Police to technicians, to Seattle's banners: sign up for our anti-swatting service [Updated]

The practice of "swatting" or the call for false threats to activate an aggressive response from the police to a house or an unwanted business has unfortunately continued in recent years . Starting this week, a US police force is putting in place a system aimed directly at fighting this illegal hoax.

On its official website, the Seattle Police Service acknowledges the operation of this operation, as well as the fact that citizens have asked for a way to submit their own concerns or fears of being a potential victim. (Full Disclosure: after having released my personally identifiable personal data in a malicious way, I asked SPD what was happening … in 2015.)

"To our knowledge, there was no solution to this problem, so we designed one," reads on the site of SPD. The site states that victims are "generally associated with the technology sector, the video game industry and / or the online broadcasting community".

The SPD process asks citizens to create a profile on a third party data management service called Rave Facility (managed by Smart911). Although this service is advertised for public places and businesses, it also supports private residences and SPD offers steps to enter data and add a "Related Concerns" tab to your profile.

With this information in hand, SPD says that any police officer or 911 operator who receives a particularly troubling emergency report and matches it to a location already marked with a "major concern" notice will share this information "with first responders and improve their police response to the incident. "

"I want five thousand dollars or I will kill everything"

The information page does not specify whether SPD has already introduced internal protocol changes taking into account sampling – in particular with regard to how the service handles anonymous VOIP tricks for hostage taking and ransom demands. However, a linked video in the SPD's instruction page, embedded below, seems to include images of officers remaining vigilant as to the possibilities of overwriting.

The video begins with an apparent threat of hostage-taking given to a 911 operator. The threat includes a request to take five hostages and a ransom of "five thousand dollars or I kill them all." This part is followed by the video of SPD officers, timestamped in the early hours of August 24 this year, which recounts things like "an online phone app" and "sounds more and more like a conversation with me" before approaching the entrance of an apartment with guns fired.

This part of the video ends with a quiet conversation between the officers and the tenant of the apartment, explaining the type of threat being called. This film is followed by the portrait of an anxious citizen typing the address of his home and text "Concerns Expressed" in the text of Rave Facility. submission pages; the video ends with this actor playing video games, hearing ringing at the door and answering it, only to find that it's a pizza delivery, not a police officer with a gun fired.

However, this sequence "fill out a form, stay alone with the cops" is a bit misleading. The SPD's notice page makes it clear that "all calls" will always receive a standard response from the police, whether or not significant concerns are expressed. "Nothing in this solution is designed to minimize or slow down emergency services," reads on the site. "At the same time, if information is available, it is more useful for the responding agents to have it than not to get it."

In addition to a highly publicized attempt against a survivor who shot Parkland last June, recent malicious attacks targeting technology personalities and online have evolved to some extent – or devolved, depending on how you look at it.

Last month, the famous DrDisRespect video game released a police report claiming that his house had been hit by a bullet during his last Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 beta test; this follows the abrupt closure of a watercourse while he asserted, "I must end the broadcast now. Someone shot our house."

"Very clearly swatted"

Update, 8:19 pm ET: According to Sean Whitcomb, director of public affairs for the Seattle Police Service, efforts to create an anti-crush tool for residents began to take shape in June of this year. That was shortly after "a member of the community contacted us and asked if it was possible for us, how should I say that, to have a record of their residence in case an incident flagrant would occur ". From there, SPD staff members began talking to 911 agents and dispatchers before being directed to the department's private partner for data references, the aforementioned third-party company, Smart911.

The problem, however, is that the default system of Smart911, which allows police departments to report problems to a specific address and phone number (pets, allergies, elderly residents, residents with special needs, etc. .), is more designed for the legal reporting of offenses or crimes. fires. This means that it does not work in the case of anonymous or spoofed phone numbers calling for hoax threats. Whitcomb told Ars Technica that his team had asked Smart911: "How can we adapt this platform and customize it, for example," also in this home, someone who makes a living by working in the company. One of our technology companies or in the game development or online broadcast, or publicly, they have a high profile. How can they let us know that this concern exists? "

Whitcomb confirmed that two saturation-related incidents had occurred in Seattle since the June flag was hoisted by a member of the community. This includes the incident shown in the video of August 24 mentioned above. He stated that the investigation into this attempted flogging was ongoing and that the concerned citizen had been "very clearly scanned, very specific to the apartment number". An investigation into another major attempt, centered around a Seattle library in August, is also still underway, he said.

In today's public notice, Whitcomb underscored SPD's assertion that the department needed to "design" its response to the problem of swatting. "If you search the Internet for" swatting "," says Whitcomb. "You will find many examples of how people are affected, who are demanding harsher sentences, and how police investigators have found defendants from across the country when this crime ended in its most tragic."

"But you will not find any anti-swatting solution," he adds.

That's Seattle, right? We have technology here.

In response to general Seattle police practice, particularly in cases where a person may not have proactively filed a report on a possible scraping, Whitcomb insists on his department's standard training protocol for "Tactical de-escalation and hostage negotiation", as well as on the "nuances" of a particular relationship. He cited, as a hypothetical example, a report of "shots" in a public area that was only reported once, by a caller from a anonymous phone number. "This could raise suspicions," he adds. He confirms that the new anti-swatting submissions will be considered as another "small nuance" in these cases.

"This phenomenon, which is a national problem, quite frankly raises considerable fear and anxiety in the community we serve," Whitcomb said. "It's Seattle, right? We have the technology here – the development of video games, both large companies and independent studios, and a very rich online broadcast community. Everything from arts and crafts to cooking through video game streaming We know Swatting has resulted in tragedy in its most vile form.In its most general form, it is a way to get the most out of it. to intimidate or harass people – it's just wrong. "