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The police apparently chose to do this based on an emailed tip, not a phone call. If the attacker was the least bit competent there will be no way to uncover th
by cge 2y ago
The police apparently chose to do this based on an emailed tip, not a phone call. If the attacker was the least bit competent there will be no way to uncover their identity at all. Even NSA-level traffic and timing analysis would not necessarily be effective against a well-constructed anonymous email setup.
Unless there was something specific about the email's contents justifying it, the police seem very much at fault here for attacking someone based on an entirely unauthenticated, unverifiable, untraceable message. Society readily holds people who fall for obvious phishing attacks responsible for their negligence, and this seems similar.
- bbor 2y agoTo be fair this is very likely the work of "an angry troll", so I have some hope that they'll get caught. People don't tend to be at their best when they're raging, especially when that rage is directed at someone so seemingly non-offensive. Re: the last point, I would definitely not vote to have my police ignore anonymous tips, if it ever came up in a referendum. I think it's a pretty damn good use of tax dollars, as far as these things go.
- dylan604 2y agoWouldn't it have been better to do the typical thing of sending a patrol unit out to see what might be going on, and then send out the rest of the squad if they request the back up?
- thfuran 2y agoWhat percentage of tips like this do you think are fraudulent? How long is it worth delaying all the real ones as a matter of practice on the off chance that the tip is bad?
- dylan604 2y agoA lot actually, including this one. How many bomb threats are real? Ohio is struggling with this now because of some stupidity about eating pets. From a student wanting to delay an exam, or whatever else, they are rarely real. The Secret Service filters threats against protectees, the FBI is forwarded threats as well. The problem is that local coppers just don't have the training, and the SWAT teams are always needing something to do, so there's no delay to sending a full on response.
- babypuncher 2y agoThey shouldn't be bursting down peoples doors and placing them in handcuffs based on tips with such poor veracity. If there is no way to verify the identity of someone making a serious claim, then it shouldn't be taken this seriously. Clearly the system as it exists today is ripe for abuse.
- achierius 2y agoWhat actually constitutes a "well-constructed anonymous email setup"? From my understanding I'd expect that with 'NSA-level analysis' that things like fingerprints from creation/usage would show up, making it rather difficult to evade entirely.