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Security reporter tells about hacked 911 call that sent SWAT team to his house
- betterunix 14y agoI have an easy fix: don't have soldiers doing police work.
- michaelt 14y agoI'm no advocate of paramilitary policing, but if the police get a call from your house saying there's a criminal with a gun shooting people, what alternative is there to them showing up with guns drawn? Even in the UK, where most of the police don't have guns, they still send armed response teams to deal with armed criminals.
- betterunix 14y agoThere is a difference between showing up with bullet-proof vests and handguns, and showing up with full body armor, assault rifles, and grenades. It is a matter of mitigating the risk of innocent people being killed by the police.
- icameron 14y agoHandgun or rifle, I don't imagine any police would take a shot if there was a chance of innocent bystanders being struck.
- cobrausn 14y agohttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/nyregion/bystanders-shooting-wounds-caused-by-the-police.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/nyregion/bystanders-shooti... Imagine harder. This kind of thing happens all the time.
- ceejayoz 14y ago> There is a difference between showing up with bullet-proof vests and handguns, and showing up with full body armor, assault rifles, and grenades. Yes, there is. The full armor, assault rifles, grenades, etc. come into play because of past situations like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout where cops had to raid gun stores for rifles because their handguns/shotguns weren't cutting it.
- gav 14y agoBy your logic, if any criminal ever fires a RPG at a police car, it makes sense for them to upgrade all police cars across the country to Strykers.
- ceejayoz 14y agoHardly. Cops today still don't generally go after routine criminals with a full SWAT team and getup. They're usually 1-4 men with vests and pistol/shotgun. When there's a known/probable gunman, it's prudent to take extra precautions - larger team, better armor, weapons that'll work if the criminal's wearing his own armor. No sense getting killed in a shootout that was predictable. If people start running around with RPGs, I'd expect reports with gunmen waving rocket launchers to be met with armored vehicles and the like. Luckily, this doesn't seem likely.
- betterunix 14y ago"Cops today still don't generally go after routine criminals with a full SWAT team and getup" http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/overkill-rise-paramilitary-police-raids-america http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/overkill-rise-p...
- sukuriant 14y agoI'd rather the police have and use sufficient gear than find themselves in a situation where they're outgunned or harmed. At the same time, they need to know when, where and how to use their weapons, so we reduce or eradicate unnecessary casualties.
- mpyne 14y agoGood luck getting police to show up to anything involving armed criminals without all that kit after the L.A. North Hollywood shootout of 1997 [1]. Not to mention the Dorner police slayings or the two homicidal maniacs in upstate New York in just the past few months. If you want to respond with anything less than the best possible tools available to ensure you survive the event then you can certainly make that choice. But I couldn't in good faith tell someone else to make that choice. If you're a bystander near a heavily armed criminal the only safe place to be is far away. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout
- cobrausn 14y agoWhen I was an MP (military police), they taught us a bit about escalation, wherein you only use what is necessary for the task at hand and reevaluate as the situation changes. Cops certainly do not need to be using 'weapons that belong on the battlefield' as their go-to weapon for any raid unless it is suspected that there may be body armored opposition (an absurdly rare occurrence - worth treating as an outlier). It would not be unreasonable to have one or two rifles on standby, in case a situation escalates beyond what was expected. I do not like this trend of increasing para militarization of the US police forces. You are supposed to trust a police officer. It is hard to trust someone wearing BDUs and carrying assault weapons - you are more likely to respond fearfully, which can often make things worse.
- sneak 14y ago> unless it is suspected that there may be body armored opposition You mean like in the case where someone deceives them into thinking someone well-equipped and violent is in a certain location? Swatting is a hard problem. We can't really put strong authentication in place because of the asymmetry of needing anyone to be able to report a violent crime in progress at any time at any location. And the anonymous report is, indeed, cause for suspicion that a crime is being committed, and if that anonymous report further claims that the bad guys are heavily armed and/or wearing body armor, that is cause for suspicion that they may indeed be telling the truth and the bad guys are ready to rock and roll at the drop of a hat. It's a sticky situation.
- taeric 14y agoMajor props to the reporter for not losing it. The self control necessary to get through this incident quickly and without things taking serious turns for the worse is something I can hope I have. (I probably don't.)
- Mankhool 14y agoOne need not be a hacker to get a SWAT team to storm the house of a citizen in the U.S. http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Towns-to-pay-3-5M-in-deadly-cop-raid-4290145.php http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Towns-to-pay-3-5M-in-dea...
- anonymoushn 14y agoDid they search his home with permission, or does a spoofed phone call alone give the police the right to perform a search?
- larrik 14y agoA spoofed phone call alone certainly does give them that right, so I don't think it matters.
- bcoates 14y agoIf the police know it spoofed, of course not, but if they have probable cause to believe a person is in danger they can do a search for that person without consent or a warrant.
- Nrsolis 14y agoI think the relevant term is "exigent circumstances". The 4th amendment only covers "unreasonable" search and seizures. Anything "reasonable" is still OK.
- tantalor 14y agoRight. In this case they had probable cause to believe his wife dying somewhere in the house.
- drucken 14y agoHow would they "know it spoofed" without checking? I mean there is no reason to believe someone they just arrested...
- lawnchair_larry 14y agoIn this case, Krebs recognized that dilemma and just consented to the search. If someone were to SWAT someone that they knew had unrelated contraband, this becomes an interesting question. That's not far off of what AT&T did to Weev initially, but I think his drug charges were thrown out.
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- MichaelGG 14y agoI think this is an all-new low for the word "hacked". You can call any 911-response center and provide a phone/address for them. No need to even change your caller ID, just hide it. No need to dial 911, just find the local 10-digit number for your PSAP. You can probably even just call the police line, and say that 911 isn't working because you're on a VoIP line. Edit: I had a similar experience, when one of my license plates fell off. I filled out an online form on the police site, never got a response. One day, cop pulls me over, then draws on me and gets 4 other cops as backup. I was under the impression you don't point guns at someone unless you're ready to fire, so I'd assume that if I had made any sudden movements it could have been fatal. The thing is, I could have filled out that form with anyone's information. There's not even a callback/confirmation. So if you fill out a form for someone who has a concealed carry permit or something, you could probably cause a severe incident.
- dfc 14y agoI was under the impression you don't point guns at someone unless you're ready to fire, so I'd assume that if I had made any sudden movements it could have been fatal. Was this hyperbole or honesty? Drawing a firearm is a deterrent and is employed in order to prevent things to escalating to a point where an officer has to fire.
- cbs 14y agoIt's a common bit of firearm carrying wisdom. Not directly equitable to, but in the same vein as, "even when the gun is unloaded, its loaded". Of course its a deterrent, but the only thing that makes it more of a deterrent than a whistle is that the officer is (or presumed to be) ready to shoot.
- MichaelGG 14y agoSorry, I should have made it clear, he drew, then pointed directly at my head - I was looking right at the end of it. Wikipedia says the rule is "Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy". So, going from what seemed like an ordinary traffic stop to looking down a gun, I figured he was prepared to kill me if he found it necessary. As I could not figure out any reason for him to want to stop me like that in the first place, it seemed logical there was some massive escalation I was unaware of.
- 1337biz 14y agoHasn't swatting been around forever? Or at least for the time when phone number spoofing became easy. Even the Wikipedia entry is referencing an FBI page from 2008. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting
- n3rdy 14y agoScript kiddies have been doing it since at least the 90's.
- corresation 14y agoThe #1 issue is the completely insecure, trust nature of the phone system. It should be trivial for a local police department to verify, with a very high degree of trust, that the number calling them is legitimate. That this doesn't exist is absurd, and is twenty years behind where it should be.
- drucken 14y agoYou can be swatted by anyone, not just phone system hackers... At the end of the day, it is the emergency services' responsibility to behave with such considerations in mind.
- koenigdavidmj 14y agoThen I get a prepaid phone at Wal-mart, make the call, then pull the battery and destroy the SIM.
- corresation 14y agoOkay then that is a completely different scenario. In this case 9/11 is treating the calls as critical because they are shown to them as coming from the subject's house. If they instead popped up as a pay-as-you-go phone from an unknown person (recall also that all cell providers have to provide credible geolocation of calls, which if you're going through a Western cell tower you cannot spoof) that is ten states away, yeah they might not send the SWAT team.
- koenigdavidmj 14y agoIt's still plausible if you want to SWAT somebody locally. Just be in the general area of the same city and report shots fired. I have no clue about the level of precision in cell tower geolocation, so I'm not sure how close you would need to be (which obviously ties to how likely it is to get caught).
- MichaelGG 14y agoIt's the same as IP traffic, really. Calls can go through any number of providers. You can spoof phone traffic just as easily as IP traffic. The "caller ID" number is totally unrelated to any incoming line. The number could also be from another country, or corrupted. The Internet seems to work fine with IP, despite it being trivially spoofable. I think your expectations are incorrect. Edit to add: It's not even desirable, what you're asking. Imagine, for instance, Twilio. If each call had to be immediately traceable, what would that mean? Would Twilio need to require proof of identification before allowing any outbound calls? I think what your suggesting would be extremely detrimental.