Swatting Is a Deadly Problem–Here's the Solution | Hacker News Reader

Swatting Is a Deadly Problem–Here's the Solution

wired.com

12 pointssharkweek23 comments

I am still not sure how that solution makes sense.

(1) In what way would the police change behaviour if you're on that list? Why don't they behave that way anyways?

(2) How much unwarranted behaviour will now be shown to people who are not on that list?

(3) What if pretty much everyone ends up on that list in the end?

(4) Should one not spend more energy trying to make sure the callers get identified & prosecuted for endangering another person?

I am not based in the US. The problem is non-existent here.

1) GREAT question! Too many people are killed by police because of poor communication, often because they are disabled or ill in some way.

4) GREAT question!

The problem in the US is ultimately that SWAT teams exist at all. Militarization of the police is out of control here.

I don't agree that the existence of SWAT teams is a problem. Other countries without aggressive police presence also have something comparable for situations that are out of the norm. It's more the amount of SWAT teams we have and police being trained to be afraid of everything, for example during police academy they are played recordings of officers being murdered to instill this fear. Large cities do still need something like SWAT for situations beyond the abilities of your average police officer. Some small town in Kansas definitely does not need a SWAT team because nothing ever happens there.

Based on my experience of living in Mississippi: rural towns do not have swat teams(or a police force besides the county sheriff's office and maybe Highway Patrol if they are nearby), the suburbs also rarely have a swat team however every local police force or sheriff's office will have some "sharing" agreement with whatever the closest city is that allows them request swat if a situation requires it.

As for "nothing happens there" part, domestic violence and it's ability to turn into a hostage situation is usually why a swat team is used and is sadly a common issue; dumb bomb threat pranks to get school closed also appears to be an efficient way to get black trucks to show up in the middle of nowhere.

It's also worth mentioning when comparing US police to other countries that gun ownership should be a factor. Hard to compare what the appropriate fear level should be if the number of firearms encountered during day to day stops differ by magnitudes. Even in rural state like Mississippi that has very liberal gun carry laws, police still seized at least 4500 guns last year; the number of guns encountered in homes/cars/concealed carry that didn't warrant seizure would have a couple of extra zeros if it was tracked.

The simple solution is to have 1/100 the level of swat. Just reforming police practices would reduce these mess ups where swat shoots someone they shouldn’t.

This list would only work if everyone was automatically added to it. Basically, police should handle anonymous tips from burner phones appropriately. If every person had a note in the registry saying “swat notice might be false, proceed with caution.” That might help.

Cool, an anti-swatting list.

A better solution IMO needs to also push liability onto companies that provide phone services but cannot provide the true originator to police.

Then stop charging swatting as anything other than premeditated attempted murder.

Yeah - generally I don't like solutions like this but going after the providers that the people doing the swatting are using seems like the way to go.

That and (of course) come down like a ton of bricks on the people actually doing it.

What would you expect a company like Skype to be able to do? They're not exactly in a position to implement very strong KYC measures.

Skype just needs to require identity confirmation if you want to make phone calls. That isn't a challenging requirement.

What kind of identity confirmation? What stops these people from buying stolen verified accounts for a few dollars?

So ban all types of internet-based or IP-based calls? That's an extreme solution for a limited problem.

The problem is the lack of threat validation by police. There are many options now to validate threats, we have tech that can see through walls, robotics, drones. The fact is you have a very real chance of being shot by police without a trial and based on a phone-call.. and we are considering that a problem with the phone company?

The courts have ruled there is no legal requirement for the police to competently perform their job.

Independent of that though, they could attempt to call the house. Unclear how they dealt with these sorts of situations before SWAT was developed.

No, require companies that offer IP based calls to take the same steps any other phone company is required to undertake.

There is no requirement for a company to let anyone make a call without have some identity confirmation.

Other than that, I agree few (no?) other countries have quite the same level of murder-by-cop (with or without swatting calls) as the US does. This seems to be at least in part due to the US police forces having ensuring that police are never liable for anything, and having got legislation to ensure that any "fear" of harm to themselves warrants immediate lethal force.

What identity confirmation exists currently for phone companies? You can use a pay phone, pay cash for a prepaid wireless phone, phone in a motel room booked under a fake name, etc.

Wired is essentially calling for a Do-Not-Hit registry where vulnerable citizens might also declare things like mental disability.

Wired does not even ask if police are too deadly.

I hear your point, and I think they tried to in the last paragraph “The big question is: Why does every city in the United States have militarized police?” I disagree with the tone of that last paragraph - the answer is myriad and resulting from escalation by everyone.

I don't understand why the police has to react to an anonymous calls the way they do in the first place.

Is there a legitimate case where you'd need to call in a SWAT team and remain anonymous at the same time? Seems like if you're legit concerned about the situation, you should have no problem proving your details that could be traced back to you. If you wish to remain anonymous, then your call should be deprioritized and so maybe they send a nearby patrolling officer to investigate the situation before sending SWAT team.

I'd imagine gun control/culture plays a big part in it. Police have a right to look after their own safety and in a country with so many guns floating around that means swat teams become necessary.

In countries with no guns and/or better gun control the police don't even need to be armed with deadly weapons.

No, I get the necessity of deployed armed SWAT units every time there's a risk of gun violence and stuff, I don't understand why an anonymous call warrants such a response.

I wonder if there's some kind of metrics available breaking down how often an anonymous calls amount to something real vs abuse of system.

I'm glad they mentioned Ijeoma Oluo's recent swatting. I'm glad that she has had the wherewithal to discuss what it is like to have your home swatted when you're on a plane and teenage son is at home alone... and I'm especially glad for the King County Sheriff's pffice which has the professionalism to work with her on this.

https://twitter.com/IjeomaOluo/status/1162454404043141120

A lot of Twitch streamers would benefit from this list. A good number of them maintain relationships with their local police or FBI departments for this reason.

Here's an idea: You SWAT? Go to prison for 10 years. I bet that discourages most people.

I think this is already very much prosecutable. The problem is that these calls are always anonymous and it's hard (often impossible) to track the perpetrator.

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