Krebs: 'Men Who Sent SWAT Team, Heroin to My Home Sentenced' (krebsonsecurity.com)

An anonymous reader quotes KrebsOnSecurity: On Thursday, a Ukrainian man who hatched a plan in 2013 to send heroin to my home and then call the cops when the drugs arrived was sentenced to 41 months in prison for unrelated cybercrime charges. Separately, a 19-year-old American who admitted to being part of a hacker group that sent a heavily-armed police force to my home in 2013 was sentenced to three years probation.

Sergey Vovnenko, a.k.a. "Fly," "Flycracker" and "MUXACC1," pleaded guilty last year to aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors said Vovnenko operated a network of more than 13,000 hacked computers, using them to harvest credit card numbers and other sensitive information... A judge in New Jersey sentenced Vovnenko to 41 months in prison, three years of supervised released and ordered him to pay restitution of $83,368.

Separately, a judge in Washington, D.C. handed down a sentence of three year's probation to Eric Taylor, a hacker probably better known by his handle "Cosmo the God." Taylor was among several men involved in making a false report to my local police department at the time about a supposed hostage situation at our Virginia home. In response, a heavily-armed police force surrounded my home and put me in handcuffs at gunpoint before the police realized it was all a dangerous hoax known as "swatting"... Taylor and his co-conspirators were able to dox so many celebrities and public officials because they hacked a Russian identity theft service called ssndob[dot]ru. That service in turn relied upon compromised user accounts at data broker giant LexisNexis to pull personal and financial data on millions of Americans.

Comments

3 years probation

[nitehawk214]

For what is essentially attempted murder?

Re:3 years probation

[Comboman]

To be fair, it's not his fault that American police forces have become an over-armed, under-trained occupying army ready to rain down deadly violence with few checks and balances.

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah that sentence seems light to me. But could be a kid with a rich daddy and daddy's lawyers. Money talks.

Ultimately, if the local police were not acting like mercenaries, special forces, or the HRT we would not have these problems. And they would not have to if our stupid drug laws were reformed, civil liberties were respected, and asset forfeiture was not a thing.

But now we live in Fortress America, so welcome to the Terrordome. It was this way LONG before Trump came to power.

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

No that's not his fault but he knowingly placed everyone involved in danger...

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, it's not his fault that American police forces have become an over-armed, under-trained occupying army ready to rain down deadly violence with few checks and balances.

but he knew that. So what you're saying is basically, "it's not his fault that pollonium is not just a bit toxic and killed him, after he put it in his tea"...

(captcha: stirred. seriously?! is the captcha-bot now reading the postings ;))?

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that American police break down doors in far too many instances when they shouldn't, but you need to quit being so dramatic. They got a credible report of a hostage situation - they SHOULD roll up armed. And despite the press amplification of every single case (if the racial makeup is correct) the odds of an unarmed person getting shot by police are extremely low.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

they put him in hadcuffs untill they know who and what is going on and a threat no one was shot though im shure a bit scarry for the guy. seems like the situation was handled well to me.

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, it's not his fault that American police forces have become an over-armed, under-trained occupying army ready to rain down deadly violence with few checks and balances.

So by that logic, I can push you in front of a moving train, and your death isn't my fault because I didn't make the train move or make the train so heavy that it's not possible to stop in time?

Or I could take a cut extension cord plugged into an AC outlet and electrocute you with the bare wires, and it isn't by fault because I'm not the one that placed high voltage AC over those lines?

Does your broken logic even matter? Where do you see anyone blaming this kid for the fact the american police force is now militarized? No one has made such a claim, so there is no point in you attempting to refute it.

What is actually being claimed is this kid used his knowledge of the fact the police force is militarized and then knowingly and purposely pointed it toward another human being in an attempt to kill him by fabricating a story that would most likely end in that result.

The fact it did not succeed is also no excuse. Just like if I pointed a loaded weapon at you and pulled the trigger, and you only survived because the gun jammed.
That is still attempted murder.

Re:3 years probation

[clovis]

It looks to me like Eric Taylor's sentence wasn't for the swatting incident, and it was a plea bargain.
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

From the linked article:

A teenager hacker was sentenced in D.C. federal court Wednesday for a slew of cybercrimes committed against President Trump, Michelle Obama and former CIA Director John Brennan, among others.

Mr. Taylor and multiple co-conspirators are accused by the government of illegally obtaining personal information from high-profile victims and publishing it on a website, Exposed.Su, in 2013. He pleaded guilty last year to related charges and was sentenced at 2 p.m. Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, D.C., The Times has learned.

Allegations against Mr. Taylor and others charged in the conspiracy were filed under seal, and Wednesday’s sentencing hearing was not listed on the court’s website. Details of the sentencing were confirmed to The Times by individuals familiar with the case but not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

Because everything is sealed, I suspect that the defense attorney's threatened to use the trial to dump into the public record everything that Eric et al had stolen, and that would be harmful to the high-profile people they hacked. Hence the light sentence and plea bargain.

Re:3 years probation

[ArchieBunker]

I knew it was going to be a plea bargain. District Attorneys are lazy anymore and would rather give someone a light sentence than risk a not guilty verdict. They bring up a dozen scary charges and then act like they are doing a favor with a deal. If people stopped doing plea deals the courts would grind to a halt with backlogged cases.

All the outrage over the rapist Brock Turner getting six months? He agreed to a plea deal and so did the victim. The judge could only sentence for the lesser crime he agreed to.

Re: 3 years probation

[AutodidactLabrat]

Yeah,so well handled that a barking dog could have gotten them all killed

Re: 3 years probation

[AutodidactLabrat]

So how many "odds" does it take for a man laying face down, compliant with police, in a public arena, with a knee on his neck, to get shot through the heart and his murderer to walk away with 2 years?
1

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

It was and all those other idiots setup the right circumstances for the Nazi president Bannon to assume the dictatorship.

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

100% agree with this. If anything has become clear over the past 10 years or so from these type of stunts is that when you call the cops on your neighbors, you may very well be sentencing them or their loved ones to death regardless of your intentions. Better think twice before calling. You will have to live with the guilt.

Re:3 years probation

[JonathanP.Bennett]

For what is essentially attempted murder?

Absolutely correct, this is attempted murder, and should be handled as such by the legal system.

Re: 3 years probation

[lgw]

I agree that American police break down doors in far too many instances when they shouldn't, but you need to quit being so dramatic. They got a credible report of a hostage situation - they SHOULD roll up armed

The correct response to a reported hostage situation is absolutely not to have a bunch of over-armed thugs in mall-ninja gear kick down the door. The correct response is a negotiator, a sniper, some normal cops in vests, and patience. You know, how SWAT teams worked before the cops starting playing soldier.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been rumors, again RUMORS, that past swatting has lead to deaths, but due to various circumstances were not thoroughly or ever investigated. It doesn't take a detective to understand that in such a scenario, law enforcement would be entirely focused on justification of deadly force. Nobody is interested in defending already dead 'criminals'.

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK Krebs isn't black

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree with your point on appropriate response. but SWAT stands for Special Weapons And Tactics, and SWAT teams have always been pretty heavily armored, and very similar to a military strike team in many ways. granted, their use should be limited to very special emergency situations, and not every purported hostage situation qualifies. but still... and having "a sniper" is a pretty aggressive response to a situation, albeit one with hopefully less chance of collateral damage.

Re: 3 years probation

[SharpFang]

While the police reaction was justified, the situation so often turns to the "wrong" target dead, that 3 years of probation for exposing someone to this kind of danger is a joke.

It shouldn't be that the police doesn't react to reports of hostage situations. It should be that nobody ever knowingly, falsely reports such a situation - for fear of the consequences.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

They most certainly did not get a credible report. If they did they would have found an actual hostage situation.

Re:3 years probation

[joe_frisch]

I'd call it "reckless endangerment", not quite as severe as attempted murder but still a serious felony. Its doing something that a reasonable person would realize places others at risk of harm or death, even if that wasn't the intent.

Re: 3 years probation

[Cederic]

While the police reaction was justified, the situation so often turns to the "wrong" target dead

You appear to have contradicted yourself.

Re: 3 years probation

[dcollins117]

They got a credible report of a hostage situation - they SHOULD roll up armed.

They got a report. Was it a "credible" report? No. They dealt with the situation appropriately.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't justified. They didn't even need to send the SWAT team, just normal police. They certainly didn't need to bust down his door and put guns in his face.

*bang* *bang* *bang* "This is the police. Open the door, we have a warrant"
*opens door*
"We got a report about a hostage situation and we need to take a look around inside"
"Sure civil servant, anything I can do to assist"
*looks, doesn't find anything*
"Sorry to have bothered you sir, have a nice day"
"You're just doing your job, civil servant"

Re:3 years probation

[ChrisMaple]

Is reckless endangerment directed at a single person?

There's wire fraud and causing severe mental distress involved here.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

What if Krebs was brown skinned?

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

The just seem to be lacking the "Tactics" part as their only tactic is "heavily armed and shoot the fuck out of it" (singular).

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh, that guy should have at least received a sentence equal to premeditated attempted murder. Any shit-for-brains script kiddie that dox's someone should get at the minimum wire-fraud, and if they send the swat team after someone, premeditated murder.

None of this "it was just a joke" bully bullshit.

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in the US is "swatting" essentially attempted murder.

In Canada, where people are 10 times less likely to be armed, the RCMP or whatever local police will be sent, and will still be armed, but they know the chances of someone actually carrying anything but a longgun is low. So if a shitty kid dox's someone in Canada, depending if they are sent to a house or an apartment/condo, even the person inside the home will not expect to have a gun in their face. What happens in Canada is that if a non-dangerous thing is reported, a single cop will just knock on the door and ask point blank what is going on. If a dangerous thing is reported, two cop cars will be dispatched, and just like on TV, they will look and listen for trouble before kicking in a door.

That said, emergencies services have gotten wise to swatting, and will use location services (e-911) to locate the caller to get a threat assessment. If a call comes from Skype or has no real call back number then they have to consider it being a prank call.

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

A bunch of kiddies playing dress up. "Look mommy, I'm an operator!"

No. No, you're not. You're not anything of the sort and the majority of your colleagues laugh at you when you're not in the room because they know a joke when they see one.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

What if my aunt had a penis?

We deal in reality, here.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been rumors, again RUMORS, that past swatting has lead to deaths

Reports, again REPORTS, of actual deaths when SWAT teams show up to innocent homes. These confirmed deaths are dogs, not humans, but they have even taken place in the house of a sitting mayor whose house was targeted by SWAT because someone sent drugs to his doorstep and his wife took the package inside. SWAT entered his house and shot his dog. Running into a house and discharging firearms without knowing the situation beforehand sounds like a very special tactic indeed. Special like the short bus.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have made your point and remained honest. Death is not the most likely outcome from this event. It is a rarity that someone dies. In fact, that is why it is news when it does happen.

Re: 3 years probation

[Dog-Cow]

No, he didn't. You appear to be looking in a funhouse mirror.

Re: 3 years probation

[Dog-Cow]

Walking up to the door of a home with a hostage inside is usually the way the hostage gets killed. So, if you believe the possibility of a hostage situation is real, that's the last thing you do. Unless you enjoy killing hostages. You probably do.

Re: 3 years probation

[Dog-Cow]

You seem to not understand what credible means. Somehow, I find that entirely believable.

Re: 3 years probation

[Opportunist]

Channeling Canada here?

Re: 3 years probation

[rahvin112]

That depends entirely on the situation. In the case of an active shooter (which is what most of these calls claim) the police are obligated to storm in to save lives. After Columbine these policies were changed because if the police had moved in immediately they would have saved a lot of lives. Instead they did what you suggest as the standard procedure at the time, but that procedure doesn't work with a shooter whose aiming to kill people and doesn't care if they live or die. In that situation the only way to save lives is to storm the building.

There isn't a good solution to these problems that doesn't involve some major changes to the internet that break all anonymity or completely disconnecting the internet from the phone network. Neither is a viable option. Unfortunately SWATting needs to be handled with law enforcement, I guarantee that the number of these incidents will go down dramatically when they start visibly putting these people in jail and extraditing people from overseas that do it. That 14 year old kid might think twice if they know they will get caught. But this would mean the police would need to dedicate investigative money to these crimes, and that's not going to happen as long as drug crime is far more profitable to the police.

Re: 3 years probation

[Cederic]

No, I really look like this.

A police response that 'so often' kills innocent people is not justified, especially based on a single fucking phone call.

Re:3 years probation

[silentcoder]

It may not be his fault- but he is fully aware of this fact - and directed them against an innocent person. That amounts to attempted murder with a deadly weapon.
Just because the weapon in this case happens to be the police changes nothing - using the police as a weapon isn't even new. Ever heard of "suicide by cop" ?

Re: 3 years probation

[silentcoder]

Credible does not mean "real".
It means "likely to be real".

Real can only be determined AFTER you show up. Credible determines IF you show you up - and to a lesser extent how you show up.

Re:3 years probation

[Rockoon]

I believe SWATing even an empty apartment still puts the officers at risk.

Re:3 years probation

[silentcoder]

>It was this way LONG before Trump came to power.

True - but don't think for one second that he does not fully intend to capitalise on it, and make it worse so he has even more to capitalise on.

Re:3 years probation

[silentcoder]

> The judge could only sentence for the lesser crime he agreed to.

And you conveniently forget that, that lesser crime is liable for a sentence of up to 10 years. To give 6 months on a crime with an up-to-10-years sentence requires very, very strong mitigating circumstances. A judge who does that is effectively saying "this person has pled guilty, or technically broken a law, with no malicious intent and his actions really shouldn't be a crime but since I'm forced to punish him I'll give him a rap on the knuckles".

Now there are certainly times when that is exactly the appropriate thing for a judge or jury to do. There are definitely times when lenience from a court is exactly what a free society demands. Giving the teacher in the Scope's trial a 1 dollar fine was the best outcome possible under a bad law. The reason we give courts in free countries such discretion is exactly because we believe they need to be able to show mercy or leniency at times. The single most immoral thing about tough-on-crime laws and the drug was has been the proliferation of mandatory-minimum-sentences which remove that discretion.

Brock Turner was NOT however an example of the kind of case for whom that discretion exists. Turner was exactly an example of the kind of person who should have faced the full might of the law. Here was a rapist asshole - who still shows absolutely no remorse, whose father described his rape as "20 minutes of action" and blames the whole thing on "drinking and promiscuity" (there is no crime in promiscuity - but sexual acts with a drunk person who cannot consent is not promiscuity - it is rape). A crime which evoked such horror in passersby that they intervened, tackled him and held him down until police arrived to try and rescue his victim (people tend not to readily get involved in crimes that don't affect them personally - doing so shows how upsetting that scene must have been).
This was a case with extreme aggravating circumstances. The judge would be fully justified to reject the plea bargain and insist Brock faces up the original charge sheet and stands trial (whatever he pleads) but having accepted the bargain - the judge OUGHT to have given him the maximum allowed sentence. Preferably in a maximum security prison where he had high odds of experiencing lots of bigger men than himself treating him with the same complete lack of respect for his bodily autonomy that he had shown that poor girl.

Re: 3 years probation

[SharpFang]

As long as the number of people saved exceeds the number of people wrongly killed, then the intervention is justified. Accidents happen always. Currently, they happen excessively often and it's a worrisome trend which should be corrected, but only when SWAT kills more innocents than would people SWAT is called to, it needs to be dissolved entirely.

Re: 3 years probation

[Cederic]

You appear to have omitted alternative threat responses that don't require everybody in the house to be shot.

You know, basic shot like working out what the situation is before bursting in, shooting the dog, throwing grenades at the kids and risking the lives of everyone in the building.

I stand more chance of being shot by the US police than I do by a criminal and I don't even fucking live in the US

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to speedy no knock warrants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Johnston_shooting

Re: 3 years probation

[SharpFang]

I'm arguing that responding to a report of a hostage situation and treating it with full seriousness of actual hostage situation, dispatching the designated unit and handling the situation according to the procedures without shade of assumption this is just a stupid prank is the correct course of action. "Dispatch did nothing wrong."

I'm absolutely not arguing that the designated unit is best for this kind of work, or that the procedures - or behavior outside of these procedures - is any good. Simply put, SWAT is way too trigger-happy, arrogant and violent, escalating situations that would be better handled peacefully, shooting even when it's absolutely not needed, and generally I begin to doubt they are even making the baseline I've outlined - whether the cure isn't worse than the disease.

Still, SWAT is like it is. Lousy as hell, but all you have for this stuff. In this situation limiting the interventions to *actual* threat would vastly reduce the number of innocents harmed. Meanwhile, if getting SWAT sent to innocent people, with full premeditation, is met with a slap on the wrist, "swatting" will only get more popular.

Re:3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

Dynamite is just as dangerous and incapable of controlling its own actions. You still get attempted murder charges for throwing it at people just to see if it'll hurt them.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

Standard procedure in an active shooter scenario is to wait until the noise stops before going in, still no need for pseudo soldiers.

Case in point - A lesser known fact about the Sandy Hook school shooting in the US is that the police were there in 4 minutes. They waited for the noise to stop before they entered the building, because that's SOP.

More training would be great, untrained soldier-playing police are only unleashed when it's safe for them to do the killing, when there is opposition their trained response is to keep heads down and wait.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

Real can only be determined AFTER you show up.

If that is how american police operate - consider ending the practice by sending a long string of reports about hostages/shootings at congressmens homes. They can change such rules when they get tired of the mess. . .

Around here, police do basic checks like "where do the call originate from?" If you report an incident far from where you're located, they ask a lot of irritating questions about how you even know there is an incident progressing so far away from you. And they have a higher grade of caller ID than consumers get - including cell phone locations.

Re: 3 years probation

[Rakarra]

A phone call of "oh there's a hostage at 123 Apple Lane, Anywhere, USA" is not a terribly credible report, especially if the phone call did not come from the area code of the city involved.

Re: 3 years probation

[lgw]

"Reports of" an active shooter mean fuck-all. Mass shootings are incredibly, vanishingly rare events. The false-positive rate is over 99%. Yes, you want cops in vests, just in case, but there's no rational excuse to go in gangbusters until there's first-hand evidence that it will do more good than harm.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

Area codes are meaningless in the age of cell phones. My girlfriend graduated high school halfway across the country from where we live now, and her phone number still reflects that.

Re: 3 years probation

[Anonymous Coward]

look here curryhead. this is an american site, for americans who speak-a english. if you have trouble understanding a post, don't reply to it and go hang out a currydotdot.brown.wipesasswithhand. you think you speak english, but you don't, so fuck off with your spam comments.

your fat hairy big-nosed hairlip girlfriend graduated highschool somewhere else. she now lives in a certain city area code. when she calls 911 on her cell phone, and the cell phone location shows she is 50 miles away, they should suspect it's a fake call. now please get off this site till you actually understand what people write. in fact, get the fuck out of our country you shitskinned ni ger.

Re: 3 years probation

[AutodidactLabrat]

Would you repeat that nonsense if the victim were white wearing the blue suit?
A law which grants rights to enforcers that citizens do not have is not a republic.
The PUBLIC rules a republic, not the enforcers

Re: 3 years probation

[Rakarra]

What a well-spoken AC! But...

she now lives in a certain city area code. when she calls 911 on her cell phone, and the cell phone location shows she is 50 miles away, they should suspect it's a fake call.

Is this still the case when you use a TTY relay for the hearing impaired, as happened with the call that sent the SWAT to Kreb's?

Cosmo the God AKA

[MightyMartian]

Cosmo the Cumbucket

Seriously, this sentence seems absurd. I thought "on a computer" was supposed to add orders of a magnitude to a sentence.

Re:Cosmo the God AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, this sentence seems absurd. I thought "on a computer" was supposed to add orders of a magnitude to a sentence.

Sounds like "Cosmo" is a rich white kid from a wealthy and politically well connected family. If he had been poor or brown, the worst case being both poor and brown, he would have received something more along the lines of what Aaron Swartz was threatened with, 50 years imprisonment and $1 million in fines and restitution. The justice system here in American could hardly be more biased against poor brown people if it was designed that way from the start, which in a manner of speaking it was.

Re:Cosmo the God AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

It did. Normally the penalty is a sharp scolding from the judge.

Re:Cosmo the God AKA

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, Aaron Swartz was poor and brown?

Brian Krebs Not Big Enough To Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, Krebs is like the rest of us. The judicial system doesn't care about him.

Re:Brian Krebs Not Big Enough To Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

True enough. I think if I was Krebs I'd rent a different house and not share the address with anyone. It must be hard to sleep knowing the police might break in the door any minute from some asshat calling in fake reports.

Deport the Ukrainian

[Streetlight]

After the sentence is finished, the Ukrainian guy should be sent to Ukraine, maybe the most violent part of that war torn country. On the other hand, the Russian mafia may put him to use there. Oh, well.

SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

The US needs to force phone companies to update the ancient VOIP protocols with some kind of security certificate/trust system to eliminate spoofed phone numbers and crack down on SWATing. In an act where Krebs or one of his family members could have been killed, this kind of behavior needs to be treated like attempted murder, not some prank. Even under the best of circumstances, the family pet is often killed by the SWAT team to avoid injury.

With a security cert system, the phone network would refuse to route any calls without a valid certificate, and valid certificates could be traced back to a credit card/drivers license/IP address all tied to that certificate number, as well as a physical device and it's actual IP. I am sure there are still ways to circumvent it, but it would be a good starting point, and would catch most of the script kiddies, which is where 90% of this SWATing comes from.

Fly by night shady companies that refuse to collect this information or programs of the same nature simply wouldn't be able to place calls at all. For the same reason that it should be illegal to protest with a mask concealing your face, it should be illegal to obscure/spoof your identity through the phone system, and attempting to do so in and of it'self should be a federal crime with heavy penalties (I am looking at you telemarketers).

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did the 19 year old get a slap on the wrist?

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Registered Coward v2]

Good points but this wasn't spoofing a number but rather using the TTY service setup for deaf people to make the call. Scammers use them as well because they are required by law to transcribe verbatim dialogue. They may also be prevented from identifying themselves as an intermediary.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

What would stop skript kiddies from hijacking someone else's certified-and-licensed credentials or physical devices to make these calls? That's often what they're doing already.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[cyber-vandal]

Why should it be illegal to hide your face during a protest?

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

> . For the same reason that it should be illegal to protest with a mask concealing your face, it should be illegal to obscure/spoof your identity through the phone system

The reason governments want to remove anonymity during protests is in order to collect data on those that oppose the government. Sure, this means vandals might be able to get away with causing damage, but that's a small price to pay for the freedom to protest your government.

I am not sure how that correlates with spoofing your identity through the phone system.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Calydor]

Because more often than not lately, peaceful protests very quickly become not-so-peaceful with a lot of illegal activity like vandalism, violence, looting etc.

Adding anonymity to the mix only makes things worse, as per the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Self-signed certs currently a DNS name and IP address to a cert. AFAIK, you can't do a valid SScert with a wildcard IP. This cert system would have to tie to a person rather than an IP address, like your SSN or DL does now. RIAA and BSA would *LOVE* this because the argument "someone stole my internet" would go away. But it might become the national equivalent of a universal ID. I REALLY don't want that.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Streetlight]

I think it's been established that making use of an IP address to connect an individual to a crime won't stand up in court. The same might be a problem for a VOiP connected phone because of the hacking of its IP address.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Threni]

Because it's harder to investigate criminals that way. If you're taking part in a protest but being anonymous, what are you actually doing there?

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem would be the first time someone died because they were unable to reach 911.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[XparXnoiaX]

Anonymity was crucial to the founding of our democracy, and people should be allowed to protest without being recognized. Giving the government a huge new surveillance tool is not the right answer to stopping swatting.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[aussie_a]

Kid was too rich and white to get a real sentence.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[AmiMoJo]

Nice idea but it seems like it wouldn't work with a lot of services. You can sign up for various VOIP accounts for free and they obliged to provide emergency service for safety. IP addresses are easily masked. Even credit cards are easily bought for a few Bitcoins and someone can always use a payphone.

A better, simpler solution would be to not send in armed police, fingers on triggers because of a single phone call.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Not being retaliated against by the powerful whoever that you're protesting?

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

TTY service setup for deaf people to make the call

Thank-you for triggering my tech support PTSD. jk. relay calls weren't that bad. At least our managers were smart enough to stop harassing you about your call time when you were on one.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should it be illegal to hide your face during a protest?

Ask the KKK.

Literally.

The KKK is why those laws exist in the first place.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

> They may also be prevented from identifying themselves as an intermediary.

Those I've talked to always made it very clear that this was a relay call. When would it be forbidden?

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Because more often than not lately, peaceful protests very quickly become not-so-peaceful with a lot of illegal activity like vandalism, violence, looting etc.

An incredibly rare sight "lately" in the USA: to see widespread looting, riots, vandalism, etc. in an area not heavily populated by blacks. I wish that weren't true but facts don't stop being facts just because I find them distasteful.

By the way, a white man is several times more likely to be shot by a black man, than the other way around. It's not some 20-30% difference. It's several hundred percent more likely. Funny how no one seems to care about that, in fact no news agency will mention it - you have to dig through the government crime stats yourself to find it. Oh yes, and white youth actually do get shot by black cops from time to time. It's rare, just like police shootings in general are rare, but it certainly does happen. The media just doesn't care about that because it doesn't incite the whites to loot and riot. "If it bleeds, it leads!" right?

If you want to improve race relations your first step is to start being honest about the facts. Being dishonest about them out of some emotional sense of guilt or pity won't improve anything. We've been trying that for decades now and it hasn't worked.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[jeff4747]

Yeah, imagine doing something like dressing up as a Native American and looting a ship in a harbor....

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Threni]

Why would the powerful care about people hanging around in fancy dress in the streets? That's not going to take back power from anyone. You might feel they're doing something, but they're not. They might as well be shopping for all the difference it makes.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

i think its about the message not identity per say.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

"By the way, a white man is several times more likely to be shot by a black man, than the other way around. It's not some 20-30% difference. It's several hundred percent more likely. Funny how no one seems to care about that, in fact no news agency will mention it - you have to dig through the government crime stats yourself to find it."

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Go ahead, let's see your proof? And no, talkshow hosts are not proof.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[ChrisMaple]

Try telling that to the family of somebody killed in a riot.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[sydbarrett74]

Agreed. Those with a legitimate use-case for spoofing (LEO's, PI's, skip-tracers, &c.) should be required to obtain and maintain a licence to use spoofing. In no way, shape, or form should the general public be allowed to spoof phone numbers. Anyone who spoofs illicitly should be charged federally with wire fraud and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That would cut down on this bullshit.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Ogive17]

The problem is if they do not response appropriately and there is a true emergency and someone dies, they may get sued over that.

We have devolved as a society. I believe trust and civility are necessary for a successful society, trust is all but gone now. Shit, we have a President that lies his ass off about any subject he doesn't like.

I do worry about the future for my son. Are we going to leave some shit storm for future generations to deal with?

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

As others have stated, those hiding their identity during protests are usually doing so to avoid identification so they can commit crimes during their "protesting". It is already illegal in Washington DC, but it should be illegal (and enforced) nation wide.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

Not sure about the cross racial violence proportions, but it is a sad fact that 50% of all murders in the US are committed by young black men who are only a few percent of the population. The vast majority of victims are other blacks (80% plus). The root cause of this travesty is the degradation of the nuclear family and the loss of fatherhood brought about by the welfare state. Until we as a society realize how demoralizing welfare is and work to get everyone a job who needs one (the welfare to work program under Bill Clinton was a good compromise and worked well to help people off of welfare and back into the workforce), I don't see those numbers changing. Boys particularly need their fathers to stick around to be role models for manhood, how to work hard and how to be a father themselves. The current source of a father figure is the gangs, and the stats above bear out how devastating that is to the community.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

Not sure how someone would die for lack of 911. That is like saying you didn't connect your phone to your phone line and that is somehow the phone companies fault that you can't call 911. Current phone technology is not perfect either, but that doesn't mean we give up trying to improve it.

As part of the setup if you want a VOIP phone system (which are predominantly business phones BTW) you have to put in your information and get it verified and digitally signed by a trusted source. No system is perfect, but at this point in technology, there is no reasonable need to be able to spoof your caller ID number/origination point other than malicious criminality.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

This would not be a new surveillance tool. The VOIP digital signature/trust cert would be run by private industry, but when the government comes to the phone company with a warrant, or if you call 911, that information is readily available and accurate. In theory you are already identified when you call 911, unless you are spoofing or otherwise manipulating your information.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

"A few Bitcoins" is not a small sum these days.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

You are over thinking this. The phone companies know where the real calls come from. The Caller ID spoofing is fooling nobody. All that needs to change is that 911 and emergency services need to have that information validated. If an emergency call comes from a VoIP phone, the responsible thing to do would be to call the number back.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

Nice idea but it seems like it wouldn't work with a lot of services. You can sign up for various VOIP accounts for free and they obliged to provide emergency service for safety. IP addresses are easily masked. Even credit cards are easily bought for a few Bitcoins and someone can always use a payphone.

A better, simpler solution would be to not send in armed police, fingers on triggers because of a single phone call.

Unfortunately, it is completely unrealistic to expect the police not to be anticipating a fight if you supposedly call them threatening to kill someone or blow up something etc. That is just not the real world.

Yes, there are ways to circumvent any system in theory. However, those VOIP sevices (which I have used myself in the past) would be required to get a scan of your drivers license, credit card, and their software/hardware would take that information and integrate it into your IP or IP route (or something along those lines) to generate the trust certificate. Could you work around it? Possibly, but you would potentially have to hack firmware/hardware that was periodically updated to detect manipulation/hacking of the certificate process. That would also be a felony. The trick here is not to make it impossible, just hard enough so that most can't do it, and then you make it 10 years in PMITA federal prison for anyone who tries or succeeds in manipulating their cert. If it is too big of a risk, the only people doing it will be the 10 hardcore criminals/terrorists who also have the skills, as opposed to every 17 year old script kiddie playing Call of Duty in their moms basement.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

There is "wearing a face mask" and then there is "dressing head to toe in black, and carrying a 'death to (moronic cause)'" sign and smashing windows as you go.

The former is just trying to fuck up reporting on the event, the latter is intent to cause harm.

The key thing about peaceful protest, is knowing who, or what you are protesting. Womens march? No problem, the pink hats were a nice enough cue that you're not smashing in windows. Facist White Nationalist alt-right morons (aka NAZI's) are asking to be punched in the face for simply being there. That is why they are there.

Nobody would kill Milo or Richard, since nobody would want to cause them to be a martyr, but please consider the consequences from the "free speech at any cost" people like the ACLU. These alt-right shits want people to punch them so they look like like the victim (which yes, is technically right) while downplaying their actual motives of wanting to deport or kill every non-white person just like WWII Germany. If you alt-right, you are advocating genocide.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Your reasoning is flawed. Why? Because your numbers lack substantiation and detail.

There are less than 25,000 homicides in the US each year. You only attribute some of those to young black males. But there are several million young black males in the US. Perhaps over ten million depending on how you count it. The odds of any of them killing anyone are vanishingly slim. Odds are any given young black male won't even know someone who killed someone.

So like Daytona 500 qualifying times, when it comes down to it, those hundredths of a second may well be meaningless.

Your other conjectures are also lacking substance, but since you didn't bother to justify them with any pretense of validity, I won't bother with them. But I do suggest you reconsider what you believe to be true.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, it is completely unrealistic to expect the police not to be anticipating a fight if you supposedly call them threatening to kill someone or blow up something etc. That is just not the real world.

Actually, what is completely unrealistic is the expectation that the police can't differentiate between anticipation of a dangerous situation and the potential excessive degree of force which could exist. If the police were unable to manage their use of force, they would become the greater threat.

The real world, thus requires the police to be held to stringent use of force standards so they do not become an undue burden. The police exist to serve the people, every time they fail to protect, they become at risk of elimination.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the dumbest thing that you have ever written on slashdot. That is impressive, really. You have said some pretty stupid shit.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, all that tea in Boston was valuable private property, after all.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't in 44 states (barring commission of a crime), and shouldn't be anywhere else, since anonymous political speech receives the highest protection by the Constitution.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Because more often than not lately, peaceful protests very quickly become not-so-peaceful with a lot of illegal activity like vandalism, violence, looting etc.

No. It is just that you do not notice the vastly more numerous peaceful protests, for the reason they get comparatively scant coverage, even if the peaceful protest is much larger.

A thousand people can peacefully march in Berkeley, CA and you would never notice. 50 people hold signs in a financial district like SF, and one of them smashes a window, and it is about 1000X more likely you notice that.

There was something like 5000 people for the anti-Trump Impeach on the Beach rally in SF about a week ago. Did you notice? I would bet you didn't.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't arrested for swatting. The sentence was a plea bargain as for some hacking activity.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

They may also be prevented from identifying themselves as an intermediary.

I don't think that's correct. I've gotten relay calls (used to work with a deaf guy, and also had a deaf relative) and the operator always said first thing that it was a relay call.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

... be illegal to protest with a mask concealing your face ...

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa. It's obvious you know better, you know more: Why not make it illegal to protest, like Australia did? That way the police won't have to arrest their friends (and release them without charge). What a stupid thing to say.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Muros]

By the way, a white man is several times more likely to be shot by a black man, than the other way around

That is demonstrably false, there are lots of statistics available on the interwebs. If you were to say that, for any given shooting incident, it was more likely to be a black man shooting a white man than vice versa, you would be correct, but that does not change the fact that a larger percentage of the total black male population will be shot by a white man than the percentage of the white male population that will be shot by a black man.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[The-Ixian]

I did telephone support for a small ISP for less than a year and we would often spend an hour or more holding grandma's hand while we walked her through setting up a PPP connection in Windows 98.

Out of curiosity, what is the management rationale for reducing call time? To me, that directive seems to be directly at odds with actually helping the customer you are there to support.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Rakarra]

Try telling that to the family of somebody killed in a riot.

I'd tell the family that I as sorry for their loss, but if they pressed the issue, they would have to be told that removing basic constitutional protections cannot be justified by such a situation. The 'grieving family' has been the tool to justify a number of bad/harsh laws. It's on the same level as "think of the children."

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[cyber-vandal]

So as an example, a gay man working for a homophobic employer would not be able to take part in a gay rights demonstration for fear that his employer would dismiss him should he appear on TV? I'm sure there are plenty of similar hypothetical situations where this can be considered a bad idea even where the government is not involved.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

Actually it is illegal for an employer to discriminate in that way and they can face serious sanction if they do.

The more likely scenario these days is someone participating in a pro marriage or pro life march being discriminated against, as multiple CEOs have been targeted and lost their jobs because of their religious beliefs. Either way, it is pointless to march with a mask on. It indicates that you support your cause, just not enough to put your name/identity at stake.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Opportunist]

Sounds like a publicity stunt you could expect from the Tea Party.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

You might want to brush up on basic math and/or the facts you claim to know so well.

This is common knowledge so I assumed I didn't need to cite it, but here they are:

Fact 1: ~52% of all murders committed in the US between 1980 and 2008 were committed by blacks, the vast majority of these murders were committed by black men 15-40 years old. The percentage holds relatively steady over time.

Fact 2: 93% of black murderer victims are other blacks for the same time span.

Fact 3: Blacks are 14% of the population

http://www.dailywire.com/news/...
Or if you prefer the raw data: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t...

You appear to be attempting to conflate any one young black man's chance of committing a murder, which is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion and definitely not the statistic that I cited. I am talking about a problem that society needs to address, not a problem that should concern you in your everyday interactions with people on the street.

The odds of any one person you meet being a murder, averaged across all blacks, based on the stats is around 0.01%. But that is distributed across all blacks. Since ~90% of the homicides are committed by young black men and they are around 12M out of the total population of 46M blacks in the US, the percentage jumps to about 0.04% for black men 15-40 to be a murderer. On an daily interpersonal interaction, out of every 2500 black men you meet in this demographic, one will be a murderer statistically. This may seem small, but compare it with another minority population, the Asian risk rate is 0.0007%, or one young male murderer out of every 143,000 (due to a more even distribution). Whites and Hispanics both have about the same odds at 0.0017% or one out of every 14,700 young men you meet. Crunching the numbers means that a young black man is 5700% more likely to commit a murder than an Asian. Both are minorities without the cultural benefits of being white. Any way you read these statistics, a glaring societal problem is apparent, and the people who are suffering and getting murdered disproportionately are other blacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

Playing with percentages can get easily confused and obfuscate the underlying issue. They are handy for comparison, but can be easily misconstrued or used to conflate facts (see my reply to AC above). The best place to go for the raw facts is here: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t...

From 2013:

Out of 197.7M whites, 189 murdered a black person, 2509 murdered a white person

Out of 37.7M blacks, 409 murdered a white person, 2245 murdered a black person

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[cyber-vandal]

I still can't see that that's somehow wrong. As you and I have both said, there can be serious repercussions for demonstrating, even if you have every right to do so. Discrimination still happens and it looks like those employment protections you mention depend on where you live https://www.google.co.uk/amp/w...

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

It indicates that you support your cause, just not enough to put your name/identity at stake.

And so? It's an entirely rational position for somebody to hold, especially when speaking truth to power. Just because you don't want to die on a hill doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to stand on it.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Muros]

Playing with percentages can get easily confused and obfuscate the underlying issue. They are handy for comparison, but can be easily misconstrued or used to conflate facts (see my reply to AC above). The best place to go for the raw facts is here: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t...

From 2013:

Out of 197.7M whites, 189 murdered a black person, 2509 murdered a white person

Out of 37.7M blacks, 409 murdered a white person, 2245 murdered a black person

All well and good, and I believe I qualified what I said with a disclaimer that agrees with the point you are making. It does not make me any less correct when I point out that the person I was replying to is a liar.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

Hmm, OK, I guess I see what you were saying now, not that the other guy was wrong, he is 100% right, I crunched the numbers and a white person is statistically like 11X more likely to be shot by a black person (1/93,000) than a black person is to be shot by a white person (1/1,000,000). So you were wrong and he was not lying.

Further, your assertion that "a larger percentage of the total black male population will be shot by a white man than the percentage of the white male population that will be shot by a black man" is meaningless for the purposes of this discussion. Who cares what % of the population was killed? Unless you are in a war of attrition % of the total population killed mean nothing... Blacks killed 408 whites or 0.0002% of the white population, whites killed 189 blacks or 0.00042% of the black population.

If you are fixated on effect on the overall populations, I suggest that you might want to look first at the 2200 blacks murdered by other blacks, which is 0.005% of the population, or 12x more than were killed by whites. But no one looks at the stats that way because all those zeros mean that it is a meaningless statistic to the overall population. Murder has no consequence for the size of either population. Murder has a personal impact on the perpetrator, the victim and their families which is why the statistics that people care about are the actual numbers of murders as well as your chances of being murdered in a year.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[LienRag]

Make anonymous calls identifiable as anonymous calls would be a good idea (and then everyone could allow or deny anonymous calls to him, and intelligent police officers - yes I know it looks like an oxymoron - could then decide that an anonymous call is not enough to warrant a SWAT team killing the pet of a unknown stranger), indeed.
But banning anonymous calls? What for if not a police state?

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Muros]

Hmm, OK, I guess I see what you were saying now, not that the other guy was wrong, he is 100% right, I crunched the numbers and a white person is statistically like 11X more likely to be shot by a black person (1/93,000) than a black person is to be shot by a white person (1/1,000,000). So you were wrong and he was not lying.

Lets re-visit the numbers that you listed above. 189 black people murdered by whites out of 37.7M is 1 in 199471. 409 white people murdered by blacks out of 197.7M is 1 in 483374. So, by the statistics that YOU provided, a black person is 2.4 times more likely to be murdered by a white person than a white person is to be murdered by a black person. I was not wrong, and he was lying.

Further, your assertion that "a larger percentage of the total black male population will be shot by a white man than the percentage of the white male population that will be shot by a black man" is meaningless for the purposes of this discussion

No, it is not. This discussion is about the words I was replying to: "By the way, a white man is several times more likely to be shot by a black man, than the other way around".

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it is illegal for an employer to discriminate in that way and they can face serious sanction if they do.

In principle, yes that is true. In principle.

In practice, they'll almost never face any sanctions of any sort. It'll never happen unless they're utterly stupid. Such an employer who is not utterly stupid will merely say something vague like "wasn't a good fit for the team" or "wasn't a team player" or "we no longer needed that position". You'll never prove that an intent to discriminate was the real reason.

You see the same pattern in cases of ageism.

The more likely scenario these days is someone participating in a pro marriage or pro life march being discriminated against, as multiple CEOs have been targeted and lost their jobs because of their religious beliefs. Either way, it is pointless to march with a mask on. It indicates that you support your cause, just not enough to put your name/identity at stake.

We need to decide as a society whether people in their jobs should be evaluated solely on job performance or whether it's appropriate for interpersonal politics to play a role. In the USA you have a situation where gays/lesbians are about a 5-10% minority. In fact there is a relatively quiet majority who are either indifferent to their cause or in opposition to it. So when CEOs get fired for personal religious beliefs that oppose gay interests, you have a situation where the majority political view is suppressed in order to appease a small political minority. If it were any other issue this would not happen.

Well over 50% of Americans continue to identify as Christians and the Bible is uncomfortably clear about gays (Deuteronomy straight up says they should be put to death!). Regardless of the details, politics in general is the struggle to get your way when it's not compatible with other groups who also wish to have their way. If this were any other issue then an impartial observer would seriously wonder how and why a relatively tiny minority has managed to force their will (largely through guilt and shame, righteous or otherwise) on a large majority.

I submit that the majority WASP American population has been systematically taught, right or wrong, that they should be ashamed of their heritage and their beliefs and should not actively pursue their own political ends the same way every other interest group has done. If you ridicule a Jew or a Muslim or gays, you're a horrible bigot and the mainstream shuns you - if you ridicule Christians, that's somehow "okay" and they're expected to take it - all are discriminatory or none are. I do not believe this situation is sustainable. That kind of patience eventually runs out. Any group gets tired of feeling "steamrolled" after a long enough time. When the majority feels that way, or even a small dedicated vocal minority, change happens fast. If and when white Christians get tired of this, the backlash is going to be devastating.

Tolerance and recognition of legal rights is not the same thing as approval and endorsement, not by a long shot, and it never was. Confusing these two things is why Christians who strongly disagree with gay lifestyles and goals, yet do not wish to stop them using police power of government, despite having the votes to do so, are still branded "bigots". Eventually they're going to get tired of it. In the long term, the rabid politically correct types are damaging their own cause with their excess ambitions.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

I still can't see that that's somehow wrong. As you and I have both said, there can be serious repercussions for demonstrating, even if you have every right to do so. Discrimination still happens and it looks like those employment protections you mention depend on where you live https://www.google.co.uk/amp/w...

You will never actually enjoy those employment protections unless the discriminatory employer is incredibly and unusually stupid. Generally in these situations, the reason given is some vague bullshit like "wasn't a good fit for the team" and you will never prove any intent to discriminate. Of course, that's supposing you have the time (potentially years) and enormous financial resources it takes to bring a lawsuit against a multinational corporation. In all likelihood, you won't even be able to try, let alone prevail.

Once again, there's the way the system is supposed to work, in theory. Then there's the real-world way that the system actually works, in practice. Laws on the books sound nice and they're a step in the right direction, helping to prevent the very most blatant and obvious abuses. Yet, they have no real deterrent effect without a swift and certain mechanism to enforce them. The only pragmatic effect they have is that the abuses go slightly underground, hiding behind vague reasons that you will never actionably disprove.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

This would not be a new surveillance tool. The VOIP digital signature/trust cert would be run by private industry, but when the government comes to the phone company with a warrant, or if you call 911, that information is readily available and accurate. In theory you are already identified when you call 911, unless you are spoofing or otherwise manipulating your information.

Indeed, 911 (and 1-800 numbers) use a system called ANI for landlines. They don't rely on Caller ID which is relatively trivial to spoof and was never designed to be secure. ANI uses the phone company's knowledge of the billing information (name, address, etc on account) and physical network topology. Bottom line: if you called 911 on a landline after dialing *67 to block the Caller ID information, or after spoofing the Caller ID info, the 911 operator still knows exactly what your real location is. Likewise, calling 911 on a mobile phone uses the towers' knowledge of your location, not standard Caller ID information. Knowing your mobile phone's location to within a certain precision is a basic function of how cellular service works, and not something you can trivially spoof. You'd need a backdoor access to someone else's phone that then physically places the call, and then some untracable way to use that backdoor, to even stand a chance. Otherwise they will eventually find the true origination point of that call.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is if they do not response appropriately and there is a true emergency and someone dies, they may get sued over that.

Actually there have been numerous cases in which the police failed to act. They had knowledge of a crime in progress and could have intervened but for whatever reason, failed to do so. Some of these cases have been heard in the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has ruled, again and again, that the police do not have an obligation to protect anyone. Their job is to "enforce the law" which is often times not the same thing. Yes, it's bullshit. No, I can't seem to get my head far enough up my ass to see things their way, but it's hardly the first time that the Supreme Court was incredibly government-friendly to the detriment of the People and (in other cases, particularly those involving the 4th Amendment, or civil asset forfeiture, or blatant emminent domain abuses) the US Constitution.

My theory is that the legal system has become self-reinforcing. A willingness (indeed, something resembling a religious fervor) to "play ball" is the only way a person stands a chance of ever attaining a position like Justice of the US Supreme Court. Therefore, the only people who would ever achieve such a position are all of the "desired mentality". It's a filter and it's not one that operates in the interests of the People.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, it is completely unrealistic to expect the police not to be anticipating a fight if you supposedly call them threatening to kill someone or blow up something etc. That is just not the real world.

Actually, what is completely unrealistic is the expectation that the police can't differentiate between anticipation of a dangerous situation and the potential excessive degree of force which could exist. If the police were unable to manage their use of force, they would become the greater threat.

The real world, thus requires the police to be held to stringent use of force standards so they do not become an undue burden. The police exist to serve the people, every time they fail to protect, they become at risk of elimination.

You mention the "real world". Welp, in the "real world", every time the police fail to protect, government at the highest levels, all the way up to the US Supreme Court, says that's okay, they didn't have any obligation to protect anyone anyway. Multiple cases of this type have been tried, and the result was the same, again and again. This isn't abstract legal theory, this is actual adjudicated case law.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, it is completely unrealistic to expect the police not to be anticipating a fight if you supposedly call them threatening to kill someone or blow up something etc. That is just not the real world.

Actually, what is completely unrealistic is the expectation that the police can't differentiate between anticipation of a dangerous situation and the potential excessive degree of force which could exist. If the police were unable to manage their use of force, they would become the greater threat.

The real world, thus requires the police to be held to stringent use of force standards so they do not become an undue burden. The police exist to serve the people, every time they fail to protect, they become at risk of elimination.

You mention the "real world". Welp, in the "real world", every time the police fail to protect, government at the highest levels, all the way up to the US Supreme Court, says that's okay, they didn't have any obligation to protect anyone anyway. Multiple cases of this type have been tried, and the result was the same, again and again. This isn't abstract legal theory, this is actual adjudicated case law.

Same AC here. I just wanted to futher define the problem here. It's largely a PR problem. Though I am loathe to describe it as such, I deal in fact, as best I can. Until the police are viewed like any other employees, subject to the same problems of abuses of power, political corruption, and the strong need for additional accountability given that they are one of the only organitions authorized to use force to achieve their ends, then the problem will perpetuate.

Right now the police enjoy an all-too-common public image as white-knight saviors and Heralds of All That Is Good and Virtuous, which is why "your word against theirs" means "case dismissed" in every instance imaginable, except when a "sworn officer of the law" testifies against you, then the judge considers you a liar by default. A cop is no more or less human than you are. His or her manner of obtaining a wage does not change that, except in a court room where it really counts.

A good start would be for Congress to pass a federal law, stating that when any actively employed police officer, whether on-duty or off-duty, commits a crime, the penalty upon conviction of that crime shall be tripled, since an officer breaking the law is worse, for that officer swore an oath to uphold the law, and enjoys special powers and privileges, unlike the random civilian who commits a crime. When police break the law and get away with it, it's a threat to the entire concept of Rule of Law, upon which our entire system is founded. Those who want exceptional power need to also accept additional responsibility. If they find that trade-off unacceptable, that proves that they were unworthy of the power.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

"Lets re-visit the numbers that you listed above. 189 black people murdered by whites out of 37.7M is 1 in 199471. 409 white people murdered by blacks out of 197.7M is 1 in 483374. So, by the statistics that YOU provided, a black person is 2.4 times more likely to be murdered by a white person than a white person is to be murdered by a black person. I was not wrong, and he was lying."

Except that is not how statistics or probability work. What you just calculated there is the fraction of the population that was killed (which is what I explained above). 2.4x more blacks than whites were killed across race AS A FRACTION OF THEIR TOTAL POPULATION which is neither relevant nor meaningful nor indicative of probability. It is NOT the same as the likelihood of being murdered by someone of a different race which is what you are asserting... Whoever fed you this line of reasoning was clearly trying to confuse the issue, and apparently they succeeded.

The bottom line is that cross race murders are insignificant on a personal risk level (1/1,000,000 W on B and 1/93,000 B on W), but when looking at trends and societal problems, the statistics do not support your assertion.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

The thing is, why do you need anonymous calls? Phone calls were never anonymous until the advent of personal VOIP or TTY (I thought TTY used to be set up like 911 where they had to log all calls, not the content, but the incoming number was identified for internal tracking purposes). For the last 80 plus years, law enforcement could at the very least trace your call and get call logs through the phone company with a warrant.

The trust/certificate system that I proposed would not be run by the government, rather by the private sector phone companies and VOIP companies to return integrity to the system. The purpose is that during emergency calls or with a warrant, the government could get access to accurate information.

Even with your proposed anonymous system that is flagged as such, if someone calls in a bomb threat or says they have a hostage, the police must investigate, and in a situation with that kind of potential, they are going to go in on high alert with everything that they need to deal with that situation, because they want to come home alive to their family, just like you want to after your day at the office... so it doesn't really solve anything. As long as phone calls remain the primary method of citizens contacting law enforcement, we need a trusted system, because it is clearly being abused.

Re: SWATing needs serious consequences

[Muros]

OK, at this point I know I'm being trolled so this will be my final post on the subject. What I have stated is exactly how statistics work, and the the figures bear me out. What you are calculating with the figures from here, are not the probabilities of being a cross-race murder victim, but that of being a cross-race murderer. In that respect, a black person is 10.37 times as likely to kill a white person as a white person is to kill a black person, and that is a fairly dismal statistic. But that was not the claim that was made in the post I responded to.

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[LienRag]

Basically, to call anonymously when needed to...

Re:SWATing needs serious consequences

[LeftCoastThinker]

This is a tautology and not a reason. A legit reason might be: When I need to report the 911 operator I am calling is murdering me. Except that that is unlikely in the extreme, if not physically impossible. The tinfoil hats think their phone calls have been private, but in reality, all the government needed was a warrant and they could get years of call history from the phone company, and calling 911 always ran a trace on the phone number to get it's location from the phone company. The recent changes in VOIP services and appliances is what has created this anonymous phone problem, and it needs to be fixed so that we can again have trust in our phone systems.

Too lenient

[Anonymous Coward]

People who are charged with uploading songs, movies, and academic journals to the internet (with no financial gain to themselves) are threatened with decades of prison time and absurd financial penalties. These people deceive SWAT teams and recklessly endanger lives and get probation? Misplaced priorities, folks. The so-called swatters should receive more severe penalties, in my opinion.

Re: Too lenient

[Anonymous Coward]

he was a kid(i dont know the details) who did a really stupid and dangerous thing maybe he will learn from this if not i dought he will get much sympothy again.

Re:Too lenient

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrariwise, people who are charged with uploading songs, movies, and academic journals to the internet should receive less severe penalties. We need fewer people in prison, not more. We shouldn't correct sentencing disparity by punishing a SWATer as hard as a copyright infringer, we should do it by reducing the penalty for copyright infringement so the SWATer's 3 year probation looks very tough in comparison.

Re:Too lenient

[Anonymous Coward]

The appropriate sentence should reflect the damages or potential damages.

a) Anything where only property (other than pets) or financial instruments (cash, metals, artwork) are lost, should not be a prison sentence unless the crime is so gratuitous (eg counterfeiting drugs) that it put peoples lives at risk. We call these "civil" cases and and are not usually labeled criminal cases. The penalties is often financial and loss of mobility (eg restraining order, not permitted to leave the country or city, house arrest.) Financial losses should reflect real losses and punitive charges should only be handed out to malicious intent (eg the difference between ripping a DVD for your own use and someone copies it from you (eg bittorrent) and mass-copying of every film and putting it on your own subscription site.)

b) Anything where peoples safety are put at risk, but not premeditated, should carry a jail sentence reflective of the potential danger. Driving while drunk in a regular car? 30 days in jail. Driving while high? 30 days in jail. Firing a loaded weapon without a permit, 30 days in jail multiplied by the number of people witness to it. Breaking and entering? 30 days in jail + restitution of damages to property, jailed until payment can be arranged.

c) Any crime where peoples safety are intentionally (premeditated) put at risk = 1 year of jail multiplied by the number of witnesses. This includes swatting, sexual assault, and any act of sabotage. 30 years for any actual death. If no death, but serious injury, re-assess victim's quality of life and downgrade sentence to attempted murder ranging from 10 to 30 years. If a death is self-defense, then re-assess a downgrade to financial penalties instead.

And since there is no corporal punishment in civilized parts of the world, the maximum sentence is "life" in prison for premeditated death of children, 30 years for adults where no indignity has come to the body (eg they turned themselves in), or "life" if they did not turn themselves in or tried to cover up the death.

Re: Too lenient

[Anonymous Coward]

Civil offenses can not carry a custodial sentence, which house arrest is. This is actually pretty basic civics. You should know this. I didn't bother to try to interpret the remainder of what you typed.

Re:Too lenient

[Rakarra]

People who are charged with uploading songs, movies, and academic journals to the internet (with no financial gain to themselves) are threatened with decades of prison time and absurd financial penalties.

People are "threatened" all the time with ridiculous penalties for all sorts of crimes, it's what happens to "cut a deal" so they can avoid the expense and bother of a trial, but I've yet to hear of the person actually serving a 30-year sentence for just sharing some songs on the Internet.

The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a SWAT team was sent to kill someone for having some heroin. Is the really a proportional response?

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

They only do that when you don't buy from them.

Re:The real problem

[wisnoskij]

Perhaps, even if we ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who kill themselves withe drugs. Even if we ignore the the thousands who are killed accidentally by drug users. We are still talking murder, bribery, extortion, slavery, smuggling just to get those drugs to your street corner. If you bought illegal drugs, you are paying other people to murder, enslave, and commit most crimes on the books. Why should that not come with a life sentence? Just because you are white collar and can pay others to commit the crimes for you?

Re:The real problem

[angel'o'sphere]

The article is nit about drugs but about cyber crime and SWATing ... you coukd at least 'glimpse' over the summary.

Re:The real problem

[ColdWetDog]

Come on AC. The editors even managed to put the answer to your question in the summary. Yeah, you had to read the entire summary and sus out the bad grammar and dodgy phrasing. But hell, we can't do everything for you.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You are aware that it is in fact law enforcement who is in control of and profits from the drug trade, right?

Re: The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The article wasn't, but the comment to was in response to WAS. Read.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

But all of those problems would go away if it was legalized, well that's what the liberals claim.

Re:The real problem

[Procrasti]

Every single one of the problems you cite about drugs is due to their prohibition, or at the very least exacerbated by it.

Exactly the same things happened during alcohol prohibition, but for some reason you people are too stupid to see the correlation and instead continue to think that doing more and harder of the same will get you different results.

Re:The real problem

[serviscope_minor]

Perhaps, even if we ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who kill themselves withe drugs.

Suicides are usually with prescription drugs, so I assume you're talking about accidental deaths. In that case, far, far more people kill themselves with cars than drugs. Are you against cars too?

We are still talking murder, bribery, extortion, slavery, smuggling just to get those drugs to your street corner.

Or some dude growing it in a back-woods pot farm. Either way it's a silly point because you could argue much the same for alcohol during prohibition. Seems a bit silly to give a life sentence for something most people think shouldn't be illegal.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You underestimate their intelligence. They are the ones making money on it. See?

You just fell for more of their propaganda.

Re:The real problem

[wisnoskij]

>alcohol during prohibition

I really wonder at your point here, assuming that the alcohol distillers during prohibition were as bad as the Mexican Mafia, how is this an argument? Yes, murdering people, and hiring people to murder people for you is wrong, even if it is the only way to get alcohol or heroin.
Sometime in the future we will be able to grow organs on demand in vats, that does not mean that right now, just because cheap, legal, plentiful organs do not exist that forced organ harvesting is right. Hireling someone to abduct and kill someone, to replace your ailing kidney is wrong, hiring someone to kill, smuggle, bribe, and threaten for you, to get you high, is wrong.

Re:The real problem

[wisnoskij]

So what is your point? Since the world and the laws are not perfect, if you kill someone, as a necessary but unfortunate side effect of ignoring these laws, that you are a righteousness and just person?

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you bought illegal drugs, you are paying other people to murder, enslave, and commit most crimes on the books."

Same could be said about diamonds

Re: The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look at that! "Heroine," right in the summary.

Re:The real problem

[wisnoskij]

Which is why blood diamonds are illegal, and widely considered immoral.

Re:The real problem

[sysrammer]

You underestimate their intelligence. They are the ones making money on it. See?

You just fell for more of their propaganda.

QFT. As they say, "follow the money".

Re:The real problem

[Razed By TV]

The point is that it is probably easier and more effective to get rid of the antiquated laws that lock us in this cycle where drug makers, smugglers, and DEA all make profits off of addicts.

Decriminalize hard drug use and have the government sell/give away safe, vetted drugs to addicts (or administer doses in government run centers). Making drugs hard to get enslaves addicts to dealers and causes the situation we have now. Legalize marijuana, sell it like alcohol and tobacco, tax it, make money off of it, let a bunch of people out of prison for stupid marijuana offenses.

Re:The real problem

[serviscope_minor]

You ignored all my points about the locally grown stuff, which was very much a key part of the argument. You don't actually appear to want to discuss, merely sermonize.

Re:The real problem

[mjwx]

Every single one of the problems you cite about drugs is due to their prohibition, or at the very least exacerbated by it.

Exactly the same things happened during alcohol prohibition, but for some reason you people are too stupid to see the correlation and instead continue to think that doing more and harder of the same will get you different results.

Not quite. The medical problems are still based in chemistry. physically destructive drugs like Heroin and Krokodil are still going to destroy bodies even when decriminalised.

I largely agree with your point, but you only harm your own argument by ignoring the glaring fault I pointed out above.

You're probably thinking largely of Marijuana and LSD (the least destructive of the illicit drugs) possibly up to MDMA, cocaine and amphetamines. Here I think your point remains valid. However it gets into a grey area when talking about things like Crystal Meth. I could agree with decriminalising the former drugs I mentioned, but ignoring things like Meth, Heroin and other drugs that are actually destructive is foolhardy.

The problem in the US is with who the rules are enforced against. For a long time the user has been punished whilst the producers and distributors are largely ignored. That is patently stupid. In Australia and the UK, possessing a small amount of marijuana or LSD is a misdemeanour, you'll get a fine but nothing on your record. In order to get a serious penalty, you need to be selling or supplying.

Re:The real problem

[Big Hairy Ian]

Shooting galleries (As in for shooting up on heroin in a controlled supervised environment) have reduced drug related crime in Holland substantially why not use the idea else where.

Re: The real problem

[Rakarra]

So he was guilty of harboring Katniss Everdeen? Then again, that's the sort of response that happened in that story as well.

Re:The real problem

[Procrasti]

> Not quite. The medical problems are still based in chemistry. physically destructive drugs like Heroin and Krokodil are still going to destroy bodies even when decriminalised.

Heroin is actually one of the SAFEST drugs you can take in terms of physical destructiveness. If you can actually get pure heroin in constant supplies and known quantities.

Krokodil wouldn't even exist except for prohibition.

>. You're probably thinking largely of Marijuana and LSD (the least destructive of the illicit drugs) possibly up to MDMA, cocaine and amphetamines. Here I think your point remains valid. However it gets into a grey area when talking about things like Crystal Meth. I could agree with decriminalising the former drugs I mentioned, but ignoring things like Meth, Heroin and other drugs that are actually destructive is foolhardy.

No, it is precisely the more dangerous drugs like heroin and crystal meth where the marginal harm of prohibition is at its greatest.

No one I know of has ever died from variations in quality and purity of cannabis or LSD, prohibition is mostly killing my heroin and meth using friends.

Re:The real problem

[Procrasti]

variations in quantity* and quality

Re:The real problem

[Procrasti]

The laws are unnecessary, and the effect of these laws are the direct cause of the very deaths you talk about. The deaths are not a necessary result of drug consumption, but of the laws.

Laws cannot change people's preferences and every time society's laws attempt to ignore the more fundamental laws of supply and demand we end up with bad outcomes. Either people starving or the creation of powerful drug cartels and all the other problems.

The drug market exceeds the IT market, and is second only to the war and oil markets. Pablo Escobar was once the wealthiest man on the planet. My personal consumption is no major concern in the overall scheme.

All drugs should be fully legalised. Regulated for purity, for correct labeling, where, when and to whom they can be sold, and taxed according to their intrinsic negative externalities. Just like every other commodity in existence, because the further you drift from a free market the more the social utility loss, which is another way to say unnecessary suffering and death.

Re:The real problem

[LienRag]

I'm certainly not in favor of prohibition, but Imperial China tried "no legislation" on opium for a while, and it didn't fare well...

And the cheerful part...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So, the only illicit aspect of the "Russian identity theft service called ssndob[dot]ru" is the fact that it used compromised LexisNexis accounts to pull personal details from their gigantic database; rather than paying for access like a decent customer...

How supremely comforting.

Plea deal

[ArchieBunker]

The guy took a plea deal from the DA. The judge can only sentence for this lesser crime.

Re:Plea deal

[davidwatdavidworg]

The judge can sentence to the original charge regardless of any deals made with a lawyer.

Re: Plea deal

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The judge can only sentence based on what he was actually charged with.

Re:Plea deal

[ArchieBunker]

And yet somehow it never happens.

Re:Plea deal

[Anonymous Coward]

So remove plea deals then - incredibly weird practice.

Re:Plea deal

[Anonymous Coward]

The judge can sentence to the original charge regardless of any deals made with a lawyer.

A judge can certainly refuse a plea deal and the normal process continues. However, if a prosecutor drops some charges as part of a deal, the judge can not stop that.

Reckless endangerment

[raymorris]

The offender wasn't *trying* to kill Krebs. So not attempted murder.

  Krebs didn't die, so not manslaughter.

The offender did act in a way to create a dangerous situation with no regard for the fact that Krebs, other people in his home, or police officers could be seriously injured. That neatly matches the definition of "reckless endangerment".

Had someone actually died, it would match the definition of "depraved-heart murder", which is second-degree homicide in many states. Depraved-heart murder is killing someone through actions not actually *intended* to kill them, but by reckless disregard for their safety.

Re: Reckless endangerment

[Anonymous Coward]

But he was. He tried to kill him by proxy.

Re:Reckless endangerment

[Anonymous Coward]

If Krebs were black, and if the offender knew he was black, then would swatting be attempted murder or just committing a hate crime?

Re:Reckless endangerment

[sysrammer]

Thank you for a new phrase for my daily vocabulary exercise, "depraved-heart murder". Now I just have to work the phrase into three sentences using different tenses.

Re:Reckless endangerment

[Anonymous Coward]

If criminal shoots at another person and kills them, it's murder. But if they miss, legally it's attempted murder, which generally carries a much lesser penalty.
In other words, being a good or bad shot or depending on how 'luck' plays out carries a lot of weight in the criminal justice system. More weight than simply attempting to kill someone.
I would change it so that whether someone succeeds in killing someone is irrelevant, but trying to do so is the major factor.

Re:Reckless endangerment

[ranton]

Had someone actually died, it would match the definition of "depraved-heart murder", which is second-degree homicide in many states. Depraved-heart murder is killing someone through actions not actually *intended* to kill them, but by reckless disregard for their safety.

One really messed up part of our judicial system is that punishment is often more interested in the results of the perpetrator's actions instead of the intent. There is no sane reason why attempted murder and murder have different punishments, since the intent was the same. Similarly, there should be no difference in the punishment for depraved-heart murder and reckless endangerment.

Re:Reckless endangerment

[connect4]

It's not messed up. Well, not always. When you talk about intent, you're confusing conviction and sentencing.

Consider drink driving. If you get pulled over and blow over the limit, it's not exactly crime of the century. If you're drunk and you run over a pedestrian, it's a far more serious matter. Having said that, there are plenty of examples of habitual drunk drivers receiving custodial sentences, while a first time offender who runs someone over escapes jail.

Sentencing has to consider culpability, the prospect of rehabilitation, the rights of the victims, the need to protect society, and a range of other factors. It's not uncommon for an attempted murder to attract a more severe punishment than an actual murder.

Re:Reckless endangerment

[tehcyder]

Had someone actually died, it would match the definition of "depraved-heart murder", which is second-degree homicide in many states. Depraved-heart murder is killing someone through actions not actually *intended* to kill them, but by reckless disregard for their safety.

One really messed up part of our judicial system is that punishment is often more interested in the results of the perpetrator's actions instead of the intent. There is no sane reason why attempted murder and murder have different punishments, since the intent was the same. Similarly, there should be no difference in the punishment for depraved-heart murder and reckless endangerment.

But then you would end up with people being put in prison for pure thought-crimes.

Re: Reckless endangerment

[wienerschnizzel]

You would have to prove intent, a state of his mind. He might have indeed intended to murder him, but if he didn't adress any threats to him or talk to other witnesses about it, it would be unprovable...

Re:Reckless endangerment

[silentcoder]

>which generally carries a much lesser penalty.

Where the hell is THAT true ? In practically every legal system in the free world attempted murder carries the EXACT SAME penalties as actual murder.

Re:Reckless endangerment

[lgw]

It varies a lot by state (and even more outside the US). The intent to kill isn't a hard requirement for attempted murder - sometimes the line is drawn at an intentional action that could reasonably cause death. Seems like the sort of charge an ambitious prosecutor might try on.

Also worth noting: if maliciously calling in a fake 911 call is a felony, then in most states it would be murder if someone actually died as a result.

Re:Reckless endangerment

[i]

No.

In related news.

[fahrbot-bot]

No where does it say what happened to the heroin.

Re:In related news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha! Good one! Confiscated for resale, and reconfiscation, and resale, and reconfiscation, and resale... There is no end to the money they can pull from it.

Will of the People

[PopeRatzo]

On Thursday, a Ukrainian man who hatched a plan in 2013 to send heroin to my home and then call the cops when the drugs arrived was sentenced to 41 months in prison for unrelated cybercrime charges. Separately, a 19-year-old American who admitted to being part of a hacker group that sent a heavily-armed police force to my home in 2013 was sentenced to three years probation.

Sergey Vovnenko, a.k.a. "Fly," "Flycracker" and "MUXACC1," pleaded guilty last year to aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors said Vovnenko operated a network of more than 13,000 hacked computers, using them to harvest credit card numbers and other sensitive information... A judge in New Jersey sentenced Vovnenko to 41 months in prison, three years of supervised released and ordered him to pay restitution of $83,368.

And now people like this are in charge of our elections.

Re:Will of the People

[Zontar The Mindless]

This is what it always seems to boil down to, with people like you--your desire to enjoy the suffering of others.

You should really think about what sort of person that makes you.

Re:Will of the People

[Zaelath]

Really Detroit? More votes cast for HilLIARy! than registered voters in the precinct?

The article says nothing to back up your claim, and in fact the most likely explanation of what it does cover would be slack marking of the role and not voter fraud, but do continue your incoherent rambling. I'm sure someone gives a damn, somewhere, what you think.

Re:Will of the People

[Anonymous Coward]

Really Detroit? More votes cast for HilLIARy! than registered voters in the precinct?

It said that there were explained voter tally problems in 34 precincts, ie. machines where they can see the fault, 236 precincts that balanced, 248 precincts that between them had 465 fewer paper ballots than the machines counted, and 144 precincts that between them had 264 more paper ballots than the machines had counted. Sounds to me like their voting machines are falling apart, like everything else in Detroit. It did not say who these votes (either missing or extra) were for, nor did it make any comment on how the turnout compared to the number of registered voters. However, given that the unexplained discrepancies average out at fewer than 2 votes per precinct, we can be reasonably sure that the discprepancies would be so dwarfed by the number of people who didn't bother to vote, that your claim is ludicrous.

Poll: Americans want Democrats to work with Trump

A strong majority of Americans say Democrats should look to cooperate with President Trump to strike deals, according to the inaugural Harvard-Harris poll provided exclusively by The Hill.

Most people want politicians to not fuck the country up fighting each other? Who'da thunk it? I will note, your quote says cooperate. I'm sure most reasonable politicians will cooperate to some degree, although I don't follow politics that side of the pond closely enough to know how much. However, what I've seen of Donald Trump so far would indicate a man who demands compliance rather than attempting to cooperate with anyone.

Why is it dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, it may have been attempted murder .. he should have been given a harsher sentence if that was provable.

BUT ... why isn't anyone bothered by the fact that sending the SWAT team to the home of innocent people is deadly? Is there really no safe way to accomplish what SWAT does? no process improvement?

That's an issue. One reason for the difference

[raymorris]

I agree it's an issue. The difference in penalties may be too great in many instances. There are of course a couple of reasons sentences are, and should be, different.

Keeping closest to the viewpoint you brought up, many things are dangerous. Heck, MOST things involve some risk. Consequences should fit the actual risk. Suppose I shoot off some fireworks in the middle of some soccer fields, full of short green, moist grass (which doesn't burn). Another person shoots off fireworks in their apartment complex. We've both committed the offense of shooting off fireworks within city limits. One of us was a much greater danger than the other. One method of measuring the actual danger posed is that my action did not in fact burn even a blade of grass, his action burned down an apartment building - with people in it. You can tell that his action truly could have killed people if it truly did kill people. Since my action actually did no harm, probably it wasn't really that dangerous.

If my brother has two or three drinks, you probably would never know it by having a conversation with him. Yet, his BAC is probably over 0.08%. My wife is the opposite. Three drinks and she'd probably wreck before she got out of the parking lot. The blood test doesn't measure the risk. What DOES demonstrate the degree of actual danger is if my wife actually plows through a crowd of people. Both drove over the limit - one drove without so much as running a red light, the other ran into people. Clearly, one is more of a danger to society than the other.

You mentioned murder vs attempted murder specifically. Buying a butcher knife with the intent to use it on someone is attempted murder (one can argue whether it *should* be, but it is). Someone who does that is a danger to society. Someone who actually stabs people to death, successfully, is clearly a greater danger.

Secondly, crime and punishment isn't all about the criminal, it's also about the victims (or potential victims). If somebody got plastered and ran over your child, after having been warned about the danger via a previous DWI charge, you'd probably want to kill the motherfucker who ran over your kid. As a society, we don't want parents, spouses, etc acting as judge, jury, and executioner, taking vengeance on the criminal - so we offer a better way. Victims can (hopefully) see justice done without taking justice into their own hands. If someone drives drunk and does *not* hurt anyone, you probably don't have the same urge to kill the motherfucker - society can see justice done with a lighter sentence if noone is harmed.

You might say "we shouldn't want justice, you shouldn't want to kill the motherfucker who ran over your kid." Perhaps so, perhaps not, but it's how we are. We can't "should" that away.

Re:That's an issue. One reason for the difference

[Zaelath]

Buying a butcher knife with the intent to use it on someone is attempted murder

In what jurisdiction? Doesn't seem to be US, UK, Australia, ... ?

Re:That's an issue. One reason for the difference

[tehcyder]

Buying a butcher knife with the intent to use it on someone is attempted murder

In what jurisdiction? Doesn't seem to be US, UK, Australia, ... ?

More like a component of "conspiracy to commit murder" in the UK I'd have thought. I think you actually have to physically try to kill someone for it to be attempted murder.

Krebs needs to fuck off and die

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to see what else happens to this piece of shit.

I used an incorrect example (though conspiracy)

[raymorris]

You're right, that would probably be "mere preparation" and therefore not attempted murder. Though as someone else pointed out, if TWO people go get the knife, there's conspiracy to commit murder.

Anyway, a very weak attempt is an attempt.

Re: "civil servant"

[slashrio]

"Civil servant"? Yeah right, the moment you say something like that you'll have a boot in your neck.

Yesh

[Ryanrule]

Break their fingers. Bat to hand style.

Bargain

[DrYak]

The thing is, the hostage is the only bargaining chip that the criminal has.
They won't automatically shoot the hostage at the slightest police apparition, that would be them losing they only hope for a way out.
They would rather *threat* to shoot, and try to see what they can leverage to try to save their asses.
But once the hostage is dead, they'd lose all mean for negociations.

So the most likely way the situation unfolds would be :
*bang* *bang* *bang* "This is the police. Open the door, we have a warrant"
*keeps door closed*
"Stay out of here! I have a hostage! If you entire I'll kill them! And find me a helicopter and enough fuel to Cuba, or I start to chop fingers!"
*police calls in reinforcement, negociators, etc. and tries to find a way out that minimizes losses*

As opposed to the SWAT approaches:
*over armed and under trained police* [Storms in]
[all starting shooting everywhere]
[high risk that the hostages get harmed during the mess]

Likelihood by race

[GlobalEcho]

By the way, a white man is several times more likely to be shot by a black man, than the other way around. It's not some 20-30% difference. It's several hundred percent more likely.

This is getting really off-topic, but that statement is ridiculously far off. Murder is quite well traced by the FBI, so let's take it as a proxy for shootings. The FBI has this nice table of 2013 statistics (other years would be broadly similar).

From the table we can see that there were 409 murders of whites by blacks. With a white population of roughly 200 million, that makes about 2 parts per million. We also see 189 murders of blacks by whites. With a black population of about 40 million, that makes just under 5 parts per million.

From this we see that a black person is about 2.5x more likely to be murdered by a white person than the other way around. That's the opposite of what you said.

Now, it is true that if you restrict to the cohort of actual crime victims, things look different. For example, given that a white person is one of the 3,000 murder victims , chances are about 14% that the murderer was black. In comparison, given that a black person was one of the 2,500 victims, chances are about 7.5% that the murderer was white.

Even viewing the statistics this way, we do not reach "several hundred percent", but rather 80%.

Re:Likelihood by race

[LeftCoastThinker]

Playing with percentages can get easily confused which is what I suspect happened to you because your math is way off. Percentages are handy for comparison, but can be easily confused or used to conflate facts. Population corrected incidence probability gives you a real world grasp of a populations risk chance to be murdered by any sub group, and how those risks compare to other sub groups.

Using the FBI UCR from 2013:

Out of 197.7M whites, 189 murdered a black person, 2509 murdered a white person
Thus, 1/1,046,032 whites was an interracial murderer. A black person statistically has to meet over 1M whites to run into an interracial murderer (whitey is pretty safe these days, apparently). 1/78,800 whites murdered another white.

Out of 37.7M blacks, 409 murdered a white person, 2245 murdered a black person
Thus, 1/92,176 blacks was an interracial murderer. A white person has to meet 92K random blacks to statistically meet an interracial murderer. 1/16,792 blacks murdered another black. This number is huge by comparison and very troubling.

Thus, blacks are 1,134% more likely to murder a white person, than vice versa (1M / 92K) and blacks murdered 116% more whites than vice versa in 2013 even though there are 160M fewer blacks than whites. If you are white, your odds of being killed by a white person are still 6x more likely than being killed by a black person if you were to randomly run into equal numbers of whites and blacks. However, blacks account for only 14% of the population, and young black males commit ~90% (~368 black on white) murders in the black community and they are only 12M or ~3.8% of the population. Thus 1/32,608 black men was an interracial murderer. Thus, any random young black man is 240% more likely to murder a white than any random white person is to murder another white person and any random young black man is 20,900% more likely to murder a black person than any random white person is to murder a black person.

The numbers that stand out as troubling should be obvious to anyone willing to look. The black perpetrator murder rate numbers in aggregate and by comparison indicate that there is something wrong in society, and blacks are disproportionately getting murdered by other blacks (2245 dead) far beyond what their risk is from the greater society (189 dead) or other ethnic groups. Recall also that these stats are for a single year, and the number of murderers does not necessarily correlate 1:1 with number of murders, they are cumulative with some overlap for repeat offenders and these numbers do not account for non-fatal shootings, rape and other violent crimes.

The fact that we have BLM going ballistic over what have turned out to be mostly justified police shootings of habitual criminal thugs fighting with police while remaining completely silent on the issue of black on black murder (and black on white murder for that matter) is a testament to the MSM disinformation apparatus.

Re:Likelihood by race

[GlobalEcho]

Playing with percentages can get easily confused which is what I suspect happened to you because your math is way off.

Wrong.

Percentages are handy for comparison, but can be easily confused or used to conflate facts.

Agreed.

... a white man is several times more likely to be shot by a black man, than the other way around

Thus, 1/1,046,032 whites was an interracial murderer. A black person statistically has to meet over 1M whites to run into an interracial murderer (whitey is pretty safe these days, apparently). ...1/92,176 blacks was an interracial murderer. A white person has to meet 92K random blacks to statistically meet an interracial murderer. ... 1/32,608 black men was an interracial murderer. Thus, any random young black man is 240% more likely to murder a white than any random white person is to murder another white person and any random young black man is 20,900% more likely to murder a black person than any random white person is to murder a black person.

You are simply reading the GPs text differently. It hinges on the meaning of the phrase "likely to be shot by a black man", where one can read that as either "likely, in the course of daily life, to be shot by a black man" (my interpretation) or "likely, upon seeing a young black man, to be shot by him" (your interpretation, and possibly the GPs).

Re:Likelihood by race

[LeftCoastThinker]

I can see what you are getting at, however, your numbers still don't make sense.

A black person's chances of getting murdered by a fellow black are 2245/45M = 0.005%or 1 in 20,000.

A black persons chance of getting murdered by a white are 189/45M = 0.0004% or 1 in 238,000

2434 blacks are murdered each year. 189/2434 murders are committed by whites, or 7.8% of blacks are murdered by whites. 92% of blacks are murdered by other blacks.

2918 whites are murdered each year. 409/2918 murders are committed by blacks, or 14% of whites are murdered by blacks. 80% of whites are killed by other whites.

Thus if you are white murder victim, you are 1.8x more likely to be killed by a black than a black is to be killed by a white: (14%/7.8%=180%)

You asserted: "From this we see that a black person is about 2.5x more likely to be murdered by a white person than the other way around. That's the opposite of what you said."

Whites killed by blacks/blacks killed by whites = 409/189 = 2.15x more whites killed by blacks that vice versa. You are demonstrably and easily proven wrong. If you are trying to look at statistical chances, we can do that too:

I calculated statistical chances for you in the last post, namely a black person's odds of being murdered by a white person were 1/1,046,032 versus a white persons chance of being murdered by a black are 1/92,176 meaning that a white persons odds of being murdered by a black are ((1/92,176/(1/1,046,032)) = 1134% or roughly 11x more likely, which is even more dramatically opposite to what your assertion is that blacks are more likely to be killed by whites. It doesn't bear out in the raw numbers either: 409 whites killed by blacks vs 189 blacks killed by whites, or the calculated statistics... sorry, you can't get there using proper statistics. I should know, I taught applied statistics for 4 years... Maybe this is where Mark Twain would throw in the damn liars and statisticians, but there is a right way and a wrong way to apply statistics, and you are doing it wrong (at this point I don't even know how you got your 2.5x more blacks killed by whites numbers).

Good point, report with false name felony in CA

[raymorris]

While a bogus 911 is a misdemeanor in the two states I checked (California and Texas), using a false name on a police report is a felony in California. That may apply. As you suggested, that would trigger the felony-murder rule.