4 ms·

What is the infosec analogue to swatting? To me it seems part denial of service attack (distracting resources with false event), and part amplification attack (

What is the infosec analogue to swatting? To me it seems part denial of service attack (distracting resources with false event), and part amplification attack (a small action triggers intense potentially violent response) The fact that it's possible for a child to trigger a "swat" where people can and have died highlights a significant vulnerability in the procedures currently used by police. Why isn't more effort being put into making these processes safer for civilians?

stcredzero 8y ago
Why isn't more effort being put into making these processes safer for civilians? I think the initial presumption, was that no one would be such a douchebag as to make such crank calls. In today's world, this is obviously a bad assumption. In today's world, we should presume that people are going to make such false assertions, and if there's a way someone can exploit an unconfirmed assertion, someone, somewhere will. This is also why trials in the media are bad, and why due process is important. As I suggested elsewhere, what if a plainclothes android could walk up, knock on the door, and calmly ask questions? (While SWAT are out of sight and not yet aiming their guns.) I think this isn't too far outside of our current abilities. Uncanny valley would be reduced in this context. All you'd need is a stone faced, but calm and pleasant demeanor. We already have walking robots, but the walks would have to be humanized. (The Uncanny Valley would be in full force for the body language part.) EDIT: Actually, you could completely avoid the Uncanny Valley and even eliminate the need for AI. Just make the bottom part from a Segway. The top could be a literal teleoperated Muppet.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I think the initial presumption, was that no one would be such a douchebag as to make such crank calls. Unless you get “caught” Living While Black. https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/20/us/living-while-black-police-calls-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/20/us/living-while-black-police-...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I think the initial presumption, was that no one would be such a douchebag as to make such crank calls. In today's world, this is obviously a bad assumption. It's always been a bad assumption; deliberate harm up to and including murder by deliberate false report to legal authorities is probably as old as legal authorities, and if your jurisdiction has a crime of false reporting (and it's pretty much guaranteed that it does) it's because the government is very much aware that this is a thing. If police response procedures don't account for that, it's not because they've assumed it doesn't happen, it's because they've assumed that that when it happens they will have someone else ready at hand to blame for ant adverse effects, so that they have no need to mitigate them.
  - siruncledrew 8y ago
    Since phones and swat have been around for a while, how frequent of an occurrence was swatting prior to 2010s? Do we only hear about it more now due to more reporting, or is it actually a recent trend?
leetbulb 8y ago
From what I understand, many people who are potential targets of swatting (high profile live streamers, etc) notify their local PD. I'm assuming following that, if a call comes in, the PD will take a more relaxed approach. This of course is a double edged sword, but it's at least something.
- mr_spothawk 8y ago
  I don't play video games, but I might just call the PD and tell them not to SWAT me anyway - just to be safe.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > From what I understand, many people who are potential targets of swatting (high profile live streamers, etc) notify their local PD. I'm assuming following that, if a call comes in, the PD will take a more relaxed approach. I'm assuming that local PDs probably treat people calling them and saying “I’m totally not a criminal but people are likely to falsely claim I'm not only a criminal but one engaged in the kind of dangerous crimes that would justify a SWAT response”, without any supporting evidence that there are particular people likely to falsely target the particular person with that kind of action as an indication that the person is more likely than average to be a dangerous criminal.
  - jpindar 8y ago
    It should be pretty easy to prove that you're a celebrity.
jbob2000 8y ago
This is a two part solution. First, tighter controls on phone systems. Why are you allowed to spoof your number as if you're a local calling the local police department? This is dumb, police departments need a way to say "huh, this guy is calling from 2000km away, are we sure he's legit?". Second, police need better processes for identifying when to deploy force. Why can't they send a stealth car to scope out the scene before deploying a full swat team? Chill the fuck out on treating every call like a foreign army is invading.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  > Chill the fuck out on treating every call like a foreign army is invading. I don't know if you're being serious or not, but some things are time sensitive, and a slow or underpowered response can be fatal. It's not like the police force gets a kick out of deploying SWAT. Yes, obviously the response needs to be more precise, but hopefully not at the expense of quick response to real emergencies.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > I don't know if you're being serious or not, but some things are time sensitive, and a slow or underpowered response can be fatal. And so can a hasty, under-/mis-informed, and/or overpowered response.
  - geofft 8y ago
    > It's not like the police force gets a kick out of deploying SWAT. I'm actually not quite sure about this, unfortunately....
  - soraminazuki 8y ago
    > but hopefully not at the expense of quick response to real emergencies. An overpowered response at the expense of innocent lives are not in any way better. It's actually worse, since the people responsible for the killings don't face the consequences like everyone else.
    - 8y ago
floatingatoll 8y ago
The procedural vulnerability you describe stems from a philosophical dilemma around policework. If an officer should choose between "low risk to self, high risk to civilians" and "high risk to self, low risk to civilians", which choice is appropriate? SWATting works because American police have decided, for whatever reasons, that "low risk to self, high risk to civilians" is the appropriate path to take. Should the police send an unarmed officer, an armed officer, or an armed SWAT team to respond to a phoned-in report of an armed hostage situation? If they send an unarmed officer, the officer could die, but civilians won't (by the officer's hand). If they send an armed officer, the officer could die, and civilians could too (by the officer's hand). If they send a no-knock SWAT team, the officers won't die, but civilians probably will (by the SWAT team's hand). And so this ties back to police militarization and a question that you will be hard-pressed to see police and police unions confronting openly: Should officers put the lives of citizens above their own lives — even if that means they occasionally die while responding to a call without a SWAT team, when it turns out to be real rather than fake? I believe that, yes, police officers should select a "higher risk to self, lower risk to civilians" path than they do today, increasing the risk of police deaths in order to reduce the risk of civilian deaths at the hands of police officers. I make this statement even though I have former police officers as family and friends, because I'm tired of American police killing more American citizens each year than terrorists do [1]. Your view may vary. Those of police certainly do. The core issue, where officers must either accept a higher risk of death or a higher risk of killing civilians, remains unsolved — and undiscussed — in America today. [1] https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2018/mar/16/cops-killed-100-times-more-americans-terrorists-did-2017/ https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2018/mar/16/cops-kill... https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938170/us-police-shootings-gun-violence-homicides https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938170/us-police-... https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths_FactSheet_Nov2017.pdf https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths...
- zilian 8y ago
  How do you justify that our special forces for instance in France or Europe dont kill innocents so carelessly ? And don t tell me criminals dont have guns here. Something is definitely wrong with the US police - to the point where Im worried as a tourist
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

stcredzero 8y ago

Why isn't more effort being put into making these processes safer for civilians? I think the initial presumption, was that no one would be such a douchebag as to make such crank calls. In today's world, this is obviously a bad assumption. In today's world, we should presume that people are going to make such false assertions, and if there's a way someone can exploit an unconfirmed assertion, someone, somewhere will. This is also why trials in the media are bad, and why due process is important. As I suggested elsewhere, what if a plainclothes android could walk up, knock on the door, and calmly ask questions? (While SWAT are out of sight and not yet aiming their guns.) I think this isn't too far outside of our current abilities. Uncanny valley would be reduced in this context. All you'd need is a stone faced, but calm and pleasant demeanor. We already have walking robots, but the walks would have to be humanized. (The Uncanny Valley would be in full force for the body language part.) EDIT: Actually, you could completely avoid the Uncanny Valley and even eliminate the need for AI. Just make the bottom part from a Segway. The top could be a literal teleoperated Muppet.

scarface74 8y ago
I think the initial presumption, was that no one would be such a douchebag as to make such crank calls. Unless you get “caught” Living While Black. https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/20/us/living-while-black-police-calls-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/20/us/living-while-black-police-...
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I think the initial presumption, was that no one would be such a douchebag as to make such crank calls. In today's world, this is obviously a bad assumption. It's always been a bad assumption; deliberate harm up to and including murder by deliberate false report to legal authorities is probably as old as legal authorities, and if your jurisdiction has a crime of false reporting (and it's pretty much guaranteed that it does) it's because the government is very much aware that this is a thing. If police response procedures don't account for that, it's not because they've assumed it doesn't happen, it's because they've assumed that that when it happens they will have someone else ready at hand to blame for ant adverse effects, so that they have no need to mitigate them.
- siruncledrew 8y ago
  Since phones and swat have been around for a while, how frequent of an occurrence was swatting prior to 2010s? Do we only hear about it more now due to more reporting, or is it actually a recent trend?

leetbulb 8y ago

From what I understand, many people who are potential targets of swatting (high profile live streamers, etc) notify their local PD. I'm assuming following that, if a call comes in, the PD will take a more relaxed approach. This of course is a double edged sword, but it's at least something.

mr_spothawk 8y ago
I don't play video games, but I might just call the PD and tell them not to SWAT me anyway - just to be safe.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> From what I understand, many people who are potential targets of swatting (high profile live streamers, etc) notify their local PD. I'm assuming following that, if a call comes in, the PD will take a more relaxed approach. I'm assuming that local PDs probably treat people calling them and saying “I’m totally not a criminal but people are likely to falsely claim I'm not only a criminal but one engaged in the kind of dangerous crimes that would justify a SWAT response”, without any supporting evidence that there are particular people likely to falsely target the particular person with that kind of action as an indication that the person is more likely than average to be a dangerous criminal.
- jpindar 8y ago
  It should be pretty easy to prove that you're a celebrity.

jbob2000 8y ago

This is a two part solution. First, tighter controls on phone systems. Why are you allowed to spoof your number as if you're a local calling the local police department? This is dumb, police departments need a way to say "huh, this guy is calling from 2000km away, are we sure he's legit?". Second, police need better processes for identifying when to deploy force. Why can't they send a stealth car to scope out the scene before deploying a full swat team? Chill the fuck out on treating every call like a foreign army is invading.

paulddraper 8y ago
> Chill the fuck out on treating every call like a foreign army is invading. I don't know if you're being serious or not, but some things are time sensitive, and a slow or underpowered response can be fatal. It's not like the police force gets a kick out of deploying SWAT. Yes, obviously the response needs to be more precise, but hopefully not at the expense of quick response to real emergencies.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I don't know if you're being serious or not, but some things are time sensitive, and a slow or underpowered response can be fatal. And so can a hasty, under-/mis-informed, and/or overpowered response.
- geofft 8y ago
  > It's not like the police force gets a kick out of deploying SWAT. I'm actually not quite sure about this, unfortunately....
- soraminazuki 8y ago
  > but hopefully not at the expense of quick response to real emergencies. An overpowered response at the expense of innocent lives are not in any way better. It's actually worse, since the people responsible for the killings don't face the consequences like everyone else.
  - 8y ago

floatingatoll 8y ago

The procedural vulnerability you describe stems from a philosophical dilemma around policework. If an officer should choose between "low risk to self, high risk to civilians" and "high risk to self, low risk to civilians", which choice is appropriate? SWATting works because American police have decided, for whatever reasons, that "low risk to self, high risk to civilians" is the appropriate path to take. Should the police send an unarmed officer, an armed officer, or an armed SWAT team to respond to a phoned-in report of an armed hostage situation? If they send an unarmed officer, the officer could die, but civilians won't (by the officer's hand). If they send an armed officer, the officer could die, and civilians could too (by the officer's hand). If they send a no-knock SWAT team, the officers won't die, but civilians probably will (by the SWAT team's hand). And so this ties back to police militarization and a question that you will be hard-pressed to see police and police unions confronting openly: Should officers put the lives of citizens above their own lives — even if that means they occasionally die while responding to a call without a SWAT team, when it turns out to be real rather than fake? I believe that, yes, police officers should select a "higher risk to self, lower risk to civilians" path than they do today, increasing the risk of police deaths in order to reduce the risk of civilian deaths at the hands of police officers. I make this statement even though I have former police officers as family and friends, because I'm tired of American police killing more American citizens each year than terrorists do [1]. Your view may vary. Those of police certainly do. The core issue, where officers must either accept a higher risk of death or a higher risk of killing civilians, remains unsolved — and undiscussed — in America today. [1] https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2018/mar/16/cops-killed-100-times-more-americans-terrorists-did-2017/ https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2018/mar/16/cops-kill... https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938170/us-police-shootings-gun-violence-homicides https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938170/us-police-... https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths_FactSheet_Nov2017.pdf https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths...

zilian 8y ago
How do you justify that our special forces for instance in France or Europe dont kill innocents so carelessly ? And don t tell me criminals dont have guns here. Something is definitely wrong with the US police - to the point where Im worried as a tourist

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]