5 ms·

I think there's an analogy here with banking, around the idea of securing transactions rather than securing identity. The police need to be a lot more sure that

I think there's an analogy here with banking, around the idea of securing transactions rather than securing identity. The police need to be a lot more sure that the information they're working with is solid before they take drastic actions, just like a bank should take a lot more care that what they're doing is correct when a transaction appears suspicious. "Standard overreaction" by the police is to my mind a bigger problem than the homicidal intent of the fraudulent calls. That kind of overreaction is a force multiplier for anyone with ill intent towards the US, never mind immature, violent and mentally ill people within the US. I don't disagree with the idea that there is culpable homicidal intent for the prank caller, of course.

tptacek 9y ago
All sorts of things are force multipliers for violently disturbed people: guns, cars, explosives, and yes fraud and deception. We should treat people who employ fraud to harm others the same way we treat people who use pipe bombs. Police violence does seem like the "bigger" problem --- not that the difference tells us anything about how we should handle the ostensibly "smaller" problem. But I'll suggest that there's a "big" problem behind SWAT-ing, too: the way technology intermediates between agents and consequences, abstracts away externalities, reinforces the rationalizing techniques our brains use to salve themselves when violating fundamental inhibitions. In some circumstances, we even celebrate these effects, which seem to me far more menacing than a lot of mind-altering drugs.
- pwaai 9y ago
  > All sorts of things are force multipliers for violently disturbed people: guns, cars, explosives, and yes fraud and deception. We should treat people who employ fraud to harm others the same way we treat people who use pipe bombs. You've conflated employing fraud with direct use of force. Fortunately, the law draws a fine line between the two. You must prove that swatting somebody presents the same probability of death as detonating a pipe bomb. The truth is there is far more successful SWAT operations that doesn't result in death of innocent lives. Out of the SWAT pranks, only a few results in death. Therefore, it does not pose the same direct harm and high probability of death that a pipe bomb would.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    I'm pretty comfortable with the company of expertise my argument keeps on this subject.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    I'm not sold on that analogy. After all, fireworks are recreational explosives and we could count up a lot of destructive but non-malicious explosions as well as malicious but ineffective explosions (pipe bombs defused by robots or blown up in controlled fashion by bomb squads). In the case of SWATting, the fraud is obviously meant to jeopardize the liberty of the targeted subject, and the jeopardy of their life at the same time is highly predictable, even that doesn't let the police officers off the hook.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    > You've conflated employing fraud with direct use of force. He's conflating employing fraud to harm others with direct use of force. Put another way, should it matter whether you caused harm (and I'm assuming that means physical harm for this argument) using fraud or whether you paid someone to inflict it? I think perhaps you interpreted the harm from fraud he was referring to as financial harm, but this specific issue is all about fraud that caused bodily harm.
    - smallnamespace 9y ago
      > should it matter whether you caused harm (and I'm assuming that means physical harm for this argument) using fraud or whether you paid someone to inflict it? I think it does matter, for the simple reason that people who are willing to commit violence, up close, with their own hands, have a very different psychology than people who are willing to do harm but still (presumably) have the normal human instincts that make them not want to do it personally. It's one thing to kill; it's quite another thing to be willing to (or take pleasure in) literally get your hands bloody. The latter is the mark of an dangerous psychopath.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        It does not in fact matter at law: arranging to have somebody killed will net you the same murder 1 charge as the person who pulls the trigger.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > guns, cars, explosives all of which are regulated, unlike calls to SWAT..
  - tptacek 9y ago
    That's obviously not true (calling in false police reports was illegal long before SWAT-ing was a thing), but, what's your point?
    - throwaway2048 9y ago
      I believe his point to be that there is zero oversight on when SWAT is deployed, remember the police made the choice to go in guns blazing ready to shoot people. The fact that a choice like that can be made without strong justification is pretty horrifying.
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      Not only are murdering people with guns illegal, so are guns themselves regulated wrt possesion; ie the mechanism is regulated. In what sense is a call to SWAT regulated?
      - cornyNetHandle 9y ago
        In the very real sense that laws are regulations. Calls to SWAT are regulated through the law and backed by the force of the state. The mechanism is regulated by punitive measures after the fact, rather than some sort of regulatory filter, due to the nature of emergency telephone services.
        Chris2048 9y ago
        Punative after the fact isn't regulation of the same kind. If this is due to the nature of the thing, then the thing is unlike guns explosives etc.
        cornyNetHandle 9y ago
- clouddrover 9y ago
  > In some circumstances, we even celebrate these effects The gang mentality that gets trained into police is problematic. They are told they are "warriors", they're told to use lethal force quickly, they're told that the sex they'll have after killing a human being will be the "best sex of their lives". It's sick: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/do-not-resist-a-chilling-look-at-the-normalization-of-warrior-cops/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/...
- hrktb 9y ago
  > But I'll suggest that there's a "big" problem behind SWAT-ing, too: the way technology intermediates between agents and consequences, abstracts away externalities, reinforces the rationalizing techniques our brains use to salve themselves when violating fundamental inhibitions At this point, I am not sure the people who go all the way to make the phone call to SWAT someone are somewhat detached from the consequences. I would put it on the same scale as loosening the bolts of someone’s ladder. The intentions and consequences are clear, even if the “accident” might or might not happen and there is some indirection. The very fact they have to choose specific channels to make the call, or spoof caller id makes them explicitely cross the boundary of the “joke”. Also I believe a sizeable fraction of Us is not beyond wishing someone’s actual death during a long enough period to act at least partially on it. I see it as human nature. But up until now we didn’t have a button in our hand to press it to kill any random person within some probability.
abalone 9y ago
I appreciate what you're trying to say but banking is not a great analogy for an emergency response situation. Banks do not face the same element of time pressure or lives being at stake. How would "being a lot more sure" help here? If you mean the police should verify information more thoroughly before responding, then that comes at a direct tradeoff in response times. If instead you mean police should respond swiftly but not bring out the SWAT teams without more verification, then that could pose a (different kind of) safety issue for responders and potential hostages. The issue here is more one of militarized police tactics. When you're trained to respond to any threat, any sudden move, with overwhelming deadly force, then deadly outcomes will happen.
- state_less 9y ago
  When SWAT is deployed, the chances of someone getting injured are increased. Some gamers are calling in more SWAT false positives, leading to an increased likelihood of injury to the public. To begin, talk of swatting someone ought not be sanctioned on these communication channels. Mod down the comments or suspend their privileges/account. We agree, use of force is far to casual in the US, especially with the reduced rate of violent crimes. In the time being, we could also start dealing with the false positives directly. For example, while SWAT is gearing up, the operator could ask who is calling and how they learned of the issue. Without that information, the odds of a false report go up and the trigger bias should be going down.
  - abalone 9y ago
    > For example, while SWAT is gearing up, the operator could ask who is calling and how they learned of the issue. How exactly would that help? Swatting is by definition fraudulent callers claiming to have firsthand knowledge of an issue -- in this case, he pretended to be a hostage taker.[1] Better hoax detection training is a fine idea but swatters are determined adversaries. It's going to take more than just asking a couple basic questions. And since real emergencies are often signaled by imperfect and limited inbound information, there is only so much that can be done to filter out false positives. I agree with Krebs that this is primarily a matter of police use-of-force training and stronger action against swatters.[2] [1] 911 recording starts at 10 minutes: https://www.pscp.tv/LJSNicholeManna/1lPKqponlzQxb?t=9m10s https://www.pscp.tv/LJSNicholeManna/1lPKqponlzQxb?t=9m10s [2] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in-swatting-attack/#more-42076 https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in-swa...
cm2187 9y ago
What the prank caller did the equivalent of unleashing a dangerous dog on an innocent citizen. That the police in the US is a dangerous dog is a problem in itself, but unleashing a dangerous dog to harm someone is a crime.
user5994461 9y ago
Bank will freeze funds indefinitely until they can make a decision. It's not applicable to what the swat has to deal with: hostage situations, armed fights, bombings, etc... they can't hold on the phone forever and do nothing.

tptacek 9y ago

All sorts of things are force multipliers for violently disturbed people: guns, cars, explosives, and yes fraud and deception. We should treat people who employ fraud to harm others the same way we treat people who use pipe bombs. Police violence does seem like the "bigger" problem --- not that the difference tells us anything about how we should handle the ostensibly "smaller" problem. But I'll suggest that there's a "big" problem behind SWAT-ing, too: the way technology intermediates between agents and consequences, abstracts away externalities, reinforces the rationalizing techniques our brains use to salve themselves when violating fundamental inhibitions. In some circumstances, we even celebrate these effects, which seem to me far more menacing than a lot of mind-altering drugs.

pwaai 9y ago
> All sorts of things are force multipliers for violently disturbed people: guns, cars, explosives, and yes fraud and deception. We should treat people who employ fraud to harm others the same way we treat people who use pipe bombs. You've conflated employing fraud with direct use of force. Fortunately, the law draws a fine line between the two. You must prove that swatting somebody presents the same probability of death as detonating a pipe bomb. The truth is there is far more successful SWAT operations that doesn't result in death of innocent lives. Out of the SWAT pranks, only a few results in death. Therefore, it does not pose the same direct harm and high probability of death that a pipe bomb would.
- tptacek 9y ago
  I'm pretty comfortable with the company of expertise my argument keeps on this subject.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  I'm not sold on that analogy. After all, fireworks are recreational explosives and we could count up a lot of destructive but non-malicious explosions as well as malicious but ineffective explosions (pipe bombs defused by robots or blown up in controlled fashion by bomb squads). In the case of SWATting, the fraud is obviously meant to jeopardize the liberty of the targeted subject, and the jeopardy of their life at the same time is highly predictable, even that doesn't let the police officers off the hook.
- kbenson 9y ago
  > You've conflated employing fraud with direct use of force. He's conflating employing fraud to harm others with direct use of force. Put another way, should it matter whether you caused harm (and I'm assuming that means physical harm for this argument) using fraud or whether you paid someone to inflict it? I think perhaps you interpreted the harm from fraud he was referring to as financial harm, but this specific issue is all about fraud that caused bodily harm.
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    > should it matter whether you caused harm (and I'm assuming that means physical harm for this argument) using fraud or whether you paid someone to inflict it? I think it does matter, for the simple reason that people who are willing to commit violence, up close, with their own hands, have a very different psychology than people who are willing to do harm but still (presumably) have the normal human instincts that make them not want to do it personally. It's one thing to kill; it's quite another thing to be willing to (or take pleasure in) literally get your hands bloody. The latter is the mark of an dangerous psychopath.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      It does not in fact matter at law: arranging to have somebody killed will net you the same murder 1 charge as the person who pulls the trigger.
Chris2048 9y ago
> guns, cars, explosives all of which are regulated, unlike calls to SWAT..
- tptacek 9y ago
  That's obviously not true (calling in false police reports was illegal long before SWAT-ing was a thing), but, what's your point?
  - throwaway2048 9y ago
    I believe his point to be that there is zero oversight on when SWAT is deployed, remember the police made the choice to go in guns blazing ready to shoot people. The fact that a choice like that can be made without strong justification is pretty horrifying.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    Not only are murdering people with guns illegal, so are guns themselves regulated wrt possesion; ie the mechanism is regulated. In what sense is a call to SWAT regulated?
    - cornyNetHandle 9y ago
      In the very real sense that laws are regulations. Calls to SWAT are regulated through the law and backed by the force of the state. The mechanism is regulated by punitive measures after the fact, rather than some sort of regulatory filter, due to the nature of emergency telephone services.
      - Chris2048 9y ago
        Punative after the fact isn't regulation of the same kind. If this is due to the nature of the thing, then the thing is unlike guns explosives etc.
        cornyNetHandle 9y ago
clouddrover 9y ago
> In some circumstances, we even celebrate these effects The gang mentality that gets trained into police is problematic. They are told they are "warriors", they're told to use lethal force quickly, they're told that the sex they'll have after killing a human being will be the "best sex of their lives". It's sick: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/do-not-resist-a-chilling-look-at-the-normalization-of-warrior-cops/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/30/...
hrktb 9y ago
> But I'll suggest that there's a "big" problem behind SWAT-ing, too: the way technology intermediates between agents and consequences, abstracts away externalities, reinforces the rationalizing techniques our brains use to salve themselves when violating fundamental inhibitions At this point, I am not sure the people who go all the way to make the phone call to SWAT someone are somewhat detached from the consequences. I would put it on the same scale as loosening the bolts of someone’s ladder. The intentions and consequences are clear, even if the “accident” might or might not happen and there is some indirection. The very fact they have to choose specific channels to make the call, or spoof caller id makes them explicitely cross the boundary of the “joke”. Also I believe a sizeable fraction of Us is not beyond wishing someone’s actual death during a long enough period to act at least partially on it. I see it as human nature. But up until now we didn’t have a button in our hand to press it to kill any random person within some probability.

abalone 9y ago

I appreciate what you're trying to say but banking is not a great analogy for an emergency response situation. Banks do not face the same element of time pressure or lives being at stake. How would "being a lot more sure" help here? If you mean the police should verify information more thoroughly before responding, then that comes at a direct tradeoff in response times. If instead you mean police should respond swiftly but not bring out the SWAT teams without more verification, then that could pose a (different kind of) safety issue for responders and potential hostages. The issue here is more one of militarized police tactics. When you're trained to respond to any threat, any sudden move, with overwhelming deadly force, then deadly outcomes will happen.

state_less 9y ago
When SWAT is deployed, the chances of someone getting injured are increased. Some gamers are calling in more SWAT false positives, leading to an increased likelihood of injury to the public. To begin, talk of swatting someone ought not be sanctioned on these communication channels. Mod down the comments or suspend their privileges/account. We agree, use of force is far to casual in the US, especially with the reduced rate of violent crimes. In the time being, we could also start dealing with the false positives directly. For example, while SWAT is gearing up, the operator could ask who is calling and how they learned of the issue. Without that information, the odds of a false report go up and the trigger bias should be going down.
- abalone 9y ago
  > For example, while SWAT is gearing up, the operator could ask who is calling and how they learned of the issue. How exactly would that help? Swatting is by definition fraudulent callers claiming to have firsthand knowledge of an issue -- in this case, he pretended to be a hostage taker.[1] Better hoax detection training is a fine idea but swatters are determined adversaries. It's going to take more than just asking a couple basic questions. And since real emergencies are often signaled by imperfect and limited inbound information, there is only so much that can be done to filter out false positives. I agree with Krebs that this is primarily a matter of police use-of-force training and stronger action against swatters.[2] [1] 911 recording starts at 10 minutes: https://www.pscp.tv/LJSNicholeManna/1lPKqponlzQxb?t=9m10s https://www.pscp.tv/LJSNicholeManna/1lPKqponlzQxb?t=9m10s [2] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in-swatting-attack/#more-42076 https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in-swa...

cm2187 9y ago

What the prank caller did the equivalent of unleashing a dangerous dog on an innocent citizen. That the police in the US is a dangerous dog is a problem in itself, but unleashing a dangerous dog to harm someone is a crime.

user5994461 9y ago

Bank will freeze funds indefinitely until they can make a decision. It's not applicable to what the swat has to deal with: hostage situations, armed fights, bombings, etc... they can't hold on the phone forever and do nothing.