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Swatting On Twitch Needs To Stop

Mechanized said:
...assholes decide to take things too far and occupy the time of the police with a bullshit matter, taking their time away from a possible real issue that could result in death in either instance. These people are scum and these are not just pranks. Someone could die because of this shit.
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exactly. The police really need a system to trace calls back and make the necessary arrests so that children, teenagers and manchildren stop this nonsense. It's not clever in anyway and is domestic terrorism.
 
UnluckyKate said:
Simple thing, instead of bursting the door, just call to check in maybe ?

- Yo, this is police, can we speak to your wife ? Because some guy told us you just drunk shot her.
- Sure. Honey, phone for you. Speak to the officer.

sometimes later :
- Okay, looks like our intel is wrong and fake. Can you just come down for protocol, so we can search the house, without smashing the door, tearing the place and scaring the shit out of your children ?
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Did you watch the video? The family was new to town and the cops had no number to call. He specifically mentions that twice.
 
This absolutely sucks.

I feel like the problem isn't gaming only. It's the internet culture in general today. Entitled teenagers with nothing better to do who feel there is no way they can get punished for there actions are doing these kinds of things for fun. It's the same kind of stuff that Anonymous does -- it's all a fun and games like thing, without them ever taking any responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Sure, it's happening in the gaming community, but that's just a side effect of gaming overlapping with the culture of the internet in general. This kind of thing is happening all across the board to many different people with many different interests. If someone disagrees with you, there's doxxing, swatting, etc., etc. All real threats to a person that are hard to punish the perpetrator, which is the issue here.

The only solution I can think of is be proactive with your privacy, but unfortunately, in this case, it wasn't enough.

Just wanted to mention that this isn't isolated to the twitch gaming community: this shit is happening everyhwere. Twitch definitely has a subset of terrible entitled brats that do this sort of thing, but that's just their demographic. The more people on the internet, the more dicks and trolls you get -- and the more of those that take that whole lifestyle to the next level.

Anyways, I hope they find the asshole that did this and throw him in jail.
 
theSlacker said:
I'm mad at both. The people doing the swatting, and the system that is so easily abused. I strongly disagree that all the no knock warrants that are issued are the due credit they...warrant. You may ask "well what if something is happening to you and your family" and I would answer that I would prefer the knowledge that it doesn't just take a fake phone call to authorize invasion of my property and assault of my person over the added security I believe militarizing and fully authorizing the police force to respond to every thread with full force gives.
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There are simply situations that must be responded to before verification of the call's authenticity can be established. Bomb threats are probably the oldest example and demonstrate the clear risk involved in slow or not responding if the call turns out to be genuine. Yes, it's unfortunate that people are abusing an emergency service for petty reasons but these services are in place to prevent greater tragedies.

The sanctity of your property is a pretty minor concern when it's a question of explosives or murder that are on the line.
 
Riskington said:
Did you watch the video? The family was new to town and the cops had no number to call. He specifically mentions that twice.
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i don't know how it works in the US, but as if they wouldn't know who was living there / wouldn't have access to their details!

utilities, electoral registers, deeds/tenancy agreements, tax records, health records.......

i can't believe that a hacker can get their address, but the police are unable to confirm anything.
 
BeesEight said:
There are simply situations that must be responded to before verification of the call's authenticity can be established. Bomb threats are probably the oldest example and demonstrate the clear risk involved in slow or not responding if the call turns out to be genuine. Yes, it's unfortunate that people are abusing an emergency service for petty reasons but these services are in place to prevent greater tragedies.

The sanctity of your property is a pretty minor concern when it's a question of explosives or murder that are on the line.
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Before the internet, kids called in bomb threats to get school cancelled. I assume in ancient times, people would send prank smoke signals too. This problem seems old as time itself.
 
devilsadvocat said:
It's all jokes until the person who made the prank call gets arrested and starts crying for their mom like a baby. This is what happens when you stop beating your kids / spanking / punishing them, they grow up to be these little turds with zero repercussions
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imma gonna partially agree.

Stupid people are stupid since childs.

Pain is a way for them to know that they are doing something wrong.

And it's still the wrong thing to do.
 
theSlacker said:
That is kind of the point that I am making. Read the story about the flash grenade tossed in a crib from last page. An uncorroborated phone call about a drug deal/meth distributer was enough to get a no knock warrant. A warrant that legally absolved the SWAT team of any blame for throwing a flash grenade into a baby's crib, and legally prevented the city from being able to provide any funding for the recovery.

I'm not saying that swat teams or no knock warrants are bad, but that maybe it should take more then a hot tip with no other proof to set the response to maximum force.
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True enough, but swatting calls are a different sort of situation then a drug tip. A drug tip should result in a stakeout to confirm activity. A swatting call is usual something where time is much more a factor, such as a recent murder/hostages/bomb etc. In that sort of situations, minute count, and they have to act.
 
BeesEight said:
There are simply situations that must be responded to before verification of the call's authenticity can be established. Bomb threats are probably the oldest example and demonstrate the clear risk involved in slow or not responding if the call turns out to be genuine. Yes, it's unfortunate that people are abusing an emergency service for petty reasons but these services are in place to prevent greater tragedies.

The sanctity of your property is a pretty minor concern when it's a question of explosives or murder that are on the line.
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but surely the point is that if the occupants of the house can identify whats happening and have a conversation with the 911 operator prior to the door being kicked in, you'd imagine that would be long enough for someone to confirm their identity and the validity of the call.

especially if the police are fucking around outside because they've been told they'll be shot entering the building. even if this situation had been time-sensitive, which it wasn't, they weren't storming the building. i could've confirmed their identity in that time if i was in their shoes. and i certainly wouldn't have had to have "gone through procedure" after seeing that the wife was in good health.

i understand what you're saying, and in some narrow cases it may be correct. but in this case its defense of police stupidity really. or a stupid system.
 
Team Vernia said:
Blaming the victim? Nice.
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No. I just noted the information like that shouldn't leak so easily. Please point where I blamed the victim.

Akai__ said:
If you would have watched the video, you would have known, that the guy just moved there with his family and didn't gave out his adress at all. Also, blaming the victim, because a hacker got his IP and his adress based on that... How classy...
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Finding out his address from his IP? lol. Either way, someone got the address... either there has been severe privacy violations by an agency, or they just handed out their residential address to stream viewers?

Omega Rex said:
Really? They got her phone number.

I'm pretty sure this dude wasn't pimping his wife out on stream
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A phone number is just as private as an address. How on earth did they get that to swat with?

Mechanized said:
...assholes decide to take things too far and occupy the time of the police with a bullshit matter, taking their time away from a possible real issue that could result in death in either instance. These people are scum and these are not just pranks. Someone could die because of this shit.
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When did I question this?

You guys are on some serious high tension ready to lash out. I think swatting is a big problem and those involved should be heavily prosecuted. I'm just confounded at how such private information gets in the hands of the criminals.

Liamc723 said:
The streamer never gave out his address, watch the video.
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So they called in purely by name? That's nuts.
 
Nyoro SF said:
Swatting occurs when they have your address. People must be very forthcoming with information if the stream viewers know where they live...
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There are so many vectors that can lead to someone's address. Not a very intelligent point.
 
Nils said:
There are so many vectors that can lead to someone's address. Not a very intelligent point.
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So if it is that simple, are there no precautions to take against someone finding your address?

Also the real lack of intelligence are those people that assume that I meant only the streamer and immediately lashed out with anger. Overreaction like that is dangerous and stupid.
 
Liamc723 said:
The streamer never gave out his address, watch the video.
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If he gave out his full name at any point, it's not that tough. If they bought the house, I assume his name shows up in a public record for the property sale. If he mentioned the city or state they moved to, or mentioned buying a house recently, it makes the search that much easier.

For the most part, online resumes and public records can find most people. There's no fix other than try to establish an online username and identity that is completely detached from your government info.

Perhaps it's something new streamers could consider. Create a unique identity and never reveal your name or city of residence.
 
synce said:
It's kind of fucked up but this is what happens when you put yourself and your info out there.
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It's not "kind of" fucked up. And you don't "put yourself and your info out there". It is out there right now whether you want it to or not.
 
Freeman said:
For someone who doesn't live in the US, it seems pretty crazy to me. Too much power given to the police, some sort of verification/confirmation should be required before they act. I'm pretty sure they could identify the lack of a threat that requires their intervention before going all-in.

People that are causing this sort of thing should be punished severely, this is a completely unacceptable behavior. This is extremely dangerous and can ruin lives.
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I agree that we have a problem with police militarization, but these "swatting" acts are not run-of-the-mill cases.

These cases involve the police being told that there is an active terroristic situation, hostage crisis, or serial killing. They are definitely appropriate situations for SWAT to be deployed.

If you no longer take tips seriously, then you will very quickly end up with a case where someone calls the police for help, and the police do nothing about it, believing it to be fake, and the person ends up dying because of it. If society loses faith in the police's willingness to perform its duties, it becomes a useless institution altogether.
 
why is everyone going bananas about women misrepresented and not this!?

come on people, gather the fuck up. There are more people who dislike this thing than the stupid assholes that do this.
 
Rock Hardy said:
If he gave out his full name at any point, it's not that tough. If they bought the house, I assume his name shows up in a public record for the property sale. If he mentioned the city or state they moved to, or mentioned buying a house recently, it makes the search that much easier.

For the most part, online resumes and public records can find most people. There's no fix other than try to establish an online username and identity that is completely detached from your government info.

Perhaps it's something new streamers could consider. Create a unique identity and never reveal your name or city of residence.
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I see. Indeed, it really comes down to how you handle your private information though it's not foolproof.
 
I have a feeling something bads going to happen these anonymous users are going to keep doing this until some intense action is taken

do you guys think this occurs more often with people who use a webcam?
 
synce said:
It's kind of fucked up but this is what happens when you put yourself and your info out there.
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You mean like your name? In my line of work, I'd say there's about a 90% certainty that I could find you if I had your name and city, which are insanely easy things to get off of twitter or facebook profiles, even when locked/restricted. If I had that info, if would cost me less than $5 to find you, and that's if my first search wasn't fruitful. If it was? Less than .50 if you lived in the US.

All that to say, saying that this shit only happens when you "put yourself out there" is unfair. It could happen to almost anyone.
 
Rock Hardy said:
If he gave out his full name at any point, it's not that tough. If they bought the house, I assume his name shows up in a public record for the property sale. If he mentioned the city or state they moved to, or mentioned buying a house recently, it makes the search that much easier.

For the most part, online resumes and public records can find most people. There's no fix other than try to establish an online username and identity that is completely detached from your government info.

Perhaps it's something new streamers could consider. Create a unique identity and never reveal your name or city of residence.
Click to expand...

It's like your blaming him for this happening. Someone shouldn't be put in a position where they have to hide their name due to people possibly calling the swat team on them.
 
Nyoro SF said:
So if it is that simple, are there no precautions to take against someone finding your address?

Also the real lack of intelligence are those people that assume that I meant only the streamer and immediately lashed out with anger. Overreaction like that is dangerous and stupid.
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You don't control all the information that's put out about you. You can be very careful and still have things out there leading to your address. Or your social media profiles can contain inadvertent clues. Mutual friends on online accounts, their locations, someone could mention "hey I went to high school with that dude" in a youtube comment. The whois information on his/her website could either give the full name of the streamer or someone they're closely associated with.

People can stream under an alias, but a friend can still leave comments in the chat or wherever other venue with things like "Hey Jake, when are we hanging out at Specific Location X again?" Once a trail is out there, it's not easy to go back and cover it up and a lot of the times you won't know what could be traced back to you.

Someone's name can often suffice if it's unique enough. Someone's last name could even be enough if you know the general location. Had to double check a friend's house number yesterday, just typed in his last name on a phone book site and got the addresses of both him and a family member who lived in his vicinity.

Some of these people get big enough that other instances start paying attention to them, like a Polygon or whatever outlet doing a profile piece on them that mentions their full name. In that case the info is giving out with consent, but it's still no fair to say that makes them fair game for harassment. The more popular these people get the more likely more info beyond their control or consent is out there, but these people making their living off of that popularity, which makes it that more tricky to navigate.

Saying one should be vigilant should be common sense, sure. But you don't know they weren't in this case and even someone very careful can get burned by interactions beyond their control.
 
In SWAT situations, discretion usually sides with subduing threats like upset dogs with lethal force if need be.

So if you SWAT someone, there's a decent chance their pet will be killed in the process. So that kind of makes you inhuman scum.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
In SWAT situations, discretion usually sides with subduing threats like upset dogs with lethal force if need be.
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Hell, you don't even need a SWAT team for that, there have been countless stories of just routine police looking for a suspect, they decide to look in someone's yard, there's a dog, so they shoot it, no pause whatsoever. A lot of the times it isn't even a stereotypical "aggressive breed" (I'm a "there's no bad dog, just bad owners" guy, just saying), but your average looking household dogs that are just doing what dogs do when strange people walk on to their territory... Bark. It's fucked up.

But anyways, it's shit like this that really turns me off from streaming. I'm not saying that if I did, people would want to watch me or anything, but regardless of that fact, this sort of internet nonsense is what makes me want to keep a low profile, never put my name or face out there outside of facebook, which I keep completely private to anyone I'm not friends with.

Someone just needs to develop a system for the internet that's similar to those BAC testers habitual drunk drivers get put into cars. Before you log on, just place your hand on it and it detects whether or not you're an excessive asshole at the moment, and blocks access accordingly. Get on that, science.
 
synce said:
It's kind of fucked up but this is what happens when you put yourself and your info out there.
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Sarah Connor?

Can you delist yourself from the phonebooks of today? Is there like a central governing entity that allows you to opt out of all current and any future requests to obtain your personal details for these services?

I just went through the process of delisting myself from one here in Sweden, to see what that's like. They have you call in and use your phone number as verification of your identity. The site of the company they're acquiring their data from is not responding.
 
They should try these teens as adults. Maybe the risk of going to big boy prison would curtail some of this.
 
I wonder what the solution is. Obviously harsher laws against false swatting calls. But at least to me, this is a larger discussion about extremists in this hobby (the kind of people that harass, death threats, doxxing, swatting). Just seems like this is an element you can't really get a handle on. Even if the gaming community on a whole comes together and condemns these things, I don't really see how these people are going to stop (as I don't really see them being apart of the greater gaming community, I see them as fringe, and doing what they want).
 
Slayven said:
A cop is going to end up shooting some poor person.
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I am surprised it hasn't happened before. I guess whatever training swat teams get has prevented them from killing people until now. But in america it is just a thing of time until they swat someone who was just cleaning his rifle, or likes to walk around with a gun holstered.

The funny part is that the swat teams and the cities are protected from legal retaliation, so, other than expenses of sending a team there -which, given the volume of swat deployments isn't that big-, they really have no reason to do anything to stop swatting. They will cover under the "but but but every call has to be taken seriously" and keep business as usual.

And I am not convinced that a swat team killing someone during response to a prank call will be enough of a fuck up to review swat deployment procedures.
 
this is why you try to have as little contact with "gaming community" outside of GAF as possible

what kind of petulant man child would do this?
 
This is absolutely disgusting. That video in the OP was heartbreaking. They had young children in that house! Absolutely horrifying!

And to think some morons do this for their own amusement. Scum of the earth
 
jon bones said:
this is why you try to have as little contact with "gaming community" outside of GAF as possible

what kind of petulant man child would do this?
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Take that one creepy geek no one in high school wants anything to do with.

Multiply that by every high school in the industrialized world, and connect them with the internet.
 
Liamc723 said:
It's like your blaming him for this happening. Someone shouldn't be put in a position where they have to hide their name due to people possibly calling the swat team on them.
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What part of my post blames anyone?

I'm getting sick and tired of this dumbass term "victim blaming" altogether. The phrase never existed when I grew up, and has become part of this recent internet phenomenon where it's no longer appropriate to point out corrective measures because no one wants to feel bad for making a poor decision. However, poor decisions are made often, and the way to avoid them in the future is to point out the error.

Most of us have our info out there, so I'm susceptible top this attack too. My suggestion is merely one I've considered enacting for years. I thought I'd share it here, as many people might find it useful. It is not victim blaming and you can cram it.

We don't live in the land of make believe, folks. Let's understand and protect ourselves against the harsh realities we face.
 
People who do it are in it to get a rise out of the community.
I mean it has to stop, but the solution isn't going to come from some meaningful discussion about its implications unfortunately.
Swift punishment for the offenders will be the solution, not much else.
 
dankir said:
Somebody is going to get shot and get killed.

Hope this fucker gets caught stupid pricks.
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I hope it doesn't, it's been going on since 2008 (proof of some professionalism, I guess).

He gives good advice though. I think Twitch streamers should give out a private number to the local authorities so that they can at least call, in case they are about to be swatted.

Some smart fuckers could take advantage of this though.
 
Heartbreaking video.

Man...what would even happen if a baby was in a room filled with tear gas? Clearly the parents wouldn't be able to get up and move that baby. They'd be on the ground getting cuffed. Surely that situation would be incredibly dangerous for someone that young?
 
Keby said:
Seriously just try googling your family or yourself. It is extremely easy to find info like that. It's a little terrifying.
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There are so many sites that even aggregate random personal data scraped from various sources that generally score high in Google's rankings if you google that name. If you have a common name there's going to be a lot of noise on those pages, if not it's going to have a bunch of usable stuff for someone to abuse. This thing needs exactly two details about a person. Someone's name and address. If you have the name the address is going to be quite easy to find most of the time. If you have the address only you can already go to town and should you desire, get the name as well.
 
Seen this happen a few times, it's genuinely fucked up on every level.

It certainly puts me off streaming, all this crap, swatting, doxxing, hacking, it's all in the same oozing bucket of awful.

One day it's going to end up with deaths, just wait and see, and we can't stop it. All it takes is one cop having a real bad day, or one innocent streamer making a wrong move/gesture and we get a tragedy.

Everyone leaves a trail of some kind on the net, it's VERY easy to find detailed information about just about anyone.
 
The funny/sad thing is somebody is going to do this as a prank then get nailed to the wall by the authorities then this well stop. Get one person caught and nailed to the wall by their balls and most of it will stop.
 
Aw man i felt bad for the guy and his family throughout the whole video. Can't believe some people are that messed up to pull shit like this
 
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