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.

[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.

[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]

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

Not much actual evidence this is the case.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[mabhatter654]

Woah there buddy!

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

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

Interactive map of SWAT screwups

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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

"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

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??

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.”

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.

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]

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: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: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: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.