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A comment on Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over his rare Twitter handle. Parent comment

Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by tablespoon on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @11:53PM (#27902154)
> Don't know much about Android but every iPhone comes out of the box with it. And it shouldn't even be an option, but default. Like smartphone makers should enforce this. Probably require you to stream from both cameras.

It's just a terrible idea. I'm guessing it took less than a minute to come up with it, and you spent that time thinking of reasons to support it and almost no time thinking about the problems with it. It's just that bad.

Some obvious problems:

1. You didn't consider the most popular smartphone OS at all.

2. Not everyone has a smartphone.

3. Not everyone who has a smartphone knows how to use all the apps on it, or can figure a new one out in a stressful situation.

4. How exactly do you think someone who's actually being threatened would prove it to the police over a video call (reveal their hiding place to take video of the perp with the gun)?

5. Don't you think the SWATter (or whatever you call them) could fake a video call using some accepted service, like they already fake phone calls?

6. What if there's no data at their location, or the signal is too poor for video but good enough for voice (like my parents' basement)?

7. Etc. (I could go on, but I think I proved my point)

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Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by verve_rat on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @12:24AM (#27902308)
8. They are using a landline.
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Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by dzhiurgis on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @02:01AM (#27902820)
If they call landline you already know precise location…
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Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by sgerenser on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @08:03AM (#27905147)
Definitely not the case with VOIP. I had a case where a roommate in college had to call 911 on our VOIP phone (bad cell service in the house) and we were connected to a dispatcher in a different state (where I had lived previously). I doubt if most people remember to update their location with the VOIP provider when they move.
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Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by kwhitefoot on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @04:00AM (#27903595)
Does this apply to VOIP? A lot of POTS phones here in Norway are plugged into the network router not a physical landline.
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Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by dzhiurgis on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @02:00AM (#27902815)
Yes all of those are issues that don’t even take a second to figure out. But it’s a step forward.
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Re:Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over ... by tablespoon on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @02:25AM (#27902945)
> Yes all of those are issues that don’t even take a second to figure out. But it’s a step forward.

Most of them are dealbreakers. A few even show that your solution won't even properly address the SWATting problem it's ostensibly meant to solve, even ignoring the bad tradeoffs.

I'll grant you it's a step, just not a step forward.

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