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Online "Swatting" Becomes a Hazard For Gamers Who Play Live On the Internet
HughPickens.com writes Nick Wingfield reports at the NYT that practical jokers who call in bogus reports of violence provoking huge police responses have set their sights on a new set of victims: video gamers who play live on the Internet, often in front of huge online audiences. Last month, several hundred people were watching Joshua Peters as he played RuneScape from his parents' home as video showed Peters suddenly leaving his computer when police officers appeared at the house and ordered him and his family at gunpoint to lie face down on the ground after some had called 911 claiming Peters had just shot his roommate. "With the live-streaming platforms, it amplifies the entire situation," says James Clayton Eubanks who says he has been swatted about a half-dozen times while he streamed his Call of Duty sessions. "Not only do they get to do this and cause this misery, they get to watch it unfold in front of thousands of people."
Game companies like Twitch have publicly said that swatting is dangerous, but that there is little else they can do to prevent the pranks. Tracking the culprits behind the pranks is difficult. While bomb scares and other hoaxes have been around for decades, making threats anonymously has never been so easy. Swatters use text messages and online phone services like Skype to relay their threats, employing techniques to make themselves hard to trace. They obtain personal addresses for their victims through property records and other public databases, or by tricking businesses or customer service representatives at a victim's Internet provider into revealing the information. Brandon Willson, a gamer known online as "Famed God," made up a murder to get police to go to an unsuspecting west suburban resident's home last year and ended up behind bars in Nevada awaiting extradition. As part of the investigation, police traveled to Las Vegas to help local police execute a search warrant at Willson's home. Computers seized there contained evidence of the swatting incident, as well as similar incidents across the country, prosecutors claim. Willson faces up to five years in prison if he is convicted on charges of computer tampering and one count each of intimidation, computer fraud, identity theft and disorderly conduct. His mother, Brenda Willson, says her son is innocent and does not smoke, drink or have tattoos. "He would never swat," she says.
Game companies like Twitch have publicly said that swatting is dangerous, but that there is little else they can do to prevent the pranks. Tracking the culprits behind the pranks is difficult. While bomb scares and other hoaxes have been around for decades, making threats anonymously has never been so easy. Swatters use text messages and online phone services like Skype to relay their threats, employing techniques to make themselves hard to trace. They obtain personal addresses for their victims through property records and other public databases, or by tricking businesses or customer service representatives at a victim's Internet provider into revealing the information. Brandon Willson, a gamer known online as "Famed God," made up a murder to get police to go to an unsuspecting west suburban resident's home last year and ended up behind bars in Nevada awaiting extradition. As part of the investigation, police traveled to Las Vegas to help local police execute a search warrant at Willson's home. Computers seized there contained evidence of the swatting incident, as well as similar incidents across the country, prosecutors claim. Willson faces up to five years in prison if he is convicted on charges of computer tampering and one count each of intimidation, computer fraud, identity theft and disorderly conduct. His mother, Brenda Willson, says her son is innocent and does not smoke, drink or have tattoos. "He would never swat," she says.
"Tracking the culprits behind the pranks is difficult."
Ummmmm, why?
While bomb scares and other hoaxes have been around for decades, making threats anonymously has never been so easy. Swatters use text messages and online phone services like Skype to relay their threats, employing techniques to make themselves hard to trace.
> His mother, Brenda Willson, says her son is innocent and does not smoke, drink or have tattoos. "He would never swat," she says.
With a mother as stupid as this, no wonder he's behaving like an asshole.
No kidding. Both nature and nurture are against him.
There been reports of them killing people when they got the wrong address too. Nothing has happened that I know of about this either so I am not too confident anything would be making them think twice on a tip.
There was one case where the cops shot the father of a swatting victim. I believe the person behind the swatting attack is doing some fairly serious time though.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Police cannot tell an anonymous report apart from a true emergency. Regardless, we need higher quality police force and to rollback policies put in place since drug prohibition began:
A California man is demanding police accountability after an officer fatally shot his service dog in the head.
Ian Anderson of San Diego told The Huffington Post he was sleeping in his home when officers pounded on his door at 5 a.m. Sunday over a domestic disturbance call. The 24-year-old man said police had the wrong house.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/17/cop-kills-burberry_n_6888326.html
Around 150 police officers die of gunshots every year. Police kill far more people with guns. Police propaganda has tricked you.
He doesn't drink, smoke, or have tattoos...no wonder he's an asshole.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, that has happened, and since it was a real emergency, the police department is now being sued.
"An investigations by NBC reveal that the police department was alerted anonymously, with the caller informing them that the suspect possessed several types of firearms and had expressed their frustration with the victim numerous times. When asked about this apparent warning, the commissioner declined to comment. An officer working the case who spoke with NBC on the condition of anonymity revealed that they did not take the warning seriously, citing many cases in which police were sent to a location based on such warnings only to find that the warning was a hoax, leaving bills in property damage and unknown damages in lost time and personnel availability. A spokesperson for the family of the victim has stated the family's intent to sue the police department for gross negligence in this matter, and NBC has learned that the caller - later identified as the suspect's brother - is also seeking legal recourse."
That no one has died yet as a result of swatting suggests that they're largely doing their jobs.
http://www.cato.org/raidmap
http://www.sott.net/article/266876-Swat-team-shoots-innocent-man-22-times-in-front-of-his-family-case-settled-in-the-millions
http://www.policestateusa.com/2013/misidentified-man-killed-when-swat-team-started-his-house-on-fire/
http://www.businessinsider.com/9-horrifying-botched-police-raids-2012-2?op=1
http://www.mintpressnews.com/video-swat-team-kills-innocent-man-drug-raid-found-just-2-marijuana/200738/
http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/A-costly-SWAT-raid-gone-wrong-4303215.php
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/swat-raid-casualties
SOP in the USA. SWAT is used overwhelmingly in cases they have no business being used in. A tiny, tiny minority of their deployments are actually for circumstances the teams were put together to confront (hostage & active shooter).
"Swatting is not like killing or stealing or doing drugs,"
Tell that to the people who had guns pointed at them because of a Swatting. And im guessing you don't have any kids either? Its a serious crime buddy, nowhere near the level of a prank phone,call.
Jack of all trades,master of none