{"id":12693,"date":"2016-03-04T13:09:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T19:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=12693"},"modified":"2016-03-04T13:09:27","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T19:09:27","slug":"how-to-spot-a-swatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/04\/how-to-spot-a-swatter\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Spot a “Swatter”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Not only are these dangerous hoaxes they are also a tool for the anti-gunners out there to try and draw negative attention to an “active shooter” or “mass shooting”. Remember, the Information\/Propaganda War is not really about substance, (I think most of us can agree on that) it is just about Headlines. Make enough of them and pretty soon you got politicians making speeches about more Gun laws and Assault Weapons Bans. -SF<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

\"Members<\/p>\n

Dangerous hoax calls to cops have several clues<\/h3>\n

On Feb. 23, a police tactical team descended<\/a> on a home in Riverside, California after receiving a call about a shooting. Except the report\u00a0was a\u00a0hoax \u2014 or swatting \u2014 targeting a teenager, the star of a viral video.<\/p>\n

No one was harmed, and it was a rather minor story because of swatting\u2019s regularity\u00a0in the Internet age. In a swatting incident, a caller reports a false bomb threat, mass shooting, hostage situation or other emergency to 911, which provokes a\u00a0heavily-armed\u00a0SWAT team to raid the home of the unwitting victim.<\/p>\n

Swatting has a long history\u00a0with\u00a0roots in\u00a0online gaming, and is predictably dangerous. Last year, an Oklahoma man shot a police officer<\/a>\u00a0when cops\u00a0responded to a phony\u00a0bomb threat at the man\u2019s home.<\/div>\n

But there might be a way to prevent swatting in some cases. On Feb. 29, the website Public Intelligence, a non-profit that advocates free access to government documents, uploaded a list of techniques<\/a> from New Jersey\u2019s cybersecurity task force that police dispatchers should follow during a call.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sign that law enforcement is starting to adapt.<\/p>\n

Swattings follow several patterns, according to the list from the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe swatting call is the only incoming call to report an active shooter or ongoing emergency situation,\u201d the NJCCIC states. \u201cIf a shooting has occurred or an active shooter scenario is unfolding, multiple calls to dispatch from witnesses or victims are likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phoning in a fake threat with a personal phone will give the caller\u2019s identity away, so pranksters often \u2014 if they\u2019re not complete idiots \u2014 rely on spoofed Voice over Internet Protocol addresses or default Skype numbers. Not easy to track.<\/p>\n

VoIP addresses cannot typically connect to 911, so the callers will try routing through a non-emergency line. Swatters sometimes distort their voices or communicate via text-to-speech programs.<\/p>\n

Swatters also hire contractors to make the calls over the dark web, the vast, hidden parts of the Internet partially encrypted by services such as Tor. \u201cSwatting calls are commonly conducted by foreign malicious actors with thick accents who are unfamiliar with the local areas they target,\u201d the list adds.<\/p>\n

Read the Remainder at War is Boring<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Not only are these dangerous hoaxes they are also a tool for the anti-gunners out there to try and draw negative attention to an “active shooter” or “mass shooting”. Remember, the Information\/Propaganda War is not really about substance, (I think most of us can agree on that) it is just about Headlines. Make enough of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[74,1928,1635,2967,3631,4579,1189],"tags":[5141,5142,5143,5144,5145,3406,3913,5146],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}