4 ms·

It seems that the police system is set up in such a way that a 90s-era spoofed phone call can cause the deployment of lethal force. I suppose you could fix thi

It seems that the police system is set up in such a way that a 90s-era spoofed phone call can cause the deployment of lethal force. I suppose you could fix this by making the phone system fully authenticated. DNS predates SS7 and somehow DNSSEC works just fine. So, probably, there is a technical answer that solves both swatting and spam calls and industry will eventually do it. Is anyone working on anything like that now? Alternatively, you could have police require more confirmation than a phone call before kicking down doors. The police and public seem to both want more door kicking though, and that's unlikely to change. From the article, after they draw guns on you a few times, they do keep the guns holstered and just leave a business card and have a laugh about it. So maybe that's progress. Or, we could compile a list of everyone we might suspect of swatting, and then raid them! We'll need some more budget, but the boys are getting pretty experienced kicking in doors, so I think they're up to the task. Go get 'em! (I guess? just please make sure it's them).

lstamour 3y ago
> I suppose you could fix this by making the phone system fully authenticated. DNS predates SS7 and somehow DNSSEC works just fine. So, probably, there is a technical answer that solves both swatting and spam calls and industry will eventually do it. Is anyone working on anything like that now? Yes. Slowly, though, like everything telecommunications. You're starting to see the introduction of Stir/Shaken everywhere. For the last six months, various VoIP providers have announced support because calls will get blocked/cut off without it. The deadline was yesterday, actually. https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication Now, this doesn't exactly prevent spoofing from carriers not local to the US or from a number mistakenly added to more than one account, or a hacked voip account (surprisingly common), but it does provide an indicator of what might be valid vs invalid for caller ID phone numbers for destinations within the USA. Now, whether this actually applies to 911 routing is still maybe a bit up in the air given that E911 was already supposed to exist and provide a location. And technically spoofing a SWAT call would only require a prepaid "burner" phone, and often you get caught anyway. The point maybe is to cause mayhem regardless of whether you get caught or not, so it's not clear if spoofing is required to "swat" in every circumstance. But sure, this makes it harder.

lstamour 3y ago

> I suppose you could fix this by making the phone system fully authenticated. DNS predates SS7 and somehow DNSSEC works just fine. So, probably, there is a technical answer that solves both swatting and spam calls and industry will eventually do it. Is anyone working on anything like that now? Yes. Slowly, though, like everything telecommunications. You're starting to see the introduction of Stir/Shaken everywhere. For the last six months, various VoIP providers have announced support because calls will get blocked/cut off without it. The deadline was yesterday, actually. https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication Now, this doesn't exactly prevent spoofing from carriers not local to the US or from a number mistakenly added to more than one account, or a hacked voip account (surprisingly common), but it does provide an indicator of what might be valid vs invalid for caller ID phone numbers for destinations within the USA. Now, whether this actually applies to 911 routing is still maybe a bit up in the air given that E911 was already supposed to exist and provide a location. And technically spoofing a SWAT call would only require a prepaid "burner" phone, and often you get caught anyway. The point maybe is to cause mayhem regardless of whether you get caught or not, so it's not clear if spoofing is required to "swat" in every circumstance. But sure, this makes it harder.