
Tales from the Trenches: I was SWATed - ColinWright
http://blog.randi.io/2015/04/03/swated/
======
cperciva
It's worth noting that this is just the latest in a long series of episodes of
harassment which Randi has experienced -- it's not just another case of gamers
taking their competition offline, which is the most common swatting backstory
I hear about these days.

Rather than allowing herself to be driven out of the field as many other women
have been[1], Randi is fighting back and recently founded the Online Abuse
Prevention Initiative
([http://onlineabuseprevention.org/](http://onlineabuseprevention.org/)),
which aims to help people protect themselves from harassment and to help tech
companies and law enforcement to better respond to this problem.

If anyone expected this to stop Randi, they're sorely mistaken. I know Randi
as a FreeBSD developer, and she is one of the most fearless people I've ever
met.

[1] Not intended to cast aspersions on those women who have been driven out;
if I faced the same experience I too would have been driven out of this field.

~~~
belorn
Please don't belittle victims of crime by describing their experience as "just
another case of gamers taking their competition offline". People of both
gender experience harassment in life, and at times it goes into the realm of
becoming victim of crimes. It should not matter what gender you are or your
chosen profession in life, by belittle it you are causing direct harm to other
human beings.

Please stop.

~~~
DanBC
I read cperciva as criticising the commonly given justification of online
abuse. Many people say it's not actually harassment and that it's just mean
comments or that it's just an extension of online competitiveness.

I read cperciva as condemning that and using this example to show that all
online harassment edit[is / can be] severe.

~~~
belorn
I guess it depend on how you want to interpret it, and a clarification from
cperciva would be nice.

To me it was as a statement that because the long series of episodes of
harassment which Randi has experienced, this specific case is much more than
all those gamers who complain about getting swatted, as their problem is just
another case of gamers taking their competition offline. That this case is
different from the norm (as Manishearth phrase it bellow), and thus worthy of
notice in contrast to the problems of "gamers".

To me, that is belittling. Maybe cperciva meant the opposite, that swatting is
a real crime and not something to be perceived as just "gamers taking their
competition offline", but it was not the impression I got from that comment.

~~~
maxerickson
I think you are right, there aren't any good reasons to do a SWATing and there
isn't anyone who deserves to be the target of one. But I guess almost
everybody, including cperciva, believes this.

I guess if you said 'Please be careful not to' instead of "Please don't
belittle" you would get less argument. Instead of assuming a particular
intention, point out how you read the phrase and ask if that was intended.

~~~
belorn
Good advice and thus upvoted. Its a fair point, and just because this article
mentioned gamergate, it doesn't mean some people would belittle one group of
victims on order to make an other set of victim more likeable. It should have
seemed more strange, and thus promoted a investigating question rather than an
assumption.

------
brohee
This is only a matter of time until someone is killed... It looks like it
almost happened on January 15 when a victim shot home invaders that happened
to be SWAT making a no knock entry.

[http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/19/oklahoma-man-at-
center-...](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/19/oklahoma-man-at-center-
police-shooting-said-never-made-11-call-that-led-to-raid/)

~~~
Udo
If police not identifying themselves is becoming a pattern, it's going to be
very confusing and dangerous to ordinary people.

I live in Germany, in a completely safe and virtually crimeless idyllic
suburb. A couple of months ago I came home at noon and noticed a small group
of what looked like thugs loitering at the front door of my neighbor's house.
One of them kept banging the door and shouting "open up, or you don't want to
find out what happens next" (or something to that effect) in a thick regional
dialect.

All the neighbors were hiding in their houses, but I was already on the street
right in front of them, so I walked over and asked "is there something wrong
here?". Two of the thugs blocked my way and the shouting guy exclaimed "move
along, there is nothing to see here".

This was the point when I was getting out my phone and started dialing the
police emergency number, just as two trucks of the fire department and a
police van were moving in from opposite ends of the street, coming to a halt
in front of the house. Uniformed people swarmed out and joined what I had
assumed to be thugs before. Turns out they were plain-clothes officers.

In the end, it came out it was a pot raid, but apparently nothing was found.
In slightly different circumstances, this could have escalated quickly. The
plain clothes officers were clearly looking for trouble. At the very least
they were enjoying their effect on the civilians. It's not a SWAT yet, but
it's enough to make me uncomfortable; especially considering the history of
the country.

It's not always been like this here. I do have friends who are police
officers, and generally they take pride in the fact that (and I quote) "it's
not like in the US", but I'm afraid we might be importing this problem now.

~~~
plongeur
I mean - let's be honest - there is a reason why somebody chooses to become a
cop. And more often than not - this very reason isn't about "helping people".
It's more likely about enjoying the exertion of power over people. There is a
stronger psychological similarity between ordinary hooligans and police men
than what is good. It's also always the police who will eagerly suppress
people in case a state turns increasingly totalitarian - policemen don't like
thinking for themselves - which is why they choose those hierarchical jobs in
the first place. They like to have action and the feeling of adrenalin.

Also it's worth thinking about this - the SS in Nazi Germany was made up of
about 2% of the population. Now this personality type who would do SS jobs
didn't just go away - the root is of psychological nature which is most likely
more or less uniformly distributed within any population. Now those guys - in
that psychological, statistical sense still exist - what do you think what
kind of job they will choose? Elder care? Most likely either military or
police.

~~~
fenomas
> there is a reason why somebody chooses to become a cop..

Raymond Chandler: "Police business is a hell of a problem. It’s a good deal
like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there’s nothing in it
to attract the highest type of men."

------
josu
Is this a US only phenomenon or is it happening in other countries too?

~~~
kiiski
There was recently some articles about the phenomenon in the Finnish Helsinki
Times, but they say it mainly happens in the USA "due to the agressive
operating culture of the countrys police"[1]. Apparently the people calling
the swat strike may be from other countries.

[1] in finnish: [http://nyt.fi/a1305943609673](http://nyt.fi/a1305943609673)

~~~
iLoch
I don't know if you can entirely blame the police. These scenarios are sort of
a product of their environment: guns are very available in the US and there's
no room to make assumptions about emergency calls. Police are forced to
respond like its a real scenario - almost like a low level DDoS attack. Makes
you wonder what these SWATers are saying to police.

~~~
justizin
My understanding of this situation from following on Twitter is that they
claimed to be at her location, armed, with a hostage, asking for ransom.

I'm doing my best to spare the diatribe about how the Oakland Police
Department is essentially the worst police department in the US.

Let's just take a step back. In what world does someone who wants a ransom for
a hostage call the police? This isn't something that happens, except in action
movies. The entire narrative, including the police reaction, is straight out
of a sophomore film student's twisted imagination.

The police, esp in the US, but in general, aren't designed to protect and
serve, they're designed to eliminate threats to power. Right now Oakland has a
new mayor who wants to make sure voters see that she is tough on crime.

This situation is an unfortunate collision of two worlds that know very little
about each other. :/

~~~
raverbashing
> In what world does someone who wants a ransom for a hostage call the police?

Any witness can call and describe the situation, as well as victims that are
in hiding.

If you were a 911 operator and got a call that was ordering a Pizza you would
have hang up right?

------
pdkl95
I really need to read Pat Cadigan's book "Tea From An Empty Cup"[1] again
sometime soon, which was probably foreshadowing for SWATing-style attacks.

The story is centered around an online gamer who is killed in real life
because of stuff that happens in-game. It explores the often-assumed belief
that it doesn't matter what you do because "it's just a game" or "I was only
trolling", and how for some people the line between fantasy and reality is not
as obvious as it should be.

[1] [http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/06/qlife-is-so-cheap-in-dc-
q-b...](http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/06/qlife-is-so-cheap-in-dc-q-being-a-
review-of-pat-cadigans-tea-from-an-empty-cup)

------
raverbashing
Kids (I'm talking about "mental age" here) are not aware of the consequences
of their acts. They find it "funny"

This also fits with their treatment of woman online.

Hope they find it funny as well when they're prosecuted.

~~~
mrebus
People keep on saying it's kids(mental age), but I don't buy it. I was reading
a book on psychopathy/sociopath(can't remember the name) but one of the theses
were just how common they actually are. In times past these people would just
be dicks to people around them. Now they can actual fuck with people with far
greater reach. I think they are fully aware of what they are doing and only
find it funny because they lack empathy.

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, this is a possibility as well.

------
possibilistic
Given the recent judicial president set for revenge porn cases, I feel we need
a similarly harsh ruling for those found guilty of swatting. This is a crime
that could easily result in the deaths of innocent victims, and the punishment
needs to reflect that.

Doxing for the purposes of shaming wouldn't be bad to punish either. I don't
want us to become a vengeful police state, but this kind of cowardly behavior
makes me angry.

Aside from training the police, FBI, et al., how do we go about stopping this
from happening more frequently?

~~~
fenomas
> how do we go about stopping this from happening more frequently?

I suppose there's more to it than just better police procedures, but I'm
gobsmacked every time I read about a police force breaking down a door, or
even drawing a gun, based on nothing but an anonymous email or phone call. It
smacks of a system that's never encountered bad inputs before.

In a way it's surprising that actual criminal gangs didn't catch onto this
years ago, and start swatting their rivals.

~~~
DanBC
> In a way it's surprising that actual criminal gangs didn't catch onto this
> years ago, and start swatting their rivals.

In England it used to be the case that many reports to "Crimestoppers" (an
anonymous tip-off line) were from drug dealers informing on the competitors.

And here's an article from 2000 about informants

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/nov/12/ukcrime.tonythomps...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/nov/12/ukcrime.tonythompson)

------
jkot
Police on video has long assault rifles, but no protective gear (helmets,
body-armor). Is not that bit suboptimal for indoors?

------
middleclick
I am curious, how do these trolls find the addresses of people whom they want
to SWAT? Is such information easily available in US?

I tend to keep my private and personal life separate but stories like these
scare me.

~~~
csandreasen
It's really easy to have your information posted publicly without even knowing
it. There's a whole industry in the US that buys up public records, cross-
references them and sells them as 'background checks'. Buy a house? Your name
and address is now a public record. Sign up for Cable TV/Internet with free
phone service thrown in? Hope you checked to pay the extra 'unlisted number'
fee because otherwise your name address and phone number are now in the phone
book. Ever have to settle something in court? Your name and address, along
with whatever you went to court over are now publicly available.

In the past you'd actually have to go to some county government office to view
the records, but these companies will collect them in bulk and sell the
information on the internet. Most of them will let you claim it and take down
the information for free, but then go on to offer sell you services where they
go and send take down notifications to a bunch of other sites. It's a huge
racket.

