Man Hacks 911 System, Sends SWAT on Bogus Raid

An anonymous reader writes "The Orange County Register reports that a 19 year old from Washington state broke into the Orange County California 911 emergency system. He randomly selected the name and address of a Lake Forest, California couple and electronically transferred false information into the 911 system. The Orange County California Sheriff's Department's Special Weapons and Tactics Team was immediately sent to the home of a couple with two sleeping toddlers. The SWAT team handcuffed the husband and wife before deciding it was a prank. Says the article, 'Other law enforcement agencies have seen similar breaches into their 911 systems as part of a trend picked up by computer hackers in the nation called "SWATting"'"

Comments

Proxy

[kilo_foxtrot84]

assault with an assault weapon by proxy I find this charge to be very interesting. Are there any sort of precedents for it?

How does this keep happening?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really naive about security, so I can't understand how these security breaches happen time and time again. If these systems were web based, or offering some kind of web or internet service which necessitated having open TCP ports I'd find this easier to understand. Why is it that ordinary office systems (and bespoke Command and Control Systems), and documents sitting on file servers behind corporate firewalls, with no direct connection to the outside world are always so vulnerable? Surely it's possible to run an internal network (ethernet or whatever) in such a way as to make it completely inaccessible from the outside world, while running an email and web gateway?

Re:Good grief

[Guppy06]

"It's a pretty harrowing experience for the innocent victim but at least it was just a prank."

It's all fun and games until someone gets shot for resisting arrest?

Re:Good grief

[Firethorn]

"Sure, SWAT is trained not to shoot first and ask questions later, "

I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with this. At least compared with normal officers, SWAT is indeed trained to shoot first.

This can be considered acceptable if SWAT usage is restricted to high risk situations, where not using these tactics is likely to result in more deaths, but some areas have them serving most of the warrents - even on unarmed, non-violent dentists moonlighting as bookies.

Re:Good grief

[overbaud]

I think if we are going to talk about ultimate responsibility it is with the developers and vendor of the software. They failed to write secure software for a mission critical system. Their failure was a lack of foresight, testing or both. Personally I am surprised that on slashdot where ripping vedors security seems to be a hobby that the fingers weren't pointed in this direction first post. It was the brains at the start of the process that failed, not the brawn at the end of it.

Re:Good grief

[Johnny5000]

I do feel sorry for Bush sometimes, many of the "Bushisms" are probably due to mild dyslexia.

I think this guy said it well:

"George Bush is not stupid. He's evil. OK? There's a huge difference between stupid and evil."

"George Bush can speak perfectly well, just not when he's being caring or compassionate or concerned about human beings. That's when he stutters and says shit like 'Hey it's hard to put food on your family.' Which he actually said, he said it's hard to put food on your family. Do you know why he said that? 'Cause he could give a fuck how hard it is for you to put food on the table for your family. But you know when he gets really downright poetic and articulate and focused is when he's talking about war and death and murder and retribution. All of a sudden he's Dylan Thomas."

"Here's the thing, if you gave Darth Vader a big basket of puppies he'd look like a fucking imbecile. 'Hey Darth, how do you like those puppies?' 'Uh, well they're round...furry...to, uh, pet...here I don't really like puppies, here, take these.' 'What are you gonna do to Alderaan?' 'WE WILL DESTROY YOUR PLANET, YOU WILL BE DUST BENEATH THE HEELS OF OUR BOOTS!' That's George Bush! I know a supervillain when I see one!"