincible anyway.

> At the very least, pursuing some of these charges would build leverage,
> which may result in the defendant pleading to a lesser charge.

That's a really ugly part of the American justice system (e.g. scare the
accused with over-inflated penalties to get them to plead guilty with no
trial). That should be abandoned.

The real solution will be 1) removing SWAT teams from communities that have no
real need for them and 2) training police to only use SWAT tactics once
they've confirmed they're appropriate for the situation.

SWATing pranks are only just one symptom of the overuse of military tactics by
police.

------
sdoering
Sorry to say that, but WTF?

Having read this account, I can hardly believe such people (creatures? idiots?
Lost for words right now.) exist. Even knowing, this is a one in a
million/billion case, I really do not understand how someone could do things
like this. I totally understand how a system can be exploited. I even can
acknowledge on an intellectual level the "hack" of the system. But playing
with lives destroying innocent (mostly girls in this case, but the gender/age
do not matter if people are terrorized imho) people, is clearly something I
will never be able to understand.

And then only serving what - some 16 month in juvenile. Sorry, but that should
not be right as well. This is no punishment, this does not deter others, imho.

And this does also not help the guy in any way. Why can't he be made tu at
least also undergo therapy:

> His description of the pleasure he gets from causing humiliation and harm
> ... is suggestive of quite significant emerging psychopathic traits.

No, he will run free, nine month after his sentence.

Having written that much on him, I am still shaking my head in disbelieve.

~~~
masklinn
> Even knowing, this is a one in a million/billion case, I really do not
> understand how someone could do things like this.

Definitely not billion, there have been tons of cases in the US alone[0]. See
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/teen-pleads-
guilt...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/teen-pleads-guilty-
to-23-charges-of-swatting-harassing-online-game-rivals/) for an other fine
case earlier this year.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Notable_cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Notable_cases)
note that the section is called "notable cases" it is not an exhaustive list
by any stretch of imagination

------
jMyles
It seems to me that the fault lies entirely with the state. If it is violently
intruding people's homes on the basis of this sort of report - which ends up
being false - then obviously it needs to change the nature of what evidence
can be regarded as sufficient cause to do this.

After all, say-so alone isn't supposed to be sufficient evidence to conduct a
search. From the 4th amendment:

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
> effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
> and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, _supported by Oath or
> affirmation_ , and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
> persons or things to be seized.

(emphasis mine)

~~~
onewaystreet
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.

~~~
awalton
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 to have a hostage negotiator ring the
house, given that's how they'd respond to several other classes of incident,
but my guess is that's what happens when you pay for BearCats and bullet-
resist vests instead of councilors and negotiators.

~~~
67726e
> Zero of these incidents that I've read about have tried to make any contact
> with people inside

I got swatted a year ago and they setup a perimeter outside, really just eight
officers with assault rifles aimed at the front door, and had one knock and
yell that it was the police and that I needed to come out immediately. Granted
in my case the caller said I had heavy weapons and was planning some kind of
mass killing rather than the classic hostage situation so maybe they took a
different approach?

------
DanBC
> and from a police point of view, it’s better to ‘‘respond high and then
> downgrade’’

They're saying increased risk of killing innocent people = ok, which is a sub-
optimal approach when you look at the thousand or so people shot and killed by
US police each year.

~~~
dibujante
Well, flip the response around - respond low and then upgrade. It's possible
that this would lead to less death overall. But it would also mean that any
situation requiring escalation would probably indicate such through the death
of a police officer. Would you want to be the sacrificial officer who knocks
on the door to find out if the situation is worth escalating? The overall
numbers might work out better in that case, but the whole "someone will
definitely die" factor is a big psychological hurdle.

~~~
Zigurd
The US has unusually aggressive police, with tactics and doctrine that result
in far too much shooting and killing compared to other advanced nations. Yet
those other places don't get lots of dead police. Maybe there is a way to do
this without "responding high?"

~~~
dibujante
You're missing my point; I'm not arguing in favor of responding high, but
instead pointing out that responding high is more psychologically comfortable
than its numerical consequences would otherwise indicate.

------
jackgavigan
_> 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.

~~~
dragontamer
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 Ohio, makes a phone call to
911 through Google Voice in Ohio.

SWAT Team eventually realizes they've been tricked, but then they have no
authority in the next county over... let alone California. They call the FBI
and hand the case over to them... but now what? The phone call was probably
anonymized and tracing the caller id leads to a fake Google Voice account that
was accessed from Switzerland. All of a sudden you need to pull an
international team in to deal with the issue.

Remember, each step of the way is a set of laws that __we __, the people, have
wrapped the FBI with Red Tape in. What powers do the FBI have to trace phone
calls? Was it legal for them to look at the IP traffic? Each of these steps
are double-checked by lawyers in the FBI.

An FBI Agent who specializes in domestic phone calls (and what he is legally
allowed to do in the investigation) suddenly finds himself looking at VOIP
traffic from Google, and no longer understands the legal landscape his is
operating in. So he has to pass the job onto another department.

Eventually, the FBI will build teams of people who understand the legal
landscape across a typical SWAT attack, and have agents who can maneuver
through the sea of red tape.

Considering how much "Hacker News" posts about "OFMG, GOVMENT SPY ON US" like
every damn day, is it surprising to see the red tape that the political
opinion has caused?

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_Considering how much "Hacker News" posts about "OFMG, GOVMENT SPY ON US" like
every damn day, is it surprising to see the red tape that the political
opinion has caused?_

Absolutely. This is all the fault of the anti-surveillance lobby, and nothing
to do with the fact that separate political jurisdictions get to exercise
their own autonomous decision making or anything stupid like that.

------
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](http://www.911.gov/pdf/PublicSafetyInfo-Swatting-may2015.pdf)

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

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

------
tehwebguy
This kid DDoSed our site last year (League of Legends fan convention,
[http://www.summonerscon.com](http://www.summonerscon.com)). I wondered what
had happened to him.

~~~
TaylorSwift
According to the article, he is serving juvenile.

"In July, a judge sentenced him to 16 months in youth jail, with credit for
time served while awaiting trial. He is scheduled to be released in March, at
age 18."

------
tomtoise
I feel like this will always be an issue, due to the heavy militarization of
local police. When any swatting could be a real incident, I suppose they have
no choice but to go in with guns drawn and ready for anything.

------
vinceguidry
Kid's lucky, there are big dogs out there he could have angered. Parts where I
used to live, you don't rely on the cops to solve your problems for you. I
could have easily seen a truckful of guys driving up to Canada to beat the God
back into him. Some guys are really protective of their daughters.

------
skybrian
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?

~~~
CaptSpify
The problem, I think, is that there does need to be a way to "anonymously"
report suspicious activity. Imagine a legit call, where the "callee" is known
by the "suspicious person". I agree that there's room for
improvement/checking, but not sure how to reconcile the two.

~~~
skybrian
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 caller id
even for blocked numbers. It's just that there are some loopholes.

~~~
btown
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.

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

~~~
someguydave
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.

------
caseysoftware
> Around 6:30 a.m., her father jostled her awake and said she needed to come
> downstairs. When she got to the top of the steps, she saw her family’s
> living room ‘‘covered in cops.’’ There were at least five officers in riot
> gear, guns drawn. They had bulletproof vests and pads and helmets with
> visors.

This line doesn't make sense.

If officers showed up in SWAT/riot gear, they wouldn't let _anyone_ leave
their presence unsupervised, especially if someone else was in the house. SWAT
only goes in for situations where they believe violence is imminent. Therefore
they go room to room to clear/gather everyone, make sure potential victims are
secured, and that no one is armed.

If her/NYT's description is accurate, they broke procedure and put themselves
and any possible victims at extreme risk.

Are there any third party or police reports of this event?

~~~
tacojuan
If you watch enough swattings (most are streamed via twitch.tv and wind up on
youtube) you'll see they typically have a sheriff follow the obviously
unarmed, unharmed, and generally confused victims around the house.

~~~
caseysoftware
No, most are not streamed via Twitch. A tiny percentage are. In fact, we will
never hear of most of them unless someone is killed.

Further, read the paragraph and my quoted portion again. She says her father
woke her up and she didn't see cops until she saw into the living room.

Therefore, there was no sheriff with him.

------
kawera
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10625418](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10625418)

------
peter303
I guess the kid was a sociopath- the one one in twenty or so who dont give an
eff about anyone else. Some anonymous posters are sociopaths.

