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Crime Education United States

Hundreds of US Schools Hit By Potentially Organized Swatting Hoaxes, Report Says (arstechnica.com) 60

Posted by BeauHD from the coordinated-campaigns dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Within the past year, there have been approximately five times more school shooting hoaxes called in to police than actual school shootings reported in 2023. Where data from Everytown showed "at least 103 incidents of gunfire on school grounds" in 2023, The Washington Post recently uncovered what seems to be a coordinated campaign of active shooter hoaxes causing "swattings" -- where police respond with extreme force to fake crimes -- at more than 500 schools nationwide over the past year. In just one day in February, "more than 30 schools were targeted," The Post reported.

The Post "examined police reports, emergency call recordings, body-camera footage, or call logs in connection with incidents in 24 states," which seemed to reveal a "distinct pattern" potentially linking swatting hoaxes nationwide. A man who "speaks with a heavy accent" -- and possibly uses a device or app to alter his voice in real time -- relies on a virtual private network (VPN) to mask his IP address, then places the hoax calls on non-emergency lines using free Internet-calling services. He frequently pretends to be a teacher hiding from the fake shooter on campus and sometimes falsely reports student shootings. To some law enforcement officials, the voice sounds too similar from call to call to be chalked up to coincidence. The Post stitched together audio that shows why many authorities believe these hoax calls might be coming from the same caller, whose motivations are currently unknown. It's possible the hoax calls are being orchestrated by one person with a hostile compulsion or by one or several perpetrators advertising swatting services available for hire online. [...]

According to The Post, the FBI has been investigating this string of school shooting hoaxes, but it's unclear how far that investigation has gotten -- mostly because tracing the hoax calls has perplexed many law enforcement agencies nationwide. Tracing calls is difficult partly because many VPN providers outside the US don't always cooperate with law enforcement, and some of the most popular free Internet-calling services only require an email address to sign up. However, The Post reported that it has increasingly become clear to law enforcement that one particular Internet-calling service appears to be the most popular choice for hoax callers reporting school shootings: TextNow. One police captain in Lousiana, Shannon Mack -- who is described as specializing in "cases involving Internet-based phone services -- told The Post that "nine times out of 10," hoax calls she has investigated have come from a TextNow number.
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Hundreds of US Schools Hit By Potentially Organized Swatting Hoaxes, Report Says More

Hundreds of US Schools Hit By Potentially Organized Swatting Hoaxes, Report Says

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  • Corporal punishment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @05:17PM (#63904149)
    If there were ever a justification for corporal punishment, this is surely it. Frankly the person doing this needs to spend the rest of their life in prison, but beating the shit out of them in public first is justified. People have died from these fake police calls and while a murder who does the deed with their own hands is scarcely any better in an absolute sense, these cowards deserve a special circle of hell all to themselves.

    • Re:Corporal punishment (Score:4, Insightful)

      by myowntrueself ( 607117 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @05:46PM (#63904207)

      If there were ever a justification for corporal punishment, this is surely it. Frankly the person doing this needs to spend the rest of their life in prison, but beating the shit out of them in public first is justified. People have died from these fake police calls and while a murder who does the deed with their own hands is scarcely any better in an absolute sense, these cowards deserve a special circle of hell all to themselves.

      When someone dies as a result of a fake police call, its because of something the police did in their overzealousness to be Judge Dredd.
      If they weren't basically judge, jury and executioner rolled into one, you wouldn't have this problem. They are out of control.
      Your police are fucking scary, even to law abiding citizens, and often seem more dangerous and crazy than your criminals.

      • The cops kill an innocent person? Oh well mistakes happen. Sorry about that. They get a paid vacation and at the very worst fired. Usually they get fired and then arbitration gives their job back plus the back pay.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @07:08PM (#63904417)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          The "war on drugs" was a horrible decision, but I'm not sure it's as bad as various RICO provisions.

          • No, it was not.
            The whole situation on the west coast and drugs in America is directly related to decriminalization of drugs. We need to stop this BS. Not necessarily put them in prison, but quit releasing them on the street.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by vivian ( 156520 )

              The real question is why do so many people in America feel they need drugs to get through their life?

              • Because the other part of the population feels they need to work harder this year to make less money than they made last year?

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by HiThere ( 15173 )

              I suspect that in days with less easy long distance communication there was a much wider variation in the culture of police departments. Certainly abusive police go back as far as historic records (well, they merge with military at around 1800, perhaps a bit later). But its also true that there are records of decent police, though far fewer of them. This MAY be selection bias.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by whitroth ( 9367 )

              No, you ignorant slut, that's already new school.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dargaud ( 518470 )

          1) Anybody, anyone, and anything is a potential threat to your life.

          Is it really their fault when everyone can carry a gun and often does? Paranoia is only one angry customer away...

        • Yup.
          There are multiple things that we need to do with America's LEOs, but the racists woke only want to stop LEOs.
          Instead,:
          1) increase, not cut, funding for them.
          2) have civilians from the area that is being policed by these ppl, on the hiring board.
          3) once selected from the police academy, then have them go back and take another year or longer, while working part-time, and being paid.
          4) have civilians on the investigation board. This is a must.
          5) require QI from the judges, lawyers (both prosecuti
        • I have just spent the last of my mod points and then you come along... I definitely would mod this up because you hit the nail on the head, Police work is something like number 15 or so on the list of most dangerous jobs, not number 1 as Police seem to think it is.

      • This. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @07:39PM (#63904473)
        The problem is less that we have dumb kids and more that we have organized hit squads that'll show up ready to kill with nothing more than a phone call. Also that despite several people being injured and killed by those kill squads nobody seems the slightest bit interested reigning them in. If anything voters seem to want to give them even more military grade weapons and even more military training

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The police in the US have always been a political tool. In general, they have minimal training, where they can do arrest procedures, then draw down and hit the target in the center of mass. This is not their fault, but the system. Ideally, training is needed on the par with Germany or the UK, where a UK officer has a year of unarmed combat, and a German police officer has a master's in criminal justice. There, they are trained to stop people verbally. Again, this is not a fault of the police department

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The people with the power to do something about it are often white and living in "respectable" neighbourhoods, two things that work better than body armour for avoiding being murdered by the police.

          • I saw an old clip from Death Wish 3 the other day. Charles Bronson baits a criminal to steal his camera and then shoots him in the back when he runs away. Everybody in the neighborhood comes along and cheers.

            Everything about that is wrong. The fact that he baited the guy. The shot in the back when he was in no danger. The joy everyone showed. The fact that if everyone knew he was a purse thief even back then the cops would've arrested him and tossed him in the clink long before he was a problem....

            I
            • The latest season of revisionist history podcast looks at American gun culture. The point is made that in tv cowboy and crime shows, guns fix the bad guy problems. No nuance or fixing a problem with words and without violence. Generations of this feeding into minds will make you think everyone is out to harm you and the only way to guard against this is to assume you live in the mad max society and need to go armed at all times

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by RobinH ( 124750 )
          I couldn't agree more. Yes, a police officer needs to prepared to close with and confront an active shooter, and I can understand how terrifying that is, but the training needs to emphasize the almost all interactions are peaceful, and walking up with your hand on your pistol just starts everything from an escalated position.
          • oh, bullshit! More times than I can count the police let the active shooter run out of bullets, then off himself before they do anything but cordon off the area.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by RobinH ( 124750 )
              Yeah, that's my point. Their training has to include "close with and confront" but also they don't need to treat every situation like a potential active shooter that just hasn't started shooting yet.
              • their training has plenty of 'close with and confront' they just choose not to do it. They train to form their little 'tactical v' and do their little tactical walk, weapons drawn and up, but then never actually do that.

                ref: https://spotterup.com/wp-conte... [spotterup.com]

                ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (as an example)

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by RobinH ( 124750 )
                  I don't think we're talking about the same thing. It's the first officers on the scene that need to confront the active shooter, at least to keep them focused on the police until help arrives. It's that first officer that isn't necessarily doing their job right, and it's that same uniformed front line officer that pulls over cars for speeding looking for any excuse to kill the driver.
                  • agreed. And instead, that 'front line' officer, when confronted by a guy with a gun, takes a defensive posture and calls for help, but when confronted by an unarmed driver, shoots him.

                    Takes a lot of balls to kill unarmed men. (heavy sarcasm intended)

      • Hmmm.
        And you just proved my point about how extremists, like you woke marxists, have no issue with ends justifying the means.

        • Hmmm.

          And you just proved my point about how extremists, like you woke marxists, have no issue with ends justifying the means.

          I know its going to be hard for you, an American, to believe, but I am neither woke nor a marxist. You American conservatives throw 'marxist' around just like the left throw 'fascist' or 'nazi' around. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

          Marxism is the ideology that, if you see oppression, look for the freedom that enables that oppression and control it, eg private ownership of property or freedom of speech, hence the authoritative left being more controlling than the authoritative right. Thats hardly s

    • People have died ...

      How does a coward with a phone, kill people? You've left a big hole in your 'tough on crime' story. I suspect there is plenty of blame to go around. Once again, it's the criminal, however trivial, not the person with a gun, at fault.

      • Re:Corporal punishment (Score:5, Informative)

        by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Thursday October 05, 2023 @07:01PM (#63904395)

        How does a coward with a phone, kill people? You've left a big hole in your 'tough on crime' story. I suspect there is plenty of blame to go around. Once again, it's the criminal, however trivial, not the person with a gun, at fault.

        Easy. The cops do it for them. The cops roll in, guns drawn with each one yelling different conflicting instructions. One is yelling for you to get down and the other is yelling to see your hands. Doesn't matter which move you make because it's wrong and then the bullets fly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        It took nationwide protests to finally hold police accountable when they murder someone.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You do not refrain from corporal punishment because these people would not deserve it. You refrain from it because it puts you on their level. Takes a decent and civilized person to understand that, and I guess you are lacking.

      That said, why is the police still vulnerable to this attack? Have they learned _nothing_ ?

      The reason "swatting" is such a problem in the US us the out-of-control police. All I would get here (Europe) is some friendly officers asking whether everything was ok. The main reason why "swa

  • For those who remember what happened to the last memorable voice behind swatting, complete-piece-of-crap-incel Tyler Barriss, here ya go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Looks like he needs company in the federal pound.

  • Why not an AI?

    No, not THAT AI that isn't supposed to do that--the other one.

  • Mandate that only US based companies can use US phone numbers (VoIP and otherwise). Mandate that all VoIP providers block all VPN access. Done. No US phone access internationally to untraceable targets.
  • At the level of 500 this is not one crazy doing it. It is political in nature, aimed at gun ownership I think, and not being done by private parties, if you get my drift.
    • No necessarily gun ownership, but it is one of the real possibilities.
      Extremists, like so many of the woke, live with 'the ends justify the means'.

  • With the assumption that this is primarily perpetuated by teenage males...

    A certain number of these folks might be in difficult times of their lives, and, if intercepted now, perhaps the ship could be righted and they would become real benefits to society someday. Having said that... I usually think who you are in your early teens is mostly who you'll be for the majority of your life.

    Perhaps we're best served by putting them all on a raft, gently pushing them off the western shore, and monitoring the beach

  • I am guessing that it is some BLM/WOKE asshole that wants kids shot by LEOs so that they can scream that LEOs need to be defunded.
    The other possibility is an anti-gun nut that wants to claim that LEOs with firearms are disasters.
    The only other possibility is someone from another nation testing to see how to cause chaos here. But, if that was so, then why not have different voices? The only thing that I can see is that they put together an AI that sounded American to make the call.

    Otherwise, this makes
  • Let's all be honest. If the body count from gun violence hasn't led to changes in the USA society by now, it never will. It's a crying shame that the notional leader of the civilised world has a homicide rate (excludes suicide and self defence killing) many multiples of any other civilised country, but nothing is going to change this side of the heat death of the sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
  • One would assume it's mostly students doing it to their own schools, if not for the sudden and extreme upsurge out of nowhere being coupled with technical sophistication. The list of suspects who could be doing it in an organized way is pretty long, but their likely agenda is not: Disrupting public education, making people afraid of being involved in their own communities, driving gun sales, pushing police militarization, promoting despair and fear... The type of person who wants that is obvious.

  • And what potentially organized thing is doing it?

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