Author Topic: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough  (Read 2792 times)

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Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« on: September 01, 2014, 10:50:51 pm »
There's pranking, and then there's... this.  Long story short, "swatting" involves calling 9-1-1 to send the police to an unsuspecting victim's house under false pretenses.

Do I even have to explain why this is a Very Bad Thing?

Offline Cerim Treascair

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2014, 11:32:02 pm »
This was actually mentioned recently on one of the news channels.  A streamer playing CS: GO got swatted mid-match, with his stream running.  Yyyyyyep.  Things have devolved into shitstorms VERY fast.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2014, 11:39:46 pm »
But if I don't like someone's livestream of a game then isn't sending a SWAT team to harass (and possibly kill them) just sweet poetic justice?!?!?!?!
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz8yLIOb2pU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz8yLIOb2pU</a>

Look at that moron and think how much money was wasted when that SWAT team went to attack him? Just wonder if all those police officers were needed elsewhere and how many people were left without help because I wanted to be an utter and complete dick.

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Offline Ironchew

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2014, 11:52:32 pm »
Yet another facet of police brutality. If law enforcement weren't so trigger happy and actually spent a minute thinking about how not to escalate the situation, attempted swatting would be a non-issue.
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Offline Sylvana

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2014, 02:10:57 am »
Given that the police in America seem to have this depressing tendency to shoot unarmed people first and try anything else later, this can only end badly.
It also scares me that you can call in a 911, and get swat to respond. I would have thought that the normal way of doing things would be for a normal police officer to go and appraise the situation before calling in swat.

People can be such assholes.

Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2014, 08:04:37 am »
Given that the police in America seem to have this depressing tendency to shoot unarmed people first and try anything else later, this can only end badly.
It also scares me that you can call in a 911, and get swat to respond. I would have thought that the normal way of doing things would be for a normal police officer to go and appraise the situation before calling in swat.

People can be such assholes.

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #6 on: September 02, 2014, 08:29:15 am »
So basically, you can have the police suddenly and without warning show up and kick your door down simply because some neckbeard told them to. The only words I can think of to describe that is "Absurdist Dystopia".
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 08:55:37 am by Art Vandelay »

Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #7 on: September 02, 2014, 08:39:39 am »
So basically, you can have the police suddenly and without warning show up and kick your door down simply because some neckbeard told them to. The words I can think of to describe that is "Absurdist Dystopia".
It's like something out of Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Offline Old Viking

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #8 on: September 02, 2014, 05:33:29 pm »
I'm going to cut back on my snarky comments to people.
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Offline rageaholic

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #9 on: September 02, 2014, 07:09:47 pm »
From the wikipedia article on swatting.

Quote
On August 17, 2014, YouTube star Alexander Wachs, or Whiteboy7thst, was arrested while live streaming a game of DayZ: Standalone on Twitch.TV. A viewer had called 911 and claimed that there was a bomb in his house. Wachs had exited his chair, and then a police officer with a K9 had gone into the camera's view. Although there was no bomb in the house, Wachs was arrested for possession of Marijuana.

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry at this. 

Offline Sigmaleph

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #10 on: September 02, 2014, 08:04:00 pm »
Yet another facet of police brutality. If law enforcement weren't so trigger happy and actually spent a minute thinking about how not to escalate the situation, attempted swatting would be a non-issue.

Even if every attempted swatting was just the police showing up, quickly realising that nothing is going on and leaving, it would still be a problem because you're wasting the time of people who have to be ready to respond for actual emergencies. There's also the problem of skewed incentives; a prank assumed to be the real thing is a minor inconvenience, but a real crisis mistaken for a prank is the sort of thing that has people crying for a new protocol where every threat is taken super seriously always. And so, the system naturally tends to err on the side of false positives rather than false negatives.

This is a facet of people being idiots and abusing an emergency system. The specific aspects of that emergency system can make it more or less of a problem, but it's still a problem either way.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #11 on: September 02, 2014, 11:30:40 pm »
From the wikipedia article on swatting.

Quote
On August 17, 2014, YouTube star Alexander Wachs, or Whiteboy7thst, was arrested while live streaming a game of DayZ: Standalone on Twitch.TV. A viewer had called 911 and claimed that there was a bomb in his house. Wachs had exited his chair, and then a police officer with a K9 had gone into the camera's view. Although there was no bomb in the house, Wachs was arrested for possession of Marijuana.

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry at this. 

Well, he DID have drugs so the arrest was not without a reason (Unless the cops planted the marijuana as a revenge for having their time wasted.) and because they have to take these things seriously they had to take a look around the house (I am assuming they had a bomb dog that smelled the drugs or just happened to notice it somewhere in plain sight.)

No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #12 on: September 03, 2014, 02:08:22 am »
On the other hand, arresting people for having marijuana is a waste of everyone's time and money... and freedom.
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Offline guizonde

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #13 on: September 03, 2014, 07:55:52 am »
It's a punishable offense in France to prank call emergency numbers, isn't it the case in the USA? And technically, there are no grounds for arrest, since the cops busted in without a warrant and were looking for something else. Sure, they can confiscate it, but no way in hell should he be arrested for that.
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Offline Zygarde

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Re: Swatting: when sending pizza to somebody's house just isn't enough
« Reply #14 on: September 03, 2014, 08:34:14 am »
Yes it is a punishable offence the only problem these Swatters are doing it anonymously so it's hard to track them down, I think I read somewhere that they did find one of these idiots and he got arrested for misuse of emergency services.