Canadian Teen Arrested For Calling In 30+ Swattings, Bomb Threats 350
tsu doh nimh (609154) writes "A 16-year-old male from Ottawa, Canada has been arrested for allegedly making at least 30 fraudulent calls — including bomb threats and 'swattings' — to emergency services across North America over the past few months. Canadian media isn't identifying the youth because of laws that prevent the disclosure, but the alleged perpetrator was outed in a dox on Pastebin that was picked up by journalist Brian Krebs, who was twice the recipient of attempted swat raids at the hand of this kid. From the story: 'I told this user privately that targeting an investigative reporter maybe wasn't the brightest idea, and that he was likely to wind up in jail soon. But @ProbablyOnion was on a roll: That same day, he hung out his for-hire sign on Twitter, with the following message: "want someone swatted? Tweet me their name, address and I'll make it happen."'"
Re:First Swatting Victims Were Conservative Blogge (Score:4, Informative)
The reason you are only aware of those instances (and of course implying those are the first instances) is because you are a partisan hack.
FYI swatting has been used significantly longer that your partisan views ascribe. I a guy that someone tried to swat (the community didn't have a swat) in 1994 via modem redial on a BBS. Why don't you try climbing out of your partisan cave? There is nothing more disgusting than anyone trying to claim (or imply in this case) that persecution makes them right or virtuous in their cause.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Informative)
Because this is what Slashdot has become.
Re:Autoimmune disorder... (Score:5, Informative)
1. Pay phono
2. Voip over someone else's wifi
3. Someone else's phone while they're too drunk to notice an outgoing call
4. Hacked remote computer, then install and use Voip service
5. Stolen cell phone
6. Break into someone's house and use their land line phone
7. Burn phone
8. etc.
Re:Autoimmune disorder... (Score:4, Informative)
Like what? You said "numerous". Name three.
I can name more than three. Skype or other IP telephony (gatewayed through public wifi for extra measure), Hacked PBX call redirectors (which are a favorite of many scammers), prepaid cell phone, disposable SIM cards, telephone call anonymizing services [spoofcard.com], public pay phone.
Re:First Swatting Victims Were Conservative Blogge (Score:5, Informative)
It certainly dates back to the 1960's, when faking bomb threats from peaceful protesters was used to bring in police and National Guard against them. The Scientologists made an art form of it. Mary Sue Hubbard, L. Ron's wife was convicted for her involvement in "dead agenting" Paulette Cooper, which included faked bomb threats against the Israeli embassy, in order to discredit Paulette's book called "The Scandal of Scientology". And who can forget "The Maine", whose faked fraudulently advertised bomb destruction in 1898 was a vital trigger of the Spanish-American War?
Discrediting your opponents by making fraudulent bomb threats is an old, old political hobby.
Re:Swatting sounds so funny (Score:2, Informative)
Putting someone's life needlessly in danger is funny to you? Fuck off.
Re:Autoimmune disorder... (Score:4, Informative)
Don't cell phones have GPS and Tower Tracking to get this information out?
Those things are nowhere near as accurate all the time as you might hope they were.
Good article [ieee.org] in IEEE Spectrum on emergency calls (911, 999, etc.) and the impact of newer communication technology like VOIP and mobile.
Re:bleh. (Score:1, Informative)
Except that research shows teenage brains aren't yet developed in the area of decision-making [www.cbc.ca].
Re:Autoimmune disorder... (Score:5, Informative)
911 is not only accessible via standard phone lines and cell/mobile phones. Location tech only has 3 basic methods of locating you. Generally only the first is ever used. Most often however the 911 operator asks, "Where are you right now?"
1. Land line billing / install address.
2. Mobile phone GPS location. First the police must have authority to activate GPS remotely. Second the phone needs to have GPS. Not all phones do.
2.1 Kind of a third method. Cell tower location that the caller used. This takes a hideous amount of time to determine despite laws that say telcos must provide the capability. So generally not used. And this is horribly inaccurate.
3. Geo location of IP address of user. Horribly inaccurate and police forces around the world are very slow to use this tech. Also for example if you have a 3/4G phone your IP address is usually geolocated at the telco company headquarters. This is not generally used for 911 type locations.
Remember the operator only has a few seconds to establish your location during an incident call. They tend to only fall back on location tools when the caller is unable to provide the address them selves. So if the caller says they are at a location then generally that is the accepted location for the incident.
In many jurisdictions around North America and the world for that matter you can place an emergency call via any number of means. You can text, email, tweet skype, use a web form, etc. Note that most of the new forms of emergency notifications come over the internet. Since it is painfully simple these days to make it appear as if you are coming from basically any spot on the globe with internet communications a person can spoof their location with ease.
Note all of this does not mean they can't find the location of the caller. After the incident a wealth of information can be investigated and fairly precise locations can be determined. So don't take what I have said as a open ticket to SWAT. This case proves it's only a matter of time before you get nabbed.
Re:bleh. (Score:5, Informative)
No, the biology has been studied for decades. It's actually right around 25 that people emerge from their high-risk behavior and inability to weigh consequences, and start thinking straight. The traffic fatality statistics serve as a good proxy... There's a reason a huge number of 18-25 year-olds are killed in traffic accidents, and it's predominantly biological.