Brian Krebs Gets SWATted

RedLeg writes "ArsTechnica reports that Brian Krebs, of KrebsOnSecurity.com, formerly of the Washington Post, recently got SWATted. For those not familiar with the term, SWATting is the practice of spoofing a call to emergency responders (911 in the U.S.) to induce an overwhelming and potentially devastating response from law enforcement and/or other first responders to the home or residence of the victim. Brian's first-person account of the incident and what he believes to be related events are chronicled here. Krebs has been prominent in the takedown of several cyber-criminal groups in the past, and has been subject to retaliation. I guess this time he poked the wrong bear."

Comments

Danger.

[Seumas]

This wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if we didn't live in a society where a significant portion of our law-enforcement feel like above-the-law gung-ho cowboys looking to shoot now and ask questions later that respond to "large black ex-military man in a green truck" by shooting asian women in a blue van. Cops are trained to approach every incident as a potentially dangerous or life-threatening one and it's pretty much to the point where citizens need to treat every encounter with the police as a potentially deadly one.

Re:Danger.

[James-NSC]

Thankfully Brian had already contacted his local PD and advised them that this was a distinct possibility so they were prepared for the possibility that it was a hoax when they arrived.

That and Brian is white, so that helps...

Re:Danger.

[SwedishPenguin]

Very true. The UK and Norway have the right idea, firearms should only be present only when the situation specifically calls for it. In Norway the firearms stay locked in the car and approval from a superior officer for them to be used, this seems like a good approach to me, at least in countries not inundated in gun violence.

Re:Danger.

[erroneus]

I don't know... if somehow they could have, in the 9-1-1 call, put out that a policeman has been killed or something like that, I'm not sure the possibility that it was a hoax would be enough to stop the shoot-first reaction. They tend to go pretty crazy when that happens.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, and then the police wonder why the fuck the citizens react to them like they're a bunch of crazy shits, and then they get even more belligerent themselves.

I'd feel safer with the criminals.

Re:Danger.

[ohnocitizen]

Depending on the nature of the fake threat, reasonable people might assume the situation specifically does call for firearms. It becomes a question of when - if ever - the police can tell the difference between an imminent threat and a prank.

Re:Danger.

[X0563511]

They are. Rather, the "real" firearms are. That's why this particular hoax involves a SWAT team - Special Weapons and Tactics. These are the guys wearing the heavy body armor, carrying automatics and the like. I'm sure you have something equivalent. You can be sure they don't get dispatched without cause, because they break down doors, carry flashbangs and the like.

Totally different beast than an officer checking things out.

Re:Danger.

[Maow]

Thankfully Brian had already contacted his local PD and advised them that this was a distinct possibility so they were prepared for the possibility that it was a hoax when they arrived.

That and Brian is white, so that helps...

Furthermore, the police called him before he came out his front door and was confronted by armed police.

However, as he was vacuuming and preparing for a dinner party, he didn't answer the phone but made a mental note to check his voice mail.

The police had to respond and it did seem to end rather quickly. Had he answered the phone things would have gone down at least slightly differently. The police would've had to still check the situation out but perhaps it would've been easier on him.

So, a big "Thank You" to Brian Krebs for his on-going work on computer security issues and a big "fuck you" to whomever called 911 with his phone number faked as the calling number.

Re:Danger.

[tsotha]

This wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if we didn't live in a society where a significant portion of our law-enforcement feel like above-the-law gung-ho cowboys looking to shoot now and ask questions later...

That's a gross mischaracterization. There are hundreds of thousands of cops, and they face potentially dangerous situations every day, and bad shoots are rare.

Re:Danger.

[tsotha]

That and Brian is white, so that helps...

Not much actual evidence this is the case.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the thing with getting SWAT'ed (which is a lot more common than advertised) ... the description, and the hoaxers are very good, indicates that hte cops must come loaded for bear. "oh my god, they just shot someone. I htink they shot my wife." Fortunately, in major metropolitan areas, the cops have this figured out, which has had a significant affect of reducing the incidences of the SWAT teams shooting people. So, they now treat it like a drill and are a little more hesitant to fire, which is, in the scheme of things, a good thing.

Re:Danger.

[SwedishPenguin]

I was mainly suggesting a way around the "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. If cops are not allowed to use guns in their day-to-day activity, the force likely does not attract gun-nuts and the like. 99.99% of the time, there's no need for the police to be carrying guns around. Again, this may not work in countries like the US, but in most of the western world I believe it would.

Re:Danger.

[Vinegar Joe]

Want to trade Oslo for Chicago?

Re:Danger.

[TaoPhoenix]

And "Danger" is right. This is basically the top of the line for evil. How can a police dept ever know what to do if there's the specter this was cry-wolf? And ... Brian Krebs?! I know he annoyed the underground, but he's just about in the best possible place to survive one of these attacks. How about instead some more naive social rights protester? They could make a mistake out of fear and the whole thing would go wrong.

And ... something that's bothering me ... 2013?! Really?! All the precedents for this weren't solved say around 2005? This is an "Evergreen threat", one that can continue to happen over and over forever. I don't know the meta-solution to it. What if one of these attacks happens around the country say once a week? What does that do to our conception of security?

Re:Danger.

[SwedishPenguin]

Like I said, in countries *not* inundated in gun violence.. London would be a more apt comparison to Chicago than Oslo though, and they manage without guns in their day-to-day work.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah. If a criminal kills you he gets a harsher sentence than 3 weeks on paid leave before everyone is assured "procedures were followed"

Re:Danger.

[Ol Olsoc]

Very true. The UK and Norway have the right idea, firearms should only be present only when the situation specifically calls for it.

An even better idea would be to use a telephone system that wasn't so easy to hack. Our insane rush to put everything on the interWebZ only proves that the people running the show have no idea how it works.

Pretty simple to pose as someone else when you can do it form the comfort of your own computer

I wonder how they used to do it. I'm envisioning lines on poles. Nahhh that couldn't work.

Re:Danger.

[Stormy Dragon]

The overwhelming majority of cops are in no more danger on a given day than any other member of the public. The "we face life or death decisions every minute we're on patrol" bullshit is part of the military occupation mentality that's destroying police crediblity in this country.

And we have no idea how rare bad shoots are, as law enforcement groups routinely prevent any attempts to collect statistics on that subject.

Re:Danger.

[DaHat]

To say that this country is "inundated in gun violence" is like saying Europe is inundated with Germans.

Yes... there are seemingly random occurrences distributed widelythroughout the region... but also massive concentrations in very specific areas are alas, very common... Chicago being one of those such places.

It is interesting when you look at the actual data of gun violence, the majority comes from a handful of areas and tend to involve pretty common aspects of those involved.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully? Brian shouldn't have to contact his local PD to warn them about false reports in order to not have his home invaded by armed men.

Re:Danger.

[xyourfacekillerx]

I really don't think deadly force action by police OR by response from the target is the danger we should be discussing. Believe it or not, police try to make an effort to ascertain the veracity of their intel before making a move like you've imagined.

Besides, statistically speaking, THAT scenario is not why there are strict penalties for fraudulent crime reports. The scenario I've already mentioned is why: the police are unable to respond to actual crimes when they are occupied with unreal crimes/emergencies. The danger is not for the police and their target, but for the heart attack victim across town who has to wait an extra 5 minutes for emergency responders. How is that for insightful.

Re:Danger.

[girlintraining]

and a big "fuck you" to whomever called 911 with his phone number faked as the calling number.

Of course, this begs the question of why our emergency services and others who's lives depend on the accuracy of this information, do not have the capability to authenticate whether a phone call actually originated from a specific phone, and what its location is. Land lines, cell phones, all of these are required by FCC laws passed over a decade ago now to be accurate enough to tell which side of the road your crashed car is on.

If our infrastructure is so easily compromised by pranksters, then what the hell did we spend all those billions of dollars in "Homeland security" for? I don't know about you but if I get a phone call that says "HOLY FUCK THEY HAVE A DIRTY BOMB IN THE BASEMENT!" ... I wanna know which basement, and who's on the other end of that call, pretty fucking quick and unambiguously.

In other news... If this information isn't completely reliable, then why are we kicking down doors and murdering innocent people in their own homes? "Hello? Why yes, I'd like to order a Murder with cheese please. Yes, with extra SWAT."

Re:Danger.

[Seumas]

Which was one of the most curios parts of the story, because I would expect said warning to be blown off as paranoia and forgotten when it came time to respond. This whole thing could have ended very badly. Even with the most level-headed and respectable cops.

I once called the police, because I had moved into a new home and woke up in the middle of the night to what sounded like someone coming in through a window. I didn't realize the weather had changed and it was windy and noisy up-stairs. While the cops were on their way, I grabbed a bat and went to checkout the whole house. When the cops arrived, they were pretty insistent that I drop that bat immediately (for obvious reasons - I could have been the intruder and be coming back with a bloody bat from bashing the owner's head in, for all they knew).

Of course, I am white, also. So they afforded me the time to react before taking any measures we'd both regret. Or . . . mostly I would regret. :D

Re:Danger.

[Seumas]

Actually, there's a pretty hefty amount of evidence that Brian Krebs is white.

Or do you mean that it helped?

I agree that the person who made that statement is doing so with no foundation in this specific incident, but I do think it's reasonable for someone to make that statement in a broader sense, since there have been plenty of incidents where police over-reacted to unarmed black persons with one or a few dozen bullets (just google "police shoot/kill unarmed black man").

Re:Danger.

[Seumas]

You make an interesting point. Only one potential harm of this is an over-reaction resulting in a dead innocent citizen. The other potential harm is if this gets out of hand and SWAT at some point under-reacts due to so many hoaxes, leaving some slack for something to go truly wrong when it's the real thing. Of course, my understanding is that SWAT are the best of the best (at least as far as domestic cops go) and I imagine they'd approach the 500th hoax as just as real a situation as the first hoax.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we have so much gun violence? We have a very violent culture. We also have a culture different than many other's where we don't tend to want to parent our own children.

It's illegal to own firearms in Chicago, so it should be a peaceful utopia (right)?

Also, that argument is an eternal straw-man. Gun violence does not equate 'violent crime'. So, in some countries with less guns you have less 'gun crimes', but that doesn't mean you have less 'violent crimes'. The problem is with the violence in our culture. Maybe next time you let your 6 year old play Call of Duty Black Ops for 5 hours while you wax your beamber, you should think twice about what YOU are doing to contribute to the problem.

Re:Danger.

[Seumas]

I'd need you to define "rare". Perhaps they are rare in comparison to the number of times a cop has to draw a gun, but you could probably spend the rest of the decade pouring through news stories about young black men being shot a dozen times for drawing a 3Muskateers candy bar out of their pocket. All you need to do is google phrases like "police [shoot|kill] unarmed [black|woman]". Throw in some searches for things like "police use taser on unarmed elderly woman", while you're at it.

How many times is acceptable? Shouldn't abuse be pretty much a zero-tolerance issue? Shouldn't excessive (but not abusive) force be both a rare exception and one that is dealt with much more seriously than it is? There are far more stories of "police shoot unarmed black man" and "police shoot unarmed woman" and "police tased person because he had a smart mouth or they were too lazy to overpower him despite having a dozen officers surrounding him" and 'police tase or pepper spray 84 year old woman" stories than there are stories of police being killed.

I mean, for fuck's sake, how many times did cops unload on innocent citizens in the search for that ex-military guy a few weeks ago? Wasn't it twice? And one of them actually *was* a blue van with asian women driving when the APB was for a muscular black man in a green truck? Not only that but the police SHOT ONE OF THOSE WOMEN IN THE FUCKING ****BACK****?! (source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/02/ex-cop-manhunt-newspaper-delivery-women-shot.html ).

Nobody could seriously assert that all cops are corrupted or mentally imbalanced or anything of the sort. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying what seems pretty obvious from our culture and the news that has covered it for decades -- cops *are* quick to shoot, often shoot without justification, often without thorough investivation, and often without proper persecution. As a whole, they should be taken as a danger to society. Yes, they exist to protect (or, at least, clean up after someone's done some evil shit too you before they got there), but it'd be insane not to treat every encounter with one as one in which you could potentially be shot.

Also, yes they face potentially dangerous situations every day. And they're trained to handle those, so that they don't shoot unarmed and/or innocent people not posing an immediate threat.

Re:Danger.

[Opr33Opr33]

This wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if we didn't live in a society where a significant portion of our law-enforcement feel like above-the-law gung-ho cowboys...

This wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if citizens didn't regularly shoot cops and each other.

Re:Danger.

[Seumas]

Oh, I should have also included that whole thing at an Oakland BART station just a few years ago, where a handful of cops had an unarmed man subdued and face-down on the concrete, when one of the cops stands up, steps back, pulls out his gun, and fatally shoots the guy while the other cops are holding him down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJGo2xfKnd0

You can take each of these as insignificant anecdotal pieces, but when you start to compile the list, you start to realize that you are just one bad or off day away from a cop putting an end to you. Sometimes a good cop making a mistake or a bad cop losing his shit. And there are also plenty of examples of cops breaking down the wrong doors during SWAT busts, sometimes resulting in the innocent occupants inside being killed. We're not talking hoaxes, here. We're talking police fuck-ups, because they smashed down the wrong front door.

Just google "swat enters wrong home" for all those stories.

I'd say these incidents are hardly "rare".

Re:Danger.

[Seumas]

Unarmed citizens don't shoot cops.

Re:Danger.

[Mashiki]

Thankfully Brian had already contacted his local PD and advised them that this was a distinct possibility so they were prepared for the possibility that it was a hoax when they arrived.

Odd that this has been going on for awhile and to a variety of people like DA's, and members of law enforcement too. And while it hasn't made a blip on /. before this it's suddenly news. Well here's something useful, back last yearish a variety of people called on the DOJ/Obama admin to get their heads out of their ass on this. Apparently though they don't think this is a 'serious enough of a threat.'

Re:Danger.

[tsotha]

Rare as in compared to the number of calls of this nature cops go out on every day your odds of being shot are statistically zero.

And then you go on to discuss singular incidents. You realize the US is a country of over three hundred million people, right?

Re:Danger.

[im_thatoneguy]

To your point: you're far more likely to die as a commercial fisherman, roofer or electrician than a cop.

Re:Danger.

[im_thatoneguy]

It's illegal to own firearms in Chicago, so it should be a peaceful utopia (right)?

If you can drive 5 minutes out of town, a ban is essentially symbolic. That being said, those states with more gun control laws generally have fewer deaths. Hawaii for instance has very little gun violence and has some of the most strict gun laws. Hawaii is an interesting case since import/export laws are actually relatively easy to enforce seeing as it has no landlocked neighbors.

Re:Danger.

[CodeBuster]

This wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if we didn't live in a society where a significant portion of our law-enforcement feel like above-the-law gung-ho cowboys looking to shoot now and ask questions later

And why do you suppose that is? Could it be the arrogant over confidence that comes from knowledge that they outgun the average citizen? I submit to you that were the police to face citizens armed equally as well as them they would have a greater degree of humility and respect for the people whom they claim to protect and serve. The 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution was put into the Bill of Rights, immediately following protection of speech, for a reason; it wasn't a coincidence or an accident. No, the founders wanted to ensure that any future government and it's agents were properly fearful of "the people" and thus would think twice and thrice before abusing those powers granted to them by "the people" in tyrannical ways. It's also worth mentioning that an armed society is a polite and civil society where people treat one another with respect and dignity instead of hurling insults and treating those who doesn't agree with them rudely and disrespectfully.

Cops are trained to approach every incident as a potentially dangerous or life-threatening one and it's pretty much to the point where citizens need to treat every encounter with the police as a potentially deadly one.

It's wise to limit one's dealings with the police in any case because they're here to keep the peace generally, not to protect you as an individual. It's an inherently adversarial relationship and ought to be viewed as such by every citizen who values their freedom. Be respectful and polite when confronted by them, but know your rights and realize that it's not generally in your best interests to cooperate with or volunteer information to them.

Re:Danger.

[murdocj]

Really? You really think that being a cop is just as safe as, say, sitting behind a computer terminal? What planet do you live on?

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but being white means exactly dick. How are the cops supposed to know you aren't some Wacoesque Apocolyptic christian, a member of an IRA cell that went deep cover, a card carrying member of the Aryan Brotherhood, A tweaked out Meth chemist, Or just your average Trailer park style criminal?

I know calling race card is popular on the internet, But any leo but Sherriff Bodidly from 1950s Alabama should assume that everybody is a threat.

Re:Danger.

[dadelbunts]

Depends where you live. There are some parts of Miami here where people shooting each other and hearing gunfire is the norm. The horrible, ,unjust, corrupt, unfair job police do is what is destroying police credibility in this country.

Re:Danger.

[misexistentialist]

What do they do when someone pulls a knife? Tries to run them over? Sics a dog on them? Do they train to run away really fast, or do they rely on the criminals to take pity on their helplessness?

Re:Danger.

[Immerman]

Seems like a non-issue to me. Much like email it's relatively easy to spoof the origin of a communication you originate; however, while that can be used for harassment purposes such as in this (potentially to much worse effect - I doubt things would have gone nearly so smoothly had the victim lived in a bad part of town) it doesn't really compromise the integrity of legitimate identification - your phone will still identify itself properly. Interfering with that is likely considerably more difficult.

As for the billions spent in Homeland Security, you don't actually think that ever had anything to do with actual security do you? Once they reinforced and locked the aircraft cockpit doors pretty much everything else was power grabs, cronyism, and wasteful, incompetent security theater - because no politician want to be the one that does nothing in the face of an attack just because of a trifling little detail like there's nothing meaningful that can actually be done.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

You've overlooked something important.

There are more incidents of Cops shooting unarmed black men... but these shootings are also much, MUCH more likely to be reported on, and passed around by word of mouth.

For instance: This story didn't have anyone getting shot, much less a black person. Yet, the idea of black people getting shot still made it into the thread.

THAT makes a real statement about the over-sensitivity of race on the issue.

Re:Danger.

[kylemonger]

The problem is this: Prank or not, Krebs opened his front door and suddenly had multiple guns pointed at him. Add in a sudden loud noise and at least one of the cops might have opened up on him. And once one cop starts firing, they ALL open up. I want to see more investigation before guns are even pointed at people.

Re:Danger.

[ntropia]

Not sure about the "anecdotal" excuse.
It doesn't mean (necessarily) a preference over shooting darker skin tones, but at least they seem to spend much, much more time looking at them, at least in NY.
I mean, even accounting for some +/-% of uncertainty, 87% is a freaking big chunk.

Re:Danger.

[lopgok]

It was a blue pick up truck, not a van, but it certainly was not a nissan titan, nor was it the correct color.

I suspect that the people who shot up the 2 vehicles, will end up paying a high price, which really means that the people living in the cities will end up paying a high price.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

Parents who can afford a BMW are rarely the problem (though it does happen). The parents who ARE the problem are the parents who hate their kids; totally ignore them; don't know what their grades are and don't care; smack them around a bit, but don't ever _really_ beat them; Don't know who their friends are, or where they go after school; set bad examples regarding alcohol or drug use; I could go on, and on.

The crux of the matter is, many parents don't parent their children. Some don't know how, and a great many just plain don't care. It's sad, and it's prevalent everywhere... but especially places with high crime.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

I'd feel safer with the criminals.

I wouldn't. Even if some cops are overeager, and some are overly aggressive... That still seems like a very dumb thing to say

Oh, wait... AC.. right. So , par for the course.

Re:Danger.

[Nyder]

Very true. The UK and Norway have the right idea, firearms should only be present only when the situation specifically calls for it. In Norway the firearms stay locked in the car and approval from a superior officer for them to be used, this seems like a good approach to me, at least in countries not inundated in gun violence.

Ya, it sucks, I live in the United States and the only guns I have ever seen pulled on someone was by cops. We do need to do something about the gun violence here, these cops are out of control!!!

Seriously, in the 40+ years I've been alive, I have only seen cops pull guns on people (people without guns, I might add), never the other way around.

We do have a problem, but it's not what people think.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

You're not accounting for the bias of your source. It claims to be quoting NYPD... but they can clam to be purple Jovians and I wouldn't do a double take. It's someone with an agenda on the Internet, and they're making no bones about it. The only reason they don't call it 97% is because they don't think people are quite that stupid.

Besides, it is an uncomfortable truth that black men in inner cities are more likely to be raised in low income, single parent households.

Even if the cops in a big city were to stop people using probable cause only, there'd still be an unbelievable racial disjunct.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

This has to depend entirely on where you're a cop, and what job you're doing.

Very true.

Sure, a big mouth kid on a skateboard is probably the worst threat most of them deal with over their career,...

Now that's just silly. Common sense says that every routine call - let's say domestic disturbance - is potentially dangerous. Emotions are high. Tensions are frayed. People no longer have a default philosophy of trusting the police...

How often does the average police officer deal with someone who's really, truly angry? I'm not sure (not a cop), but I'd be equally surprised if it was every day, or if it was every 6 months. It's probably somewhere between the two.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

They write a strongly worded letter to the knife-wielding miscreant expressing their humble beliefs regarding the error of his ways. Then they post it and wait calmly until it is delivered and read by the knife-wielding miscreant who will then surely have a change of heart and put the knife away.

Re:Danger.

[mabhatter654]

Woah there buddy!

Watch where you swing that common sense... It could hurt somebody.

Re:Danger.

[mabhatter654]

Because a black man with a running vacuum in his hand WOULD have been shot. A vacuum hose is long, black, about as long as a gun... Sometimes has a handle. And he lives in a "colored" neighborhood so you can't be too sure.

Sadly I'm not kidding much.

Re:Danger.

[mabhatter654]

This is worthy of the Joker from Batman. We don't live in a society where people are that callous and mean. Someone picked up SWAT are trained for whistle and bell and lost their cleverness. The FBI isn't much better. They have an extremely predictable mo for things like Waco to repeat.. Usually it's wannabe martyrs that incite them.. What if it wasn't?

Nobody has stepped down to that level yet... To intentionally set society on fire. This shows the matchs are just lying about.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

... Sadly I'm not kidding much.

Sadly, you're not. I think you're greatly mistaken, but I am sure you're not kidding.

Re:Danger.

[Mr. Slippery]

That being said, those states with more gun control laws generally have fewer deaths. Hawaii for instance has very little gun violence and has some of the most strict gun laws.

Idaho's murder rate is lower than Hawaii's (200.9 per 100,000 vs 287.2 for 2011); its gun laws are so weak that the Brady campaign gives Idaho 2/100. (For those outside the U.S., the "Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence" is a leading advocate for the criminalization of gun ownership; in their scale, a higher number means more legal obstacles to exercising the right of self-defense.) Mississippi has a murder rate close to Hawaii's, 269.8; it gets 4 on the Brady's scorecard.

Illinois gets 25 from Brady, and a murder rate of 429.3.

Brady's favorite state is CA, with 81 points; homicide rate 411.1. Texas gets a 4 from Brady, and has almost the same murder rate as California, 408.5.

The Bradys don't rank DC, but we know it has some of the strictest gun laws in the country; it has a murder rate of 1,202.1. (The cynic in me thinks this is why Brady doesn't rate it...) The lowest murder rate is Maine, 123.2, a whole order of magnitude less than D.C.'s rate; its permissive gun laws get a 7 on Brady's scale.

Across U.S. states, gun control laws seem to have no correlation with murder rates. The same applies internationally and across our own history -- the U.S. homicide rate has fallen 50% since the early 90s, the decline starting before the Brady bill and the "assault weapons" ban and continuing after the ban expired, while more and more states liberalized CCW laws and the number of guns in private hands increased.

Re:Danger.

[b4dc0d3r]

Aecurity and authentication were not built in to POTS protocols. That answers your question. They were not designed to handle geolocation nor identity.

The caller ID system relies on either the caller, or a database provided by the caller's provider. Once you transfer from one provider to another, typical in any long-distance call, the second provider has no way to track the caller beyond what the first provider claims. I found this article enlightening, although slightly off topic it is fundamentally about caller ID spoofing.

http://telemarketerspam.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/pacific-telecoms-robo-call-revenue-sharing-scheme-revealed/

Now you're going to ask why we can't fix it? Because it's not worth the amount of money it would take to re-configure the entire phone infrastructure. The companies that would pay the most would benefit the least. Individuals would not sign up in large enough numbers, and so we are stuck.

Yes we have the technology, but not the will. US Congress has made it illegal to send false info, but has not found a way to ensure companies follow the law. As common carriers, they can set up a scam-friendly block and blame the customers for all mischief. The only way to positively identify the people behind the calls is to hand over your credit card information, let a bogus charge hit, and spent a few years fighting back.

Re:Danger.

[Stormy Dragon]

My driving to work in the morning is "potentially" dangerous. But how likely is it to be dangerous? Not very. Which is why it would be silly of me to act as though I'm bravely risking life and limb just by leaving the house.

Likewise the chance of a domestic disturbance proving deadly is highly unlikely. There are 765,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the US. In 2012, a grand total of 12 of them died after being attacked on the job.

Re:Danger.

[Stormy Dragon]

Sorry, the 12 was the 2013 number. For 2012, it was 63.

Re:Danger.

[Stormy Dragon]

Most people don't sit behind a computer terminal as a job. Is the work of being a cop more dangerous that, say, a miner?

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

But how many of them were attacked and sustained injuries? How many required some degree of medical attention? How many of them were attacked and managed to remain uninjured?

They are trained to avoid injury and death, especially in tense situations. That doesn't make their job safe.

Your driving analogy would be accurate... if some percentage of drivers on the road actively wished you bodily harm, and if you had taken tactical driving classes and modified your car to cope with it.

Re:Danger.

[Mateorabi]

It would be simple enough for the receiving provider to check if the purported source wasn't in their own database for their own customers. There is absolutely no reason a call from within their territory, going to the 911 center also in their territory, should be crossing from some other outside provider to them.

Re:Danger.

[cusco]

Actually domestic violence calls are the most dangerous things that most police deal with, more cops are killed in those situations than any other. Unfortunately most departments provide far less training in defusing those situations than they provide weapons training.

Re:Danger.

[Fallingcow]

Norway police admit slow response to Breivik massacre

Doesn't say anything about their rules regarding gun use slowing them down, which isn't surprising since that doesn't seem terribly plausible. They fucked up plenty, but not for that reason.

Better look for another example if you intend to hold the same position in the future. Or keep on with this one and hope no-one bothers to Google it again. That works for... well, most people, I suppose.

Re:Danger.

[meta-monkey]

I am not a general fan of law enforcement practices in be US.

However. In this case, the police actually showed up, in force, because they thought Krebs' family were the victims of violent crime, and that he was in danger. And when that turned out not to be the case, they reacted reasonably and calmly and no one was injured.

This is a situation where the police actually did right, and should be commended for it.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

If only police had knives of their own... or better still, perhaps some sort of bludgeoning melee weapon... like a club or a baton... so you can't accidentally stab yourself by sitting on it, and it would be easier to incapacitate someone without necessarily killing them... heck, maybe they could even make this... "police baton," if you will, a regular part of a responding officer's uniform. With no need to conceal it, such weapons could have longer reach than your typical knife or switchblade, and thus a cop would have an advantage in hand-to-hand combat.

Maybe we could even go really nuts and actually train officers in the use of such a weapon.

But, nah, that's just crazy talk.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they do when someone pulls a knife? Tries to run them over? Sics a dog on them? Do they train to run away really fast, or do they rely on the criminals to take pity on their helplessness?

I can't speak for Norway, but in the UK police carry big sticks and wear stab vests, which is usually sufficient. Although they have started rolling out tasers to officers working in particularly rough parts of the country; those are usually kept in the car until needed, rather than being routinely carried while on patrol.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple enough. Your country wasn't designed to have the enemy living in it. This is what lax immigration laws get you.

Re:Danger.

[rcamans]

Ranking states for Brady and violence is meaningless, as data show. Only ranking high violence areas versus low violence areas gives meaningful data. So ranking Chicago, DC, Detroit, and other large cities with high crime rates against large cities with low crime rates is an interesting comparison. London, as well as England and Great Britain, have high violent crime rates and strong gun laws. Are there large cities in the US with low crime rates? There are in Europe: Zurich, Bern, and Geneva, Switzerland, for example. If you do that in the US, you get confused, because Houston has a high violent crime rate, for example. It just is not obvious.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, DC has a much higher population density than Idaho...!

When you have more people close together, there is more interaction. True of dating, or violence, or traffic jams, or anything, really.

Consider the great WolframAlpha...

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=murder+rates+versus+population+density+in+idaho
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=murder+rates+versus+population+density+in+texas
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=murder+rates+versus+population+density+in+dc

Re:Danger.

[0111 1110]

Believe it or not, police try to make an effort to ascertain the veracity of their intel before making a move like you've imagined.

I don't believe it. Not for a second. They have itchy trigger fingers and are looking for targets.

Re:Danger.

[0111 1110]

It's not a dumb thing to say. Criminals who are not also cops are far less likely to injure or kill you than are cops. Most cops are also criminals. They just aren't prosecuted as such and can get away with killing you without even getting fired.

Re:Danger.

[0111 1110]

How does Hawaii compare to Wyoming, which has virtually no gun laws at all? I am guessing that you are quite wrong about more gun control resulting in fewer murders.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Use a non-lethal (pepper spray, taser, baton).
2) Step out of the way.
3) Kick the dog.

Re:Danger.

[lightknight]

Because security isn't, uhm, magic? It's not like you tick a little box, and it just works. At any given time, half the human race is trying to break that security, and the other half is trying to improve it.

And it's not like you can 'tighten' security by being increasingly belligerent, engaging in background checks, and going through people's trash. That just antagonizes people, and makes them work against you.

If you want a more secure populace, you might want a slightly more intelligent one. True, it does tend to fare worse for the rulers of said populace (well...except for the British, possibly; a learned populace being somewhat less pliable to authority, on the basis of authority...), but it also does wonders for false alarms ("Say old chap, there's a man climbing the power pole outside the Wilson's place with a .38 Winchester in his company...are you aware of them having an animal problem? No? Then call one of the lads from the local PD to come and have a talk with him...I'd hate to think he is going to do something rash.").

Re:Danger.

[servognome]

I submit to you that were the police to face citizens armed equally as well as them they would have a greater degree of humility and respect for the people whom they claim to protect and serve.

Respect and fear are different things. Dealing with somebody who is armed naturally escalates the situation. Look at the current way the police respond to situations when somebody is suspected to be armed; they don't have conversations, they issue commands. Non-cooperation with those commands, even if it is within your rights, is seen as an increase in potential threat.

It's wise to limit one's dealings with the police in any case because they're here to keep the peace generally, not to protect you as an individual. It's an inherently adversarial relationship and ought to be viewed as such by every citizen who values their freedom.

Exactly, law enforcement exists to prevent "bad stuff" from happening and execute the law as they are told. Individual rights and notions of fairness and reason are outside the scope of their job, that's stuff for lawyers and judges to deal with.

Be respectful and polite when confronted by them, but know your rights and realize that it's not generally in your best interests to cooperate with or volunteer information to them.

Yes, everybody needs to know their rights so they can protect them. Some of the first things the police will ask or command result in people waiving them, like asking people if they can enter the house.

Re:Danger.

[lightknight]

Because compromising telecommunications equipment isn't trivial./s

Give it a miss while you're ahead, man; the '80s had their phreaks, and proved that much like declaring your company's server 'uncrackable,' no telecom is going to take out a front page ad saying that their system cannot be fooled by someone with the will to do so.

Doing something like that would rank about as highly as the US Navy declaring one of their boats unsinkable. Might as well christen it the 'Sol Invictus,' paint a bulls-eye on the side, and begin insulting the gods with every slur a drunk, burly Scotsman could think of, while parking it next to whatever nation currently has a youth filled with too much fervor and rocket launchers, and not enough female companionship. The Navy might think their boats are pretty spiffy (they are), but they aren't idiots.

Re:Danger.

[tburkhol]

Rare as in compared to the number of calls of this nature cops go out on every day your odds of being shot are statistically zero.

Just exactly how often to you think SWAT is called out to raid a house?

Are they like traffic stops? Cuz I gotta say that if there are a dozen people accidentally shot each year by a cop during a traffic stop, then that's too many and not "statistically zero." I'm willing to bet that the number of SWAT raids is substantially less than the number of traffic stops, and the rate of accidental/unnecessary killings orders of magnitude higher.

In fact, why don't you have a look at this blog and think about the "statistically zero" chance of unnecessary deaths. Think about whether terrorists or SWAT kill more US civilians in a year.

Re:Danger.

[tburkhol]

Interactive map of SWAT screwups

Re:Danger.

[Garridan]

Sorry, but did you miss this? It was only 3 months ago.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

the guy that got shot was a life long career criminal, who was the son of a murderer, who was out at 1 AM harassing, intimidating, and fighting with people while high and drunk, with his "crew" of lowlife punks.

He deliberately put himself in a bad situation by his poor behavior and lifestyle choices. It was unfortunate that some newbie rentacop with little experience and an itchy trigger finger killed him, but this guy would never have even been facing the other end of a gun if he had behaved like a normal, decent, law-abiding citizen instead of a thug buffoon.

Here's a window into the mind of a conservative who enables or participates in police crime.

The shooting victim is defined as part of the 'bad' tribe. In this case, his parents are unacceptable in the eyes of the 'good' tribe (right-wing conservatives). He was out on the street late at night (somehow unacceptable to conservatives). Allegedly partakes in drugs and alcohol (punishable by death in the minds of some conservatives).

This 'bad' tribe MADE WAR ON OUR TRIBE by being out late at night. KILL THE OUTSIDER! KILL THE BAD DRUG CRIMINAL MAN! Reasonable punishment for crimes doesn't factor into it. Rehabilitation of socially damaging behavior doesn't factor into it. He's a BAD MAN. SHOOT HIM!

Re:Danger.

[AmiMoJo]

Talk about misleading stats. Your assumption is that gun ownership reduces the murder rate, but there could be all sorts of other reasons why it is lower. In any case it is still insanely high compared to Europe.

The only conclusion you can draw is that gun ownership does very little to protect you. Other factors seem to have a far greater affect on your chance of being murdered.

Re:Danger.

[lightknight]

There you go again, using logic and facts. Why don't you just put down the gun, and step outside? We're all friends here...

Re:Danger.

[crtreece]

the U.S. homicide rate has fallen 50% since the early 90s, the decline starting before the Brady bill and the "assault weapons" ban and continuing after the ban expired, while more and more states liberalized CCW laws and the number of guns in private hands increased.

There seems to be growing evidence that the increase in crime in the 70s ,and eventual decrease in the 90s, is related to environmental lead pollution from the rise and fall of the use of lead in gasoline

Re:Danger.

[Wow8agger]

This stuff makes me feel crappy to write, but I actually went and looked at the CDC numbers:

All data comes from the 2010 CDC data and the 2010 US Census.

There were a total of 31,632 Firearms related deaths in the US in 2010

Unintentional 606 0.2/100k
Suicide 19,392 6.3/100k
Homicide 11,078 3.6/100k
Undetermined 252 0.1/100k
Legal intervention/war 344 0.1/100k

Intentional self-harm (suicide) by discharge of firearms (Total 19,392)
White (Including Hispanics) 17,909
Black 1,079

Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms (11,078)
White (Including Hispanics) 4,647
Black 6,151

Firearm Homicides per 100,000
White (Including Hispanic) 2.9
Non-Hispanic Whites 1.9
Black 14.6 (Black males are 27.6?!)
Asian 1.0

The overall US Suicide rate is 12.0/100k, which is less than France, and about the same as the nordic nations and the UK, which all have pretty stringent firearms laws. This makes me think that firearms just happen to be the method of choice in the US, but that these were people that were probably going to kill themselves anyway (Japan, which has *extremely* stringent gun laws has a suicide rate of 21/100k). Interestingly enough though, I heard a story on NPR yesterday that said that people are 85% successful at suicide with guns, but only 2% with other methods, so I might be wrong.

On the other hand, in 2010 Blacks only made up 12.6% of the population, but accounted for 55.5% of all the firearms related homicides. What the hell?! When you've got 1/8th (really 1/16th because it's almost all men) of your population accounting for over half of your gun related homicides, you don't have a gun problem, you have a social problem. I'm not saying blacks are more likely to murder people with guns, I am saying that unfortunately there is a culture in the black community that glamorizes gun violence. It's not necessarily a wealth thing, because you don't see it among poor asians or hispanics.

Re:Danger.

[mabhatter654]

The point is that the Swat rolled up in a nicer neighbor hood, and the victim was a professional reporter with experience... To know how not to end up a "story" and keep a cool head in the middle of police screaming and such.

I'm a plain white IT guy. I lived in a "bad" neighborhood years ago. You start getting knocks on the door from police ar 3am for no reason and it goes to your head... Fast. If this happened to me, I'd end up a "story".

Swat tactics are designed to make people experience panic and "fight or flight". They are designed (military, police, psychologists...) to cause certain personalities (like average black people) to kick into violent defense mode so "suspects" can be arrested for fighting the swat team.

Re:Danger.

[abigsmurf]

That's not a fair comparison for a number of reasons though:

Commercial fisherman tend to earn a lot more.

The danger is of a different nature. A cop may die because he has no choice but to put himself in a dangerous position, an electrician or roofer is more likely to die through his (or a co-workers) carelessness in an avoidable death.

Lastly lots of police officers aren't actively on the beat or in harms way. They may be crime scene or have a deskjob but they'll all be described as being a member of the police. In the case of roofers/electricians/fisherman, people who are in the industry but aren't active on the core job don't describe themselves as roofers/etc. they describe themselves as being a salesman or an office worker. Skews the statistics heavily.

Re:Danger.

[TapeCutter]

authenticate whether a phone call actually originated from a specific phone

Would it surprise you to learn there are bad guys, perverts, and pranksters working at telco companies? - (aside from the white collar variety that hang around board rooms). Although I have some sympathy with the claim that SWAT teams are overused in the US, you cannot simply sit on your hands and wait for perfect information. In this case the cops appear to have done everything right because at the end of the day, looking foolish on the internet is preferable to looking negligent in front of a coroner.

Re:Danger.

[whodunit]

Does very little to protect officers from knife violence, lead pipe violence, gang of crooks swinging fists violence, and so forth. Why is "gun" violence the only kind of violence anybody cares about?

Re:Danger.

[whodunit]

Allow me to provide some data from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center's Survival Scores Research Study: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fletc.gov%2Freference%2Fresearch-papers%2Fsurvival_scores_research.pdf%2Fdownload&ei=up5EUdO3FbDLyAHi2YCQAw&usg=AFQjCNF1ZxlAG0Av6U-paxnsJ2g56jRlKg&bvm=bv.43828540,d.aWc&cad=rja See page 32 for the relevant information: in simulated shootouts, most of the participants only achieved a hit rate of 20% at a range of 3 yards. The bulk of the study focuses on WHY this happens; the various psychological and physiological stress responses that make accuracy relying on fine-motor skills so difficult.

Re:Danger.

[Richy_T]

No, his point is that gun ownership doesn't correlate well with violence statistics so there is little justification for increased gun control.It's not like he's trying to force an ar-15 into your hands.

Re:Danger.

[WNight]

I've been threatened by a criminal before. That was easy - they wanted something and were going to get it.

I've also been threatened by the police before. They were armed, I was not, and I hadn't committed a crime, yet they had their hands on their guns throughout, and threatened to at various times make sure I didn't want away, through "resisting arrest" though they had nothing, and to ban me from all public transit (I was in a terminal at the time) for life.

The criminal threatened less, was more polite, and wasn't being funded by my tax dollars.

Yes, I'd take criminals over cops; as if that was a distinction. At least citizens can make a dent in criminals - cops are "for your own good" even if they're busy framing and threatening you.

Of course, if we'd bring back hanging for corrupt public officials I might come around.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

from the Wiki article:

"On November 5, 2010, Mehserle was sentenced to two years, minus time served. He served his time in the Los Angeles County Jail, occupying a private cell away from other prisoners. He was released on June 13, 2011 and is now on parole"

How nice. Execute someone and you get two years. TWO FUCKING YEARS. Disgusting.

Re:Danger.

[nobodie]

Which is why we all absolutely must be packing semi-automatic weapons with humongous ammo clips. I mean, otherwise we'll get into a firefight without adequate firepower to protect ourselves, right?

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

And how many people have you met, who were good, law abiding citizens, that have been killed by cops?

I see 3 possibilities.

(1) You don' t know anybody killed by a cop. You've just bought into the anti-cop hysteria.

(2) You know ONE person killed by a cop, and are extrapolating based on anti-cop rhetoric.

(3) You know more than one person killed by a cop, and you probably know they were firing back, but don't want to admit it publicly.

There are a few cops in each town who should be hounded out of the force. There are a few places where the majority of cops are bad. Most cops in most places are good people just trying to do their jobs.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

This sounds like an interesting story, but you left out WAY too many details. What city were you in? (What country, even?) What were you accused of? Did they actually ban you from public transit, or merely threaten to do so? Do cops in that area carry tasers? Were they looking for someone? Did they frisk you? Did they confiscate anything? Did you miss your transit? Was it a bus or train or subway? Why do you think they stopped you? Why did they say they stopped you? Were you in a high crime area? What were you wearing?

Oh, and the reason they keep their hands on their guns so often is so that people they don't yet know are criminals don't try to make a play for their side arm. Cops have been killed that way. They stop someone who's agitated (either a legit stop, or not) and they don' t know the person is wanted. They grab the cop's gun... The other aspect to this is how they're trained. Training officers will regularly pull guns out of cadet's holsters, and then chew them out for permitting it. This is something they intentionally ingrain in them. Any well trained cop will have his hand on or near his holster anytime a stranger is close enough to try to grab it. They don't mean to be threatening, and most of them don't realize the action feels threatening to others.

And how do you purpose citizens can make a dent in crime without police? Once upon a time, there were people in the various states who wanted protection from criminals. They appointed sheriffs, and formed local militias to protect the people from criminals. Those gradually became modern law enforcement. So... If police departments disbanded and citizens organized to fight crime... how would the end result end up any different? For a while, you'd end up with untrained enforcers of peace, instead of the trained enforcers you currently don't like.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

Swat tactics are designed to make people experience panic and "fight or flight". They are designed (military, police, psychologists...) to cause certain personalities (like average black people) to kick into violent defense mode so "suspects" can be arrested for fighting the swat team.

SWAT tactics are designed to permit cops to deal with harsh situation without coming away injured. The safety of everyone else is important to them, but secondary. As long as no cops or children were injured the day wasn't all that bad. They either come in hard and fast to avoid giving armed suspects time to react (and usually avoid firing their weapons at all when they do this). Or they lay siege to a residence for hours at a time, and try to talk them out (or wait for them to shoot themselves). Rather than trying to instill "fight or flight" these tactics seem to be built to encourage feelings of powerlessness.

Re:Danger.

[0111 1110]

None of the above. I've just seen for myself what cops are actually like in the real world, as opposed to how they are portrayed on TV/film. It isn't pretty. Most cops are not good people. They are vicious, angry, sociopath bullies and that is the problem. The job attracts such people and we have no system in place to weed them out. The few honest cops certainly won't do anything about it. So they accumulate until they are the majority and in control.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

So, you mentioned getting killed twice in four sentences, and you don't know anybody killed by the cops?

Do you know anybody who's been physically roughed up by the cops? Anybody who required the least bit of hospitalization? Stitches?

Re:Danger.

[richlv]

And how many people have you met, who were good, law abiding citizens, that have been killed by cops?

it would probably be a bit hard to meed them after a friendly encounter like that :)

Re:Danger.

[richlv]

i heard a cop here (latvia) brag about beating somebody and smashing their face in the asphalt because they argued with them when they got out of a car. it was illustrated by showing how they "smacked the head with this fist towards the asphalt".

the cop freely admitted that there was no need for violence, not even handcuffing the person. but he got a chance, and he physically abused the victim.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

And you really think he was a cop, and not just telling a story? Really?

I didn't even read this post of his, and I can tell he's not a cop and is pushing an agenda.

Have you never heard the quip: "The Internet: where men are men, women are men, and little girls are FBI agents"? The same applies here.

Cops online claiming to be abusive are most likely convicted felons. This is very simple math.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

har. har.

How many people die without knowing anybody? Almost everybody killed in an encounter with the police was known by somebody before they passed.

I've known people who have died of old age, and I knew someone who committed suicide. I don't know anybody killed by police.

"0111 1110" was making inflammatory remarks, and I've asked him to back it up with something. Anything!?! He doesn't seem to want to say anything besides: "[Cops bad. I know cops bad.]"

Re:Danger.

[richlv]

huh ? he was a cop i physically met in a bus stop in front of my house. with a couple of friends of his. also from the neighbourhood.
the cop was from a "semi-special unit" - not really swat-like, but a bit higher than normal traffic cops - thus i'd perceive the attitude to be fairly common.

Re:Danger.

[Mabhatter]

Lets put this another way.

Violent crime... Murder, rape, robbery... Are all at relative 50 year lows. IN SPITE OF 10 years of recession and war which should be causung an increase. SWAT does absolutely nothing to STOP those crimes, they only show up after. Yet every small city police force is armed with SWAT equipment and tactics more than any other time in US history. At the height of WW2 our local police were not this armed up.

In short, We the People are getting along pretty well in spite of the crappy circumstance. Yet the government and Police are becoming more and more violent AGAINST US because they aren't getting more money. So they INVENT dozens of new crimes every year and send out the dogs to round up fresh prey so they all look busy.

Don't you get it? Somebody social engineered the system to use SWAT to attempt MURDER of a stranger. It's time to put our attack dogs down. Close SWAT teams, and revoke CCWs for everybody involved. They were used to commit a crime... THEY MUST BE PUNISHED or being so gullible and held INDIVIDUALLY RESPONSIBLE as Free Men for what they did.

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

Sure there is. Cellphones, IP phone, trunk lines with a PBX attached, etc.

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

Unfortunately, there have been a few instances where so-called 'dynamic entries' have resulted in dead children and other innocents.

They forget that when 'entering dynamically' they are indistinguishable from exactly the sort of people citizens are allowed (even encouraged in some places) to shoot. That's what happens when you throw out rules such as visually verify your target and never aim a gun at anything you don't want to kill. It's inexcusable.

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

Taser, pepper spray, tear gas? Bean bag rounds?

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

Now compare to electrical linemen. They not only risk electrocution and falling related injuries and deaths, they risk getting mauled by dogs or shot when they disconnect someone's power.

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

A small army of cops showed up to save Brian from Russian gangsters.

Had there actually been any russian gangsters, that might have mattered. But there weren't.

They didn't kill Brian, and everyone learned a lesson.

Managing to not kill the supposed victim of a non-existant crime is a fairly low bar to set for 'success'

Re:Danger.

[gandhi_2]

How should the police respond in such a situation?

Send one cop to find out if more cops are needed?

In this situation, the police are in a difficult situation that the rest of us get to armchair-commando second-guess.

If Russian gangsters DID break into your house and shoot your spouse, and the police DIDN'T show up in force, everyone would cry about THAT. And lawsuits would ensue. Carreers would be ruined, lives would be ruined, and quite possibly more poeple would have died.

But thats ok, right? As long as you aren't inconvenienced.

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

I'm not arguing about the number of cops sent. That was entirely appropriate.

Looking through the window w/ binoculars or looking through the walls with IR might be a good start. A man vacuuming the rug looks different than someone being held at gunpoint. Next up, no cuffs and no conflicting orders barked out at gunpoint. For God's sake, couldn't they have agreed on who was in charge before they drew their weapons? It is the height of irresponsibility to aim a gun at someone you don't want to kill. It's also a sure way to convince an innocent but scared and confused person to initiate violence.

Being threatened with guns and getting cuffed in front of your own house is a bit more than an inconvenience.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

Have you ever once stopped and considered how to deal with an angry, armed, barricaded person? How SHOULD they do it?

I certainly don't think that what SWAT does is nice... but at the end of the day they usually bring everybody, including the suspects, to safely.

I'm not even going to say that what SWAT does is right. But I think it is ethically wrong to decry them when you have no idea how to do it better. You may think you do, but you certainly haven't shared.

And don't tell me that offering suspects lollipops, campfire songs, and hugs is going to work. SWAT doesn't exist to be people's friends. Social workers, maybe, but not SWAT. Don't suggest legalizing pot (et al), because that is nowhere near the jurisdiction of the local cops. There's nothing they can do on that score (that's a legislative issue). They've got violent armed drug dealers that somebody needs to deal with, and society has chosen them.

by mabhatter654 (561290)
by Mabhatter (126906)

Now seriously? Cheating to get karma are we?

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

Oh, I gotcha. I thought "i heard a cop here" meant Slashdot, and I thought "latvia" was the username. I'm sorry to hear that.

I have absolutely no idea how the average police in Latvia behave. I hope that jerk gets fired. One of the reasons people don't travel is fear of local law enforcement. Some of them have quite a reputation.

Re:Danger.

[Xest]

In the UK we follow the idea of policing by consent. The principle is that the police are not above other citizens but work with and for them. This is why they do not carry firearms as standard because that breaks this social contract that they are our equals, rather than there to control us. The firearms come out when they are dealing with someone who themselves have firearms. I'll admit this has been corrupted somewhat since 9/11 where we do have officers patrolling some airports with guns, but for the most part it's still very much intact.

Have a look here for the list of principles:

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/policeNine.php

Countries like the US could learn lessons from this, there are simply too many powerful police and police related units (TSA, DHS, FBI, etc.) with too much power over the populace which has led to a decade of abuse against citizens that have been permitted by successive governments ranging from warrantless wiretaps, far too heavy handed use of SWAT teams and national security letters. Absolutely law enforcement in America needs to remember who it serves - the people.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

Lets put this another way.

Violent crime... Murder, rape, robbery... Are all at relative 50 year lows. IN SPITE OF 10 years of recession and war which should be causung an increase.

A common misconception.

SWAT does absolutely nothing to STOP those crimes, they only show up after.

SWAT doesn't deal with these crimes, by and large. Murderer's, sometimes, but rarely rape or robbery. Usually it's some guy throwing a fit and threatening violence, or a warrant bust when the suspects is believed to be armed and dangerous. If SWAT is successful, there's no murder to be dealt with.

Yet every small city police force is armed with SWAT equipment and tactics

My small city doesn't have SWAT.

more than any other time in US history. At the height of WW2 our local police were not this armed up.

I think you're making that up. I'm sure it's fluctuated over the years, but based on technology available, I'd be very surprised if they weren't up to a relative standard.

In short, We the People are getting along pretty well in spite of the crappy circumstance.

True. Though things are not nearly as bad as some have suggested.

Yet the government and Police are becoming more and more violent AGAINST US

The government has become more intrusive, but has probably become less violent, due to evolving media potential. This is unproven, but so is your assertion.

because they aren't getting more money. So they INVENT dozens of new crimes every year and send out the dogs to round up fresh prey so they all look busy.

In the forms of tickets, fines and fees, I agree with you. The courts have also started to figure this out, and get in on the action. That doesn't seem to be the case with arrests, however, and certainly not with SWAT.

Don't you get it? Somebody social engineered the system to use SWAT to attempt MURDER of a stranger.

Yeah. attempt being the operative word there. It didn't work. This SWAT unit was more professional than the hackers had hoped.

It's time to put our attack dogs down.

That sounds like advocating murder of law enforcement officers. I highly disprove. If you meant it to be empty rhetoric, I still strongly disprove, but for different reasons.

Close SWAT teams, and revoke CCWs for everybody involved.

Seriously? Conceal carries? Whatever in the world does this have to do with conceal carry permits? Did the SWAT team walk up, all innocent looking, and pull out concealed rifles and body armor?

They were used to commit a crime

USED. USED. Gee, get that through your head. Just because a serious crime was committed doesn't taint everyone involved.

... THEY MUST BE PUNISHED or being so gullible and held INDIVIDUALLY RESPONSIBLE as Free Men for what they did.

I think you may need therapy.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

How would you suggest they alter their behavior?

I'm not saying it's the best idea, but it beats most of the alternatives.

Specifically, (1) how do you deal with the people who will shoot cops who knock politely on the door. (2) How do you prevent evidence from being destroyed (or flushed) when you're barred entry?

I'm always looking to refine or alter my position, but these seem to be key situations that need to be addressed when an alternate philosophy is proposed.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

Linemen also have a very dangerous job, and deal with life threatening situations (just not emergencies) all the time. They deal with potential death far more often than the average citizen, and receive training to help them avoid it. I'm not sure I see your point.

Re:Danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

London, as well as England and Great Britain, have high violent crime rates and strong gun laws. Are there large cities in the US with low crime rates? There are in Europe: Zurich, Bern, and Geneva, Switzerland, for example.

The perception that the UK has a high violent crime rate is actually just right-wing media propaganda. Consider figures for London -- London has a population of about 8 million people, roughly the same as the entirity of Switzerland. The most recent figures are for 2012, in which there were 89 homicides in London. The most recent figures I can find for Switzerland are 2009's, when there were 84 homicides. That's not really a huge difference...

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

I'm saying that in addition to the danger of being shot that cops face, they also face the danger of shock and falling, but we don't see them running aroound in paramilitary gear (even when doing disconnections) killing civillians.

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

Making a drug bust is NEVER more important than human life. Not for any reason. They're just going to have to play by the rules and do their best. If they make a few less drug busts and kill a few less children, that's just fine. If there was so little drugs there that a simple flush wipes out the evidence, it was hardly a massive drug operation. Real distributors have far too much product to dispose of with one flush. If they knock and identify, then plainly observe that everyone is panicking and hiding things, they can push their way in based on probable cause.

As for the extremely rare case where someone shoots a cop who knocks politely (I've not heard of it happening but since people are crazy, who knows), have a second cop wait by the car and make sure everyone knows that's the procedure. It eliminates all perceived advantage to shooting a cop at the door.

That doesn't make it perfectly safe, but neither does 'dynamic entry'. There's always the guy who sleeps with his pistol and keeps a shotgun next to the couch just in case, including innocent people who would never shoot a cop who just knocks on the door. When you commit an act of aggression (such as busting someone's door in) without warning, you are practically begging to get shot. Even if the homeowner does shoot, shooting back is unjustified at that point! If they don't want to be shot like home invading thugs they should avoid acting like home invading thugs.

I don't want to sound callous to the officers but unlike the innocent civilians they occasionally bust in on, they did sign up for a job that can be hazardous.

It's interesting that I have also NEVER heard of anything like an apology or even fair compensation when they trash an innocent person's home or even kill someone. That is rather telling.

Re:Danger.

[Sigg3.net]

To achieve what, exactly?
Scare to death some people that happen to be next to the payphone/ cellphone when the police show up?

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

I don't doubt that linemen get shot at. I do doubt that they get shot at nearly as often as SWAT. It's a very different order of magnitude.

Otherwise, yes, I really expect that we would see lineman working in full body armor. (not to mention armed backup)

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

This thread was discussing the average cop. SWAT probably does get shot at more than linemen.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

Ah, sorry. You're right. I still think the average cop is more likely to be shot (assaulted with deadly force) at than the average lineman, but the odds are probably much, much closer. I will point out that a lineman's occupation is substantially more dangerous than average, which doesn't make it a good comparison for the discussion at hand.

This thread formed around statements like:

[A] big mouth kid on a skateboard is probably the worst threat most of them deal with over their career.

and

My driving to work in the morning is "potentially" dangerous. But how likely is it to be dangerous? Not very. Which is why it would be silly of me to act as though I'm bravely risking life and limb just by leaving the house."

I can't tell if this is idiocy, or brain washing.

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

Throw in a few others like tax collector, process server (probably more likely to be punched than shot, but still, not a popular person), repo man, meter reader, pizza delivery driver...

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

Throw in a few others like tax collector,

Not usually done in person. When it is, it's done while accompanied by cops.

process server (probably more likely to be punched than shot, but still, not a popular person),

Not likely to in danger of deadly force.

repo man

Granted. I think this is the first one you've found who's actually likely to get shot at from time to time.

, meter reader,

Usually they're long gone by the time the angry driver returns. This typically gives people time to calm down a bit and simmer. The only real problems for them are when the driver is just returning a few minutes too late, or when someone decides to hunt them down. Uncommon, but a legitimate worry, I'm sure.

Yes, they're in a low degree of constant danger, but it's not as bad as an average patrol officer, who does the same kind of thing... but in person.

pizza delivery driver...

Oh, come on. They'd be less likely to be shot than a postal worker. They're only there because they've been invited. Add some courtesy and a little common sense, and even in a bad neighborhood their biggest issues are going to be robbery and car jacking.

Only barely dangerous, as jobs go. And that's only in cities with real bad parts of town.

Re:Danger.

[alexo]

This wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if we didn't live in a society where a significant portion of our law-enforcement feel like above-the-law gung-ho cowboys

Why shouldn't they?
After all, they are above-the-law gung-ho cowboys.

Re:Danger.

[sjames]

The mailman doesn't likely have cash on him, the pizza guy does, he works at night, and all you have to do to find one is phone in a fake order.

Agreed, not likely to be shot, but neither are most cops.

Of all of those groups, only cops claim it's OK to endanger potentially innocent civilians to protect their own safety. None of the others could get a pass on drawing a gun on an unarmed person in their own doorway.

Re:Danger.

[Cramer]

They are at the mercy of what information the phone companies provide them. Unfortunately, no one in the entire history of telecommunications has had a single g** d*** clue how to secure anything at all. So, hackers have many holes at their fingertips.

(In fact, our current phone provider (SIP) allows us to specify any origin we want and they will pass it along unverified and unmodified. Intentionally!)

Re:Danger.

[airdweller]

A kingdom for a point!

Re:Danger.

[CptNerd]

It's routine for SWAT to shoot dogs, it happened to the mayor of Berwyn Heights in Maryland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor's_residence_drug_raid

Re:Danger.

[0111 1110]

Do you know anybody who's been physically roughed up by the cops? Anybody who required the least bit of hospitalization? Stitches?

Yeah. Me. In addition to getting framed for enough crimes to put me in prison for nearly 10 years later reduced to charges that could have put me in prison for 3-5 years.

Re:Danger.

[0111 1110]

As someone who has lived abroad quite a bit including a couple of communist countries, one of which is on the US terrorist support list, let me assure you that there are not many countries with cops as violent and corrupt as our own.

Re:Danger.

[0111 1110]

If I could personally blow up an entire police station right now and get away with it I would do so. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you pathetic boot licking, pig lover. The closest you've probably been to a real cop is on your TV set. You don't know shit.

Go do a youtube search for police brutality and see how much of it took place in the US and how much abroad. Watch that 12 year old girl get shot in the head with a taser causing her serious, permanent brain damage just for running away from the fat, donut-eating fuck. He couldn't be bothered to run after her. It's so much easier to just shoot a 12 year old girl in the head. Those are your heroic fucking cops.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

In addition to getting framed for enough crimes to put me in prison for nearly 10 years later reduced to charges that could have put me in prison for 3-5 years.

Framed? Could be... It's been known to happen. Still, something just feels off...

(#43213741)
If I could personally blow up an entire police station right now and get away with it I would do so. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you pathetic boot licking, pig lover.

And there it is.

See, you strike me as exactly the kind of person that would get busted, run - forcing cops to hold you down to get the cuffs on, and accuse the cops of planting evidence.

And you still didn't give me a good answer. Were you injured, or merely uncomfortable? How does this backup your insinuation that cops kill innocent people left and right?

Re:Danger.

[0111 1110]

I was in the hospital with most of my ribs fractured, a nonfunctional leg, a bloody face, serious head injuries, and a damaged larynx from being strangled. He came very close to simply murdering me right in front of 20 other cops.

And they didn't even let me go to the hospital. They locked me in a holding cell in that condition until the next day when I made bail.

I knew that your answer would simply be that you don't believe my story. People like you are the reason I took a deal rather than risk getting people like you on the jury. People who will ALWAYS believe a cop over their victim. Always. Because you are essentially bigots. You believe that police are superior human beings. The cop believed that as well and to prove that superiority he nearly killed me.

I would pretty much kill any cop on sight if I could get away with it because they are evil. They are pretty much the definition of evil. Their whole lives are about hurting people for no reason at all except that they like it and it makes them feel tough and powerful.

The guy who attacked me even looked like dumb bully with an IQ of like 10. I kid you not. He had that mongoloid look of someone with Down's syndrome. The way he smiled at me in court, just knowing how badly he fucked me and knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it was pretty telling. Honestly, because of how he looked, and the fact that his bullshit story had some obvious and provable fabrications in it, I might have had a 50% chance of winning in a jury trial.

I'm guessing that you are one of those bully types too. Otherwise you wouldn't be so blindly supportive of them. You are obviously no geek. That much is certain.

And one more thing, let me say to you what I said to him, "FUCK YOU." People like you do not deserve to live and it is people like you that have fucked up this country beyond recognition and turned it into a police state.

Re:Danger.

[gd2shoe]

You really need to seek counselling. If you cannot afford counseling, odds are very good that the local state or county will pay for it.

I think you might wind up getting yourself hurt. You don't want that. I don't want that.

I was in the hospital with most of my ribs fractured, a nonfunctional leg, a bloody face, serious head injuries, and a damaged larynx from being strangled. He came very close to simply murdering me right in front of 20 other cops.

I don't doubt that you had a bad experience with cops. I'm skeptical about some of the rare details that you've shared. I really doubt 20 other cops were gathered around in a circle to watch you get beaten. I'm guessing there were no more than a dozen cops on location, and most of them were busy with other stuff. So, maybe 2 or 3 other cops saw what happened.

And they didn't even let me go to the hospital. They locked me in a holding cell in that condition until the next day when I made bail.

Unlikely, but possible. Most police departments are pretty wary of potential litigation. Still, claims of injury are probably a very common and very thin excuse to avoid spending the night in lockup. If the claim came from someone who sounded like he was making stuff up... eh, possible.

I knew that your answer would simply be that you don't believe my story.

Hey, Einstein, you've only now just answered the question, but you still have only told a very small fraction of the story. I can't evaluate what I haven't heard.

For instance, which cops are you blaming for your alleged attempted murder? WHERE did this occur? WHEN did this occur? WHY did this occur? No, really... the real reason WHY? What happened first? What happened second? What happened third? etc? That's only a few of the great many important details you keep leaving out.

And no, I won't believe just any random person I meet on the Internet. Why should I? You have to convince me. Be honest. Avoid hyperbole. Don't hide things that are inconvenient. Be polite. Don't assume that someone who holds different beliefs must be your enemy. Don't assume that because someone won't rush to believe you that they've rushed to disbelieve you. Don't expect a cookie and a box of tissues. This is the Internet, not your grandmother's house.

People like you are the reason I took a deal rather than risk getting people like you on the jury.

More likely it was because your lawyer thought that you'd be destroyed on cross examination. Either that, or the underpaid/overworked public defender didn't want to deal with the headache. (a crime itself, but unpleasantly common)

People who will ALWAYS believe a cop over their victim.

Not always.

Always.

They have to sound like a victim first. You've presented an incident which is possible, but in a way that is very tough to swallow.

I think you're confusing me with someone else. There are morons out there who believe that cops cannot tell a lie, and are always the good guys.

I'm not one of them.

Likewise, there are people who will always believe a cop is dirty, no matter what thin story is floated.

I'm not one of them, either.

I'd be a peach for someone abused by cops if they came across as honest and upright. I'd even be an impartial juror if they were a different race, or got angry. But once you seem to be lying, or withholding relevant details, I start to question why.

The same holds for cops. The moment they seem to be lying, or withholding important details, I question why.

I'll give you an example. That scumbag who pepper sprayed those college students? The ones sitting in peaceful protest? Yeah, him. He should have been immediately fired. That he wasn't means the whole division should be investigated and evaluated, especially the leadership. There's something wr

Ars Technica under DOS attack?

[Kaenneth]

I've noticed Ars being incredibly slow today, are they under attack?

Re:Ars Technica under DOS attack?

[Anonymous Coward]

This morning, Dan Goodin, a good friend and colleague at Ars Technica, published a story about my ordeal after a late night phone interview. This morning, Ars Technica found itself on the receiving end of a nearly identical attack that was launched against my site on Thursday. Turns out, the records at booter.tw show clearly that a customer named Starfall using that same Gmail address also paid for an attack on Arstechnica.com, beginning at approximately 11:54 a.m. ET. A snippet of the logs from booter.tw showing the attack on Ars Technica.com (a.k.a. ‘http://50.31.151.33‘ in the logs) is here.

According to Eric Bangeman, Ars Technica’s managing editor, their site was indeed attacked starting earlier this morning with a denial-of-service flood that briefly knocked the site offline.

“We’ve been up and down all morning, and the [content management system] was basically inaccessible for 2 hours,” Bangeman said, adding that he wasn’t aware of an attack of similar size that knocked the site offline. “If it did, it wasn’t enough to be registering in my memory, and I’ve been around for 10 years.”

Re:Ars Technica under DOS attack?

[FuzzNugget]

Well, TFS links directly to an Ars Technica article, so yes.

Re:Ars Technica under DOS attack?

[Kaenneth]

I was worried that EA was doing it in response to the bad reviews SimCity was getting.

A popular product with always-online DRM could create a heck of a botnet.

Re:Ars Technica under DOS attack?

[towermac]

Wish I had mod points.

This is the real guy. Somebody mod the AC up.

"I guess this time he poked the wrong bear"

[Anonymous Coward]

Does reporting about criminal groups really count as poking the wrong bear? Or do you think he deserves everything he gets?

Re:"I guess this time he poked the wrong bear"

[RedLeg]

No.

There is inherent danger in taking on a criminal element, cyber or otherwise, either as a reporter or a member of the law enforcement community. They are criminals, and do not adhere to the norms (laws and ethics) of society. Brian has chosen his path of reporting on and exposing these miscreants in a public forum, and to not hide his identity, knowing full well the risks of repercussions. He was so aware of the specific threat of being SWATted that he approached his local Law Enforcement authorities in advance of this attack to educate them and alert them to the possibility that he might be targeted. No, he didn't "deserve" what happened, and I would never imply that he did.

There is some safety in publicity; obviously, in this case, it was insufficient. DDOSing your web site in retaliation is one thing. THIS attack crossed the line. THAT's what "poking the wrong bear" means.

Red

Re:"I guess this time he poked the wrong bear"

[mjwalshe]

err you didn't get the Russian connection ;-) in both the post and in the individuals Brian was outing. Likening Russia to a bear is a very old meme.

WTF?

[The Grim Reefer]

SWATting is the practice of spoofing a call to emergency responders (911 in the U.S.) to induce an overwhelming and potentially devastating response from law enforcement and/or other first responders to the home or residence of the victim.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people? I'm not sure what is worse; that someone came up with doing this, the fact that this happens enough that there's a term for it, or the caviler way the summary reports it. "I guess this time he poked the wrong bear."

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the most important WTF of all, I think: WTFF is going on when law enforcement are such gung-ho maniacs that they're usuable as a weapon in this way in the first place??

On the subject of gun control...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's pretty much to the point where citizens need to treat every encounter with the police as a potentially deadly one.

Well, you're dealing with mere civilians, often carrying not military-style but actual military-grade weaponry, whose training is comparatively pathetic compared to your average NRA card-holdin' gun nut.

Woe unto any fool who doesn't act with extreme caution when dealing with law enforcement.

Standard statement of the obvious: Yes, there are quality LEOs out there. There are also a great many power-mad thugs in blue. If the former don't want people acting all paranoid around them, maybe they should do something about the latter.

Re:On the subject of gun control...

[Fallingcow]

Woe unto any fool who doesn't act with extreme caution when dealing with law enforcement.

Goes for when you're driving, too. In my experience, a cop car is far more likely to suddenly do something dangerous and stupid on the road than the average vehicle. They're worse than makeup-applying cellphone-talking soccer moms. Plus, I assume they'll ticket and/or arrest your ass if you're in a wreck with them even if it was their fault, either because they're just dicks or to cover their ass, or both.

Classic example of the importance of anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

For those that say "anonymity on the Internet is not important", look no further than this story for proof that you're wrong.

Sometimes good guys should be both permitted and encouraged to guard their anonymity and privacy online. It is not just for those doing wrong.

Re:Classic example of the importance of anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't get someone SWATed if you can't stay anonymous, so yeah, it's important in this case.

How do they get away with this?

[tsotha]

I want to know how people can call 911 and report something like this without being discovered. Every 911 call is traced immediately, and mobile calls automatically get GPS fixed. Are they using a stolen mobile from a car or something like that?

Re:How do they get away with this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any mobile call could be located by triangulation between cell towers, and this would be unspoofable by anyone outside the phone company.

Re:How do they get away with this?

[Anonymous Coward]

CallerID on landlines can be hacked by an Orange box. Though this won't usually work with 911.
Probably this was done from VOIP to E911. Supposedly easier to hack.
It's unlikely the call came from a cellphone.
It's only going to get worse now that some 911 dispatches accept SMS/texts.

Full disclosure: Infosec guy. Haven't actually done any of this, but I did make a red box in college with my HP95lx. Never got it to work.

Re:How do they get away with this?

[MaskedSlacker]

This is not a GPS fix.

GPS is not a gloss for all radio-based location finding.

Re:How do they get away with this?

[tsotha]

Yes they do. Your GPS receiver automatically turns on when you make a 911 call. No, it doesn't prevent spoofing, but that takes a bit more sophistication.

Re:How do they get away with this?

[hildolfr]

E911 is a disable-able feature on many current day Android implementations.

Re:How do they get away with this?

[Sigg3.net]

Nah, they probably just watched more bad television than you did.

Re:How do they get away with this?

[Rich0]

Not really an expert in such things but when I was messing around with deciding whether to go VOIP at home I set up an account with an outgoing provider. My callerID would be whatever Asterisk said it was, and I could set a default with them. By law I couldn't spoof it, but since it is common to use such providers with PBXes and to have separate outgoing and incoming providers there was no way for them to validate what I gave them.

Calls to 800 numbers or 911 include ANI info which is not so readily spoofed, but if I called a 911 call center using that outgoing VOIP provider I doubt they'd get valid ANI info. I don't think I had to give them much info to set up an account, so there would be little for them to pass on.

We're long past the days where there was one phone company in the US. Now there are a bunch of large ones, and thousands of competitive ones, and millions of PBXes. Plus ordinary people are increasingly using VOIP, though usually through more consumer-oriented services that won't allow spoofing of caller ID. If you use a more commercial-oriented VOIP provider (which, by the way, is WAY cheaper than consumer services), then you generally don't get any support setting things up, but as long as you act like you know what you're going they basically just relay packets. It is similar to the world of ISPs - your consumer-oriented cable broadband account likely filters outgoing 25, packets from outside the subnet, etc, but if you sign up for a business account or for a VPN connection half a world away you can basically dump arbitrary packets onto the network.

Re:This should never happen

[Ol Olsoc]

All that ended when we went to the Interwbz for phone. Now I have no idea how phone calls can be made unspoofable.

Re:Not so fast

[nedlohs]

The threat implied here is that people get shot during SWAT raids.

Either because an officer "accidentally" discharges his weapon or because a resident defends themselves against an apparent home invasion or because they thought they saw a gun.

Property is also often damaged.

Re:This should never happen

[Glendale2x]

All that ended when we went to the Interwbz for phone. Now I have no idea how phone calls can be made unspoofable.

Implement RSA on telephones and have key-signing parties like we did in the good old days. Done.

But the tubes are supposed to be anonymous.

Re:Not so fast

[Arancaytar]

When Law enforcement deploys assets to faux crimes they lose resources to deal with actual crimes, and that is the threat implied here.

There's an opportunity cost too, yes, but the immediate threat implied here is him being shot by a nervous cop.

because otherwise he becomes responsible for the potentially deadly circumstances created by those pranks

Yes, somebody reporting a crime is at fault for the criminal committing more crimes in retaliation. Are you high?

Most SWATing Against Conservative Bloggers

[Nova Express]

The most prominent cases of SWATing I'm aware of have been carried out against conservative bloggers:

• Aaron Worthing.
• Patterico
• Erik Erickson

Several cases seen to involve people criticizing convicted Speedway Bomber felon (and left-wing activist) Brett Kimberlin.

Re:Most SWATing Against Conservative Bloggers

[Richy_T]

Whatever it is, I think you just proved it.

Re:Gun culture

[0111 1110]

Obviously they don't. Which is why it should be illegal for cops to carry them.

Re:Gun culture

[rohan972]

If somebody kicks in your door, I could imagine situations where people who are armed and in their home fire back at an intruder who claims to be the police. And what a mess that would be.

Yay guns! They make us safe.

Yay police! They make us safe.

So what do you think evidence is???

[Anonymous Coward]

If evidence isn't an example of the event, then what IS evidence?

"Someone stole my watch. He has it in his pocked there!"
you: That isn't evidence.

Re:Not so fast

[dfenstrate]

There are more sadistic SWAT teams that go by the motto 'Always shoot the dog' simply because they can get away with it.
Wouldn't it be great if we could staff SWAT teams solely with officers who would never volunteer for it? We'd have a higher chance of getting officers who will do their duty, and a lower chance of getting sadistic assholes who want to play soldier-at-war in the homes of our fellow citizens.

Which is why regular SWATting might be good

[DABANSHEE]

It might make cops more cautious about doing 'no knocks' &/or blasting away

Re:Not so fast

[xyourfacekillerx]

Yes, somebody reporting a crime is at fault for the criminal committing more crimes in retaliation. Are you high?

Dude... I can't imagine how you managed to interpret what I wrote as being equivelant to your paraphrased version. You misinterpret what I say and then call that interpretation ridiculous (which it is), and then you turn around to call me ridiculous? Wouldn't it have been more constructive to ask if that's what I meant in the first place? Or did you purposefully go crazy on me just to get my post modded down?

Re:500th hoax

[TaoPhoenix]

In a perfect world, you'd be right. But even the best have their limits. While a horrible movie overall, I just watched "Firewall" and it involved a kidnap team impersonating the house owner to the alarm company, just going to show that supposed security has some real limits.

So if someone targetted the SWAT crew enough times to thoroughly exhaust them, eventually it *would* affect their performance and that could cause problems. If every situation is real, they can get in the zone and do it. If they have to "guess" if it's fake then the cognitive dissonance might rip them apart.

Re: worthy of the Joker from Batman

[TaoPhoenix]

... Or Loki from Avengers. Eventually he did call on an alien army to just go all ground-pound n Manhattan, but until that point he did a scary job of just maneuvering everyone into his traps.

These times are becoming really difficult to deal with. I sorta imagine a few old-timer cops are upset at this, maybe 5 years away from retirement, and they watched their job go from "stop the drug dealer, the mugger, the pickpocket, and even the fake lawyer", to 911-spoofing fake SWAT calls.

P.s. you made me want to go hunt the net to see if anyone stuck an IQ number on the Joker (RIP Heath Ledger!) He had a couple of gloriously scary tricks up his sleeve in that movie.

Re:Not so fast

[Hognoxious]

Dude... I can't imagine how you managed to interpret what I wrote as being equivelant to your paraphrased version.

One explanation would be that he can read a lot better than you can write.