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Canadian Teen Arrested For Calling In 30+ Swattings, Bomb Threats

Posted by Unknown on from the stick-to-trolling-the-internet dept.

tsu doh nimh (609154) writes "A 16-year-old male from Ottawa, Canada has been arrested for allegedly making at least 30 fraudulent calls — including bomb threats and 'swattings' — to emergency services across North America over the past few months. Canadian media isn't identifying the youth because of laws that prevent the disclosure, but the alleged perpetrator was outed in a dox on Pastebin that was picked up by journalist Brian Krebs, who was twice the recipient of attempted swat raids at the hand of this kid. From the story: 'I told this user privately that targeting an investigative reporter maybe wasn't the brightest idea, and that he was likely to wind up in jail soon. But @ProbablyOnion was on a roll: That same day, he hung out his for-hire sign on Twitter, with the following message: "want someone swatted? Tweet me their name, address and I'll make it happen."'"

36 of 350 comments (clear)

  1. good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    good

    1. Re:good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you think the poor and ignorant cause harm, you should see what the wealthy and powerful do. Coming from Old Money (great-grandparent a wealthy business owner and profligate gambler, grandparent a member of all the right/wrong clubs, parents in senior civil service, £30k/year private school, &c.), I was surrounded by destructive idiots with obscene wealth who were there on anything but their own merits.

      I'm all in favour of personal responsibility, but that means considering the complete chain and gamut of consequences of your actions, not merely what flows immediately from your behaviour. Those who use a snapshot of any complex system to derive a solution do a disservice to their brain.

    2. Re:good by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Insightful

      why he needs to be tried on trial as an adult when he is not an adult? he got to vote and buy booze yet? no, then why treat him as an adult - to scare others who by law and common reason aren't yet intelligent enough to be scared by such laws anyways??

      anyhow, HOW FUCKING EASY WAS IT TO ORDER A SWAT HIT ? ? they did any fact checking before bursting in? any investigations? did they even fucking change their routines to prevent people from ordering swat hits on random places at will??? like what the fuck, easier to order a bunch of guys to come over with loaded guns than to order pizza?

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:good by plover · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The odds of someone being shot or killed or dying of a heart attack when the SWAT team pounds down their door are about 2-4%. The odds of someone being shot or killed or dying of a heart attack when the police don't SWAT their door is much lower. Therefore, SWATting someone is equivalent to a 2-4% attempt of a murder.

      At the minimum, that could be prosecuted as a felonious assault with intent to cause grievous bodily injury. Since some of the people who die in SWAT raids are occasionally the cops, this could even be considered an assault on a police officer.

      A good prosecutor could stuff this little turd in a very dark cell for a couple of decades, and the world would be much better off as a result.

      --
      John
    4. Re:good by kilfarsnar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      anyhow, HOW FUCKING EASY WAS IT TO ORDER A SWAT HIT ? ? they did any fact checking before bursting in? any investigations? did they even fucking change their routines to prevent people from ordering swat hits on random places at will??? like what the fuck, easier to order a bunch of guys to come over with loaded guns than to order pizza?

      The militarization of police forces is making criminals of us all. Think you have the right to be secure in your home? Think again.

      http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/overkill-rise-paramilitary-police-raids-america

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2014/02/04/scenes-from-a-militarized-america-iowa-family-terrorized/

      http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers

      They shoot first (only your dog if you're lucky) and ask questions maybe later, maybe. As Chief Wiggum told us years ago, the police are powerless to help you, not punish you.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    5. Re:good by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Part of the calculus running through a youth's mind is that this "youthful indescretion" will be lightly punished.

      Let's reward that attitude and prove it right. That'll stop copycats.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  2. Autoimmune disorder... by Entropius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... the fact that you can do this with a telephone is pretty scary.

    Just recently I saw a massive police overreaction (closing off a block of downtown DC in front of a university hospital, complete with police abusing citizens) just because some student left her backpack lying around. If this is all it takes to provoke this sort of reaction, and if a few phone calls can get someone "swatted", then why the hell does al-Qaeda bother with bombings and flying planes into things? Send over a few sleeper cells with nondescript bags and boxes and watch the panic fly.

    This is pretty damn analogous to an allergic reaction: "ack, a piece of peanut antigen! FETCH ALL THE CYTOKINES, BOYS, THIS MEANS WAR!"

    1. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by rikkards · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sure but there also these things called pay phones. Not quite as common as they used to be but they are still around

    2. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by pipedwho · · Score: 5, Informative

      1. Pay phono
      2. Voip over someone else's wifi
      3. Someone else's phone while they're too drunk to notice an outgoing call
      4. Hacked remote computer, then install and use Voip service
      5. Stolen cell phone
      6. Break into someone's house and use their land line phone
      7. Burn phone
      8. etc.

    3. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by rahvin112 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You do realize that these Swatting are caused by someone with the fake caller ID of the address calling emergency services and claiming there home has been invaded by someone with guns and they are actively killing people and have numerous hostages. Or some other variant where someone with a gun is in the process of killing someone with a bunch lined up and the caller is either a hidden victim or the person doing the active killing. There is usually included a statement that the cops need to hurry and that any attempt at contact will result in the "killer" immediately killing multiple people.

      The scenario presented doesn't give police many options. Though I don't like SWAT teams nor the militarization of the police, but reacting to these scenarios as if it was a prank is only going to result in a real scenario going bad in a way that results in multiple people being killed and everyone laying blame on the cops for not taking it seriously.

      Maybe you should read the transcript of these SWAT'ings and lay out what procedure you would have put in place to determine that it was a prank and not the real thing and prove how smart you are. Keep in mind that in some jurisdictions there may be laws on the books that require this type of response.

    4. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by dnavid · · Score: 3, Informative

      Like what? You said "numerous". Name three.

      I can name more than three. Skype or other IP telephony (gatewayed through public wifi for extra measure), Hacked PBX call redirectors (which are a favorite of many scammers), prepaid cell phone, disposable SIM cards, telephone call anonymizing services, public pay phone.

    5. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by melchoir55 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason terrorists don't bother with stuff like this:

      There aren't any.

    6. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ... the fact that you can do this with a telephone is pretty scary.

      Just recently I saw a massive police overreaction (closing off a block of downtown DC in front of a university hospital, complete with police abusing citizens) just because some student left her backpack lying around. If this is all it takes to provoke this sort of reaction, and if a few phone calls can get someone "swatted", then why the hell does al-Qaeda bother with bombings and flying planes into things? Send over a few sleeper cells with nondescript bags and boxes and watch the panic fly.

      If the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, the terrorists have won.

    7. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 3, Informative

      Don't cell phones have GPS and Tower Tracking to get this information out?

      Those things are nowhere near as accurate all the time as you might hope they were.

      Good article in IEEE Spectrum on emergency calls (911, 999, etc.) and the impact of newer communication technology like VOIP and mobile.

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
    8. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by mysidia · · Score: 4, Interesting

      yeah, horrible phone companies, allowing a company to put their corporate number for the caller ID for all calls.

      Fine if they put whatever they want in the 'caller id' that is transmitted inband at the start of the call; they should NOT be allowed to use a custom ANI; the ANI number which is used for long distance billing should be unique to the line and should be the number that calls into that line.

      The police ought to be provided access to and use the more reliable ANI Billing number (Automatic Number Identification), instead of the relying upon the possibly user-spoofable Caller ID.

    9. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is a win, risk analysis based upon reality. Initial police response to confirm is only minutes away, delaying everything whilst waiting for swat is tens of minutes. Unless of course the police force has been right wing screwed up and turned into for profit law enforcement, where police are far away chasing traffic fines and some trigger happy freak is all to eager to send and the swat team and kill some people, anyone.

      There is huge risk in sending out the swat team, this has been proven time and time again, by far the safer and quicker response is by a properly managed police force and confirmation being sought by 'actively' patrolling police officers. No public call should ever, I repeat ever, activate the swat team, only a request by a senior officer on site should bring the dogs out.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    10. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For the last generation, "Serve and Protect" has become "Cover your ass" and "Everyone is a perp."

      But that's exactly the problem - everybody *is* a perp. We have so many laws and every goddamn things has been criminalized, either by statute or regulation, that we'll all felons now - it's just a matter of who is having the laws enforced against them.

      Disabled man shot up for having a seizure? That's OK, he was a perp anyway.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    11. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by arth1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A payphone, another's work or home landline, or another's cell phone. Someone elses cell phone will still work for 9-1-1 after the owner has deactivated service.

      A friend of mine in Europe has 911 as the first three digits of the phone number.
      Some phones will accept dialing the number without a SIM card inserted, because it starts with 911.

    12. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you are interested in actually learning more about such techniques I would suggest typing "call spoofing" into your favorite search engine.

      Thanks for the reminder. Congresswoman Annie Kuster has been robocalling us with the CallerID spoofed to 'WIRELESS CALLER' in the past few days - been meaning to look that up.

      Not that I should dare to question my betters, of course.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    13. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by upuv · · Score: 4, Informative

      911 is not only accessible via standard phone lines and cell/mobile phones. Location tech only has 3 basic methods of locating you. Generally only the first is ever used. Most often however the 911 operator asks, "Where are you right now?"
      1. Land line billing / install address.
      2. Mobile phone GPS location. First the police must have authority to activate GPS remotely. Second the phone needs to have GPS. Not all phones do.
          2.1 Kind of a third method. Cell tower location that the caller used. This takes a hideous amount of time to determine despite laws that say telcos must provide the capability. So generally not used. And this is horribly inaccurate.
      3. Geo location of IP address of user. Horribly inaccurate and police forces around the world are very slow to use this tech. Also for example if you have a 3/4G phone your IP address is usually geolocated at the telco company headquarters. This is not generally used for 911 type locations.

      Remember the operator only has a few seconds to establish your location during an incident call. They tend to only fall back on location tools when the caller is unable to provide the address them selves. So if the caller says they are at a location then generally that is the accepted location for the incident.

      In many jurisdictions around North America and the world for that matter you can place an emergency call via any number of means. You can text, email, tweet skype, use a web form, etc. Note that most of the new forms of emergency notifications come over the internet. Since it is painfully simple these days to make it appear as if you are coming from basically any spot on the globe with internet communications a person can spoof their location with ease.

      Note all of this does not mean they can't find the location of the caller. After the incident a wealth of information can be investigated and fairly precise locations can be determined. So don't take what I have said as a open ticket to SWAT. This case proves it's only a matter of time before you get nabbed.

    14. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by Rich0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If someone calls that there's a hostage situation a long way from the address of payphone (like few states away), one patrol should be enough to assess the situation on-site.

      Yeah, but look at it from the standpoint of the guy who runs the police department.

      If he sends one cop into a hostage situation, the cop gets shot up, and probably the hostages get shot up. The police chief gets the blame for not taking the call seriously.

      If he sends a swat team into a hostage situation he made the right call, and unless he actually runs the swat team he's off the hook for anything that happens afterwards. If there isn't a hostage situation you blame the crank caller for whatever happens, and besides he just followed procedure. Too bad for the poor old guy who gets shot in bed.

    15. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by Rich0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Initial police response to confirm is only minutes away, delaying everything whilst waiting for swat is tens of minutes.

      This is a nice idea, but what happens to that lone officer checking up if this is a real hostage situation with well armed felons? He is put in a life or death situation where he may end up as another hostage.

      Perhaps more importantly even if the cop is careful his nosing around could tip off the hostage-takers, resulting in harm to the hostages. Ideally in a real hostage situation you want the first sign of a swat raid to be the big holes in all the exterior walls.

      The problem is that SWAT response usually results in substantial damage to property and risk to the occupants of the house if there isn't anything going on. Pets get killed, doors and windows get smashed, and people sometimes even get shot. Then if the crank call was a drug tip or something like that then everything in the house gets torn apart in the search.

      At the very least the taxpayers should be paying restitution for false alarms. By all means they can go after the crank caller to recover those costs. However, by putting the cost on the government and not on the victim of a swatting there is incentive to improve the system, and to deter this kind of prank.

    16. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by DutchUncle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Spoofing is not necessarily bad, and mail servers are supposed to forward anonymously. I worked in phone systems. It is clearly acceptable to spoof to an alternate line that you own; for example, every phone can have its own DID number, but the caller ID is spoofed to the published/advertised "receptionist" number. Next level out: a contract house doing phone service may be spoofing the receptionist number of the company they are working for rather than their own number; it's fake, but it's not fraud, more like a consultant representing himself as working "for" (rather than "on behalf of") a client. It's a slippery slope.

    17. Re:Autoimmune disorder... by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So the solution is for the police to react calmly, professionally using their presumably expert knowledge with a little bit of common sense. They should be able to suss out these swattings and act appropriately in the vast majority of cases.

      Why "should" they be able to suss out these swattings? What symptoms are the police missing that differentiates a swatting from a real incident? I.E. the same questions the grandparent asked, but that you airily handwaved away.

      Unless you can answer them, you're blaming the cops based on a belief you've pulled out of your ass rather than anything resembling reality.

  3. Re:Good, but... by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is no 'but'.

    The next time someone calls with the exact same wording, and they don't respond appropriately.....you'll be calling for their heads to roll.
    Yes, I get that the police have too any toys they need to use. But wtf are they supposed to do? Send Officer Snuffy with a single bullet in his pocket every time?

  4. Re:First Swatting Victims Were Conservative Blogge by rahvin112 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The reason you are only aware of those instances (and of course implying those are the first instances) is because you are a partisan hack.

    FYI swatting has been used significantly longer that your partisan views ascribe. I a guy that someone tried to swat (the community didn't have a swat) in 1994 via modem redial on a BBS. Why don't you try climbing out of your partisan cave? There is nothing more disgusting than anyone trying to claim (or imply in this case) that persecution makes them right or virtuous in their cause.

  5. Re:I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because this is what Slashdot has become.

  6. Re:First Swatting Victims Were Conservative Blogge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It certainly dates back to the 1960's, when faking bomb threats from peaceful protesters was used to bring in police and National Guard against them. The Scientologists made an art form of it. Mary Sue Hubbard, L. Ron's wife was convicted for her involvement in "dead agenting" Paulette Cooper, which included faked bomb threats against the Israeli embassy, in order to discredit Paulette's book called "The Scandal of Scientology". And who can forget "The Maine", whose faked fraudulently advertised bomb destruction in 1898 was a vital trigger of the Spanish-American War?

    Discrediting your opponents by making fraudulent bomb threats is an old, old political hobby.

  7. bleh. by rogoshen1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On one hand, glad the little fucker got caught. on the other, also glad he was Canadian. Had he been in the US, he'd probably get a life sentence.

    16 year old kids do really incredibly dumb anti social stuff, problems arise with something as easy to pull off as this -- and the supposed anonymity of the internet. How many of you remember winnuke (circa 1996)? Nowadays nuking someone would have been met with a knock on the door, and being hauled away in cuffs.

    (NOT defending swatting. more criticizing penalties for teenagers in the US. At 16 you're a moron -- you have some inkling of the consequences but you don't really *get* it.)

    1. Re:bleh. by rahvin112 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've never met a 16 year old that didn't understand what they were doing. On the other hand I've met plenty that didn't care. Not even 100 years ago 16 years old was an adult in many places able to exercise contracts, get married and work full time. My grandparents married at 17/16. I don't ascribe to the view that 16 years old is incapable of understanding their actions, that ability develops as early as 5 years old. I do ascribe to the view that our society and most western societies don't hold those 16 year old's to that level and that results in kids like this doing these horrible things.

      I also don't think he should face quite the same penalties as an older individual but it's foolish to suggest they don't understand the consequences. Most 16 year olds fully understand, in fact they understand so well that they fully grasp that society will not punish them as harshly because of their age and willfully engage in actions like this because they know there is no long term consequence for their action.

      That said he should spend the next two years of his life in a juvenile correctional institution receiving the counseling, assistance and parenting he clearly needs. Afterwards his record should be sealed and he should be told that should he commit these actions again he will end up in real prison.

    2. Re:bleh. by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't know, I think for something like swatting more than ten or so people deserve the full adult felony treatment - because in that case they are an irredeemable asshole and I'd rather them be vanished than spend time figuring out if they are useful to society or not.

      I did some dumb things too as a kid, but not 30 times over...

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    3. Re:bleh. by Princeofcups · · Score: 4, Insightful

      At 16 you're a moron -- you have some inkling of the consequences but you don't really *get* it.)

      Only in the US, where we try to extend "innocence" as long as possible. In a lot of cultures 16 year old are working and starting families. I'm not saying that's the preferred path, just that a 16 year old SHOULD be able to make adult decisions. The fact that they can't means that society is not raising them correctly.

      --
      The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
    4. Re:bleh. by evilviper · · Score: 5, Informative

      In a lot of cultures 16 year old are working and starting families. I'm not saying that's the preferred path, just that a 16 year old SHOULD be able to make adult decisions. The fact that they can't means that society is not raising them correctly.

      No, the biology has been studied for decades. It's actually right around 25 that people emerge from their high-risk behavior and inability to weigh consequences, and start thinking straight. The traffic fatality statistics serve as a good proxy... There's a reason a huge number of 18-25 year-olds are killed in traffic accidents, and it's predominantly biological.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    5. Re:bleh. by dryeo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't have the feudal idea of felons in Canada. In a case like this the Crown might ask for the 16yr old to be tried as an adult and the Judge might agree. Then there is a trial and sentencing rather then the threat of life in jail if the youth doesn't plead guilty. If tried as a juvenile, the maximum is 2 years, which is a good chunk of a 16yr olds life. No idea what the maximum sentence would be if tried as an adult but the Judge would probably still take into consideration his age and history.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    6. Re:bleh. by N1AK · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Personally I wish he was in Singapore. This is the kind of thing where corporal punishment would seem appropriate.

      In many ways corporal punishment (outside the death penalty and crazy eye for an eye nonsense) would often be cheaper and better for the victim as well. This kid, even if tried a sa child could get 2 years in prison. His education will be stuffed, it'll cost a fortune for tax payers and his career prospects are dead and buried. I struggle to see how a month in a hard labour camp with a couple of harsh beatings/lashings is less humane.

  8. Re:Good, but... by j-beda · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the one time you don't react, someone will die and there will be a huge investigation and people being fired with no pension benefits

    No one is saying "don't react", they are saying "react appropriately". You put together a well thought out response plan BEFORE the event, then follow it. Such a response plan should not call for busting down the doors with guns blazing on the strength of a single anonymous phone call. Not following the plan is what should result in disciplinary actions.