Swatting Could Soon Be Illegal | Hacker News Reader

Swatting Could Soon Be Illegal

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20 pointsColinWright18 comments

This sounds like something that's already illegal. How would fraudulently calling law enforcement NOT be illegal?

I think that the significance is that this proposed law is a federal law. Instead of a random swatting being a matter of violation of some state or local law [1] that falls primarily to local law enforcement to investigate, it will be a federal crime and the FBI can get involved from the start. The FBI probably has a much better chance of catching the swatter than does some random local police force.

[1] Such as, to pick an arbitrary example, Iowa Code § 718.6: https://coolice.legis.iowa.gov/Cool-ICE/default.asp?category...

Yeah sounds like this is about a new law that is more specific and provides harsher penalties.

Exactly. I think it would fall under "making a false report" or something, in most states. In California, that's a misdemeanor that gets you up to 6 months in jail.

Edit: California has a specific anti-swatting law that's still a misdemeanor and can get you up to a year in jail and $1000 fine if nobody gets hurt, or a felony with up to a $10000 fine and up to 3 years in jail.

It would seem like this law will only be useful if it's also very specific about how juveniles are charged. Most of the offenders are likely to be underage.

Now, how are they going to enforce it will be interesting to see. Our current telephony system looks pretty much like the first days of the internet. Most telcos will happily say "Ah, you're a service provider and send us a call from 011111111111, we'll route it right away!". Add a voip channel or two with a redirection set up and you're unlikely to ever get caught.

It's certainly hard, but apparently not impossible. Here's a story about how a particularly prolific swatter eventually got caught: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial-swatte...

While following the trail was hard, another big obstacle was simply to get more law enforcement agencies interested in stopping this guy. It also makes clear that an international approach is necessary.

There's a pretty good chance of getting caught if you're not careful. Most providers hang on to logs for a long time.

I'm pretty sure most swatters are kids with limited tech knowledge. I wonder how many of those calls were even made with voip rather than a burner phone and even that is questionable since many of them were caught shortly after.

Swatting is far worse than merely expensive and embarrassing. The swatters know how easily US cops shoot when faced with a potentially dangerous situation. Many swatting calls mention guns, bombs, etc. I'm pretty sure at least some swatters hope their victim gets shot.

Couldn't see the article through the ad. Seriously annoying.

Why is this a thing? I don't understand this world anymore.

Technology is empowering teenage stupidity. Some kids go through a bad mix of negative emotions and a naive understanding of danger. In time these issues can become resolved and the teenager becomes a responsible person. This phase though has become more dangerous with the things technology lets kids do.

In my opinion as long as teenagers are a thing this is an inescapable trait of human life. Unless you are law enforcement, try to stay out of their way and not be a target.

I fear there might also be a component wherein developing empathy for other people requires, or is at least accelerated by, seeing their faces and hearing their voices and taking censure from the people around both of you, when you hurt them.

The possibility is the primary reservation I maintain with a world full of anonymity and pseudonymity.

I often feel like I can make an excellent case that the various culture wars we see going on are really just a war on immaturity.

Some people are psychopaths, and when they realize they can do this with impunity, they go mad with power.

I don't think there's any way anyone with a functioning conscience would do this. As far as I'm concerned, swatters belong in a psychiatric institution.

Internet piracy is illegal and yet people are rarely apprehended for it. Obviously swatting is a much more serious crime, but it faces the same or greater enforcement issues.

The attached audio is pretty good.

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