Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over his rare Twitter handle

Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by cmckn on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:37PM (#27901329)

Yeah it’s completely absurd that emergency services can be abused like this. It’s a similar situation to ordering a bunch of delivery pizzas to a victim’s house. There must be a middle ground between convenience (being able to pay cash at the stoop, get a rapid emergency response when you need it, etc.) and preventing abuse.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by phkahler on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @09:52PM (#27901433)

It's called caller ID. Don't trust an anonymous source. From the article it sounds like swat in tennessee responded to a call from the UK? That part seemed fishy.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by mr_toad on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @10:32PM (#27901725)

It sounds like a flaw in the phone system that a call to 911 can be done anonymously.

It seems lax and irresponsible that every single swatting attack hasn’t been traced and prosecuted.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by kube-system on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @10:16PM (#27901606)

Caller ID records are neither reliable, universally available, nor hard to spoof.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by Lio on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @08:01AM (#27905125)

International telecom agreements basically make caller id impossible to secure. It can be spoofed so easily that it can’t be relied upon.

It’s the same thing that makes it hard to block international criminal gangs that target the vulnerable.

If spoofed properly it’s impossible to tell that the call isn’t from a local number in Tennessee.

[ Parent | on HN ]