[HN Gopher] Linux dev swatted and handcuffed live during a devel...
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Linux dev swatted and handcuffed live during a development video
stream
Author : croes
Score : 132 points
Date : 2024-09-15 20:19 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
| usui wrote:
| > Unfortunately, the police seemingly have no idea who did it and
| acted based on a tip sent with an email.
|
| I understand the need to take anonymous tips seriously, but I
| mean come on... an email? I hope there was more than that.
|
| If I assume the counterfactual where someone's attempt to tip
| police was ignored and an incident results, the public will
| criticize the police undoubtedly. Still, at some point there
| needs to be a minimum for verifiable, trustworthy communication
| if such a tip results in swatting. If I effortlessly generate
| dozens of plausibly-sounding scenarios, tip off the police in
| intervals spaced far enough and automate it, when would the
| police start categorizing anonymous emails as noise?
| akira2501 wrote:
| SWAT doesn't have a lot to do. So it's going to be
| exceptionally difficult to establish a working "graduated
| response" system within that department. In reality there
| should be two separate sources of information that suggest a
| SWAT response is necessary before they're dispatched,
| otherwise, standard police response to verify the information
| first.
| entropie wrote:
| > SWAT doesn't have a lot to do.
|
| Dood, thats not remotely SWAT. This isnt even some kind of
| special police. This is german normal police. And usually
| they are pretty damn overwhelmed by everything because they
| are horrible undestaffed.
| bbor wrote:
| If you committed that crime, the police would probably try to
| find you and stop you, not just give up on anonymous tips :) As
| you said, they're obligated to respond, as they have a monopoly
| on violence.
|
| How many people do you know who would get a threatening email
| about imminent violence and play it off because it's likely a
| fake? Perhaps some the most zen among us! The rest of us would
| almost definitely want to (hire mercenaries to) take reasonable
| steps to stop it. A few hours of police time in exchange for
| preventing a potential terrorist event seems like a fair trade,
| anyway...
| aceofspades19 wrote:
| I get lots of spam emails threatening all sorts of things,
| according to my spam email, Scotland Yard, the FBI & Secret
| Service are all after me if I don't give them my personal
| information. So yeah if I got a threatening email about
| imminent violence, I would probably assume its some sort of
| weird spam email and ignore it.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Of course an email is easy to fake, but you really have to put
| things in perspective: We, as internet regulars, hear of
| swatting quite often, but for your average police officer, this
| is probably an once-in-a-career type of event and therefore the
| threshold for believability is quite low.
|
| Also, as you pointed out, if it turns out to be a real
| situation, it will look horrible if the police knew of it
| beforehand. Even more, a victim in a situation that requires a
| swat team might have a quite limited ability to communicate,
| lowering the reasonable threshold even more.
|
| Lastly, there isn't really a measured response. If you think
| there might be an actual dangerous situation, sending a few
| normal officers to check it out is reckless at best and might
| actually make the situation worse, as the attacker is alerted
| of the impeding police response and the police doesn't have the
| ability to respond swiftly.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Forgive my ignorance, but can the police not get the identity of
| the people calling these in from the phone companies? Swatting
| would be over very quickly if we just started handing out 5 year
| prison sentences to every moron who tries this.
| infamouscow wrote:
| Are the police going to verify their identity? How are you
| going to verify that someone is not also committing identity
| theft?
| babypuncher wrote:
| Well you just so happen to have a complete recording _in
| their voice_ where they committed the crime.
|
| If they called 911 using a voice modulator then the call
| should have been ignored in the first place.
| qayxc wrote:
| It's not only difficult to verify the identity from phone
| companies or ISPs (worst case you'd need a court order),
| depending on the nature of the report and the situation, it
| might also be straight up dangerous for the caller.
|
| Besides, it's pretty damn simple to just a stolen phone or
| compromised computer to do this sort of thing. If you really
| were to get the identity this way, you now likely have two
| victims instead of one...
| babypuncher wrote:
| "This phone number was used to make a fraudulent 911 call,
| here is the recording" should more than enough to secure a
| warrant.
|
| You have a complete recording of the phone call, so you can
| verify if the person speaking in it was the owner of the
| phone number. If it's not a match, then you can start
| investigating friends and family of the owner who would have
| had access to the phone.
|
| If police can't figure out how to do this basic shit then why
| are we trusting them with SWAT gear?
| cge wrote:
| The police apparently chose to do this based on an emailed tip,
| not a phone call. If the attacker was the least bit competent
| there will be no way to uncover their identity at all. Even
| NSA-level traffic and timing analysis would not necessarily be
| effective against a well-constructed anonymous email setup.
|
| Unless there was something specific about the email's contents
| justifying it, the police seem very much at fault here for
| attacking someone based on an entirely unauthenticated,
| unverifiable, untraceable message. Society readily holds people
| who fall for obvious phishing attacks responsible for their
| negligence, and this seems similar.
| bbor wrote:
| To be fair this is very likely the work of "an angry troll",
| so I have some hope that they'll get caught. People don't
| tend to be at their best when they're raging, especially when
| that rage is directed at someone so seemingly non-offensive.
|
| Re: the last point, I would definitely not vote to have my
| police ignore anonymous tips, if it ever came up in a
| referendum. I think it's a pretty damn good use of tax
| dollars, as far as these things go.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Wouldn't it have been better to do the typical thing of
| sending a patrol unit out to see what might be going on,
| and then send out the rest of the squad if they request the
| back up?
| thfuran wrote:
| What percentage of tips like this do you think are
| fraudulent? How long is it worth delaying all the real
| ones as a matter of practice on the off chance that the
| tip is bad?
| dylan604 wrote:
| A lot actually, including this one. How many bomb threats
| are real? Ohio is struggling with this now because of
| some stupidity about eating pets. From a student wanting
| to delay an exam, or whatever else, they are rarely real.
| The Secret Service filters threats against protectees,
| the FBI is forwarded threats as well. The problem is that
| local coppers just don't have the training, and the SWAT
| teams are always needing something to do, so there's no
| delay to sending a full on response.
| babypuncher wrote:
| They shouldn't be bursting down peoples doors and placing
| them in handcuffs based on tips with such poor veracity. If
| there is no way to verify the identity of someone making a
| serious claim, then it shouldn't be taken _this_ seriously.
|
| Clearly the system as it exists today is ripe for abuse.
| tombert wrote:
| A part of me thinks that SWATting should be considered attempted
| murder (IANAL); you're sending in a bunch of heavily armed men
| into a house for no real reason, what the fuck do you think is
| going to happen?
|
| Maybe "murder" is a bit strong, but it certainly has led to
| people dying in the past, and it's not like "death" is a bizarre,
| unforeseeable consequence of sending in a dozen heavily armed
| people into an innocent person's house. If I shot a gun into the
| crowd in Times Square, and someone got hit and died, I don't
| think it'd be a very good defense to say "I was just trying to
| shoot into the crowd, I didn't mean to kill anyone!"
|
| Frankly, I don't get it, it's really not very funny, and carries
| a risk of jail time in the process.
| avidiax wrote:
| My understanding of US law is that if the police kill your
| SWATting victim, they will charge you with murder.
|
| It doesn't matter that you tricked someone else into pulling
| the trigger.
|
| Same thing can happen if your partner in crime dies.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Seems like SWATting investigations are a lot more effort than
| just claiming it as suicide by cop and calling it a day. So
| I'm slightly impressed that the requires effort option is
| taken at all
| hilux wrote:
| SWATting lets unimportant and powerless people, who may never
| have got much attention in real life ... suddenly get LOTS of
| attention, which feels validating and good. Like many crappy
| things, it originated in the world of gaming.
| Sanzig wrote:
| The perpetrator of the fatal 2017 Wichita swatting pled guilty
| to manslaughter, so it does seem that the (American) legal
| system treats it as a homicide.
| thfuran wrote:
| But that was involuntary manslaughter, which means it
| wouldn't have been attempted murder if it didn't result in a
| death. Or at least it would mean that if charges and events
| were more than loosely related.
| freeopinion wrote:
| When I was young I thought exactly the same way about drunk
| driving.
| linotype wrote:
| forget it
| blastonico wrote:
| Whaaat? If that's true we should start calling it a development
| cult instead of development community.
| scandox wrote:
| He's pointing out how utterly unsubstantiated and egregious
| the accusation is. Not inviting further suspicion.
| kalaksi wrote:
| Uhh, no.
| noobermin wrote:
| There definitely are tensions and the rust bros are extreme
| drama lovers but swatting seems a bit extreme for that beef.
| The rowdy troll seems most likely, no?
| dralley wrote:
| >the rust bros are extreme drama lovers
|
| "Rust bros" have been involved in approximately 0% of the
| Linux kernel drama that has surfaced to the level of being
| covered elsewhere, historically speaking.
|
| Linus Torvalds is not averse to "drama", and given the
| needlessness of your phrasing neither are you apparently.
| Stones and glass houses, etc.
| layer8 wrote:
| I believe it's not entirely impossible to be a rowdy troll
| and a Rust bro at the same time, hence the former wouldn't
| necessarily exclude the latter.
| linotype wrote:
| Like I said, it's absurd that they even mentioned it without
| anything to substantiate it.
| redprince wrote:
| I don't think that anyone from that community would ever stoop
| so low.
|
| For years now Germany is having an issue with organized trolls
| who target live streamers with swatting. A live stream of the
| resulting police action appears to be the main motivation.
|
| I cannot find anything in English about the phenomenon so
| here's an article from the German police union GdP:
| https://www.polizei-dein-partner.de/themen/internet-mobil/de...
| qayxc wrote:
| The difference between swatting in the US and Germany is pretty
| shocking. No one was forced to the ground, the developer had a
| calm chat with the police and the whole incident didn't look all
| that terrifying.
|
| I loved how the police explained that the live stream had to be
| shut down due to an ongoing investigation, but he might resume it
| soon, because the issue might get resolved quickly.
|
| Still a horrible and dangerous thing to do to somebody, but I'm
| glad the police were calm, polite, and professional.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| That's because this wasn't a swat team.
| qayxc wrote:
| How do you know? We didn't see everyone involved and have no
| picture of the entire situation.
| trhway wrote:
| The door didnt flew in, so it wasn't SWAT. And the guy was
| lucky he was programming and nod spreading butter on
| sandwich with a knife.
| nine_k wrote:
| SWAT = _Special_ Weapons and Tactics. Which usually
| involves blasting out the door, jumping inside while
| covered with body armor and / or tactical shields,
| expecting unusually fierce resistance with military-grade
| weapons, etc. This is warranted in _special_ cases, like
| storming a building held by terrorists.
|
| What was that is very _regular_ tactics and barely any
| weapons. It was a polite visit by police expecting
| reasonable cooperation from the target person, not heavy
| armed resistance.
| qayxc wrote:
| The SEK/MEK (i.e. German SWAT equivalent) operates
| differently. Shocking, I know, different countries,
| different procedures. Their daily operations look pretty
| much like this.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Presumably the cars were just there to witness the
| reasonable cooperation?
|
| > the whole street was full of about 10 (or more)
| emergency vehicles right up to the next intersection!!!
| about 10 police cars, 2 fire departments, 1 ambulance, an
| emergency doctor
| misnome wrote:
| It was in Germany.
| blueflow wrote:
| Lack of SEK uniforms.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Emphatic agreement.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I wonder how German police would look if Germany had similar
| rates of gun ownership, homicide, and gangs as the US?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Thankfully we don't get guns in supermarkets or as gift while
| opening bank accounts, and everyone is fine with it.
| shric wrote:
| Not making any statement on causality but I wanted to take a
| look...
|
| Firearm related deaths per 100,000[1]:
|
| Germany: 0.065
|
| US: 4.054 (62.4x higher)
|
| Firearm ownership per 100 people[2]:
|
| Germany: 19.6
|
| US: 120.5 (6.15x higher)
|
| If those stats are to be believed there's approximately 10x
| firearm deaths per gun in the US compared to Germany.
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_fir
| earm...
|
| [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civi
| lian...
| anonCoffee wrote:
| Now pull up the race of the perpetrators. If you're only
| looking at Whites, we have a comparable rate.
| SahAssar wrote:
| Do you think that is the only statistic that might have
| some correlation with this? Are there perhaps other
| things than race that might be just as or more relevant?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| I would argue that firearm ownership per 100 people is very
| misleading, you have more guns than owners in US. Comparing
| ownership per household (how many house holds have guns vs
| total number of households), the difference is way smaller,
| maybe less than 2x.
|
| For example I know a guy that has more than 400 firearms.
| For him it is a business, not a passion, he does not even
| carry one, but he is giving a wrong impression of gun
| ownership.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| For one, if you look at the types of firearms, in Germany
| you will find extremely few in the "self defence" or
| "assault rifle" category, mostly they are in the "hunting"
| or "marksmanship" categories.
|
| Then you have safe gun storage, which is mandatory in
| Germany and is subject to routine inspections.
|
| It is also mandatory to have an ownership license for any
| type of gun. You will be automatically denied this e.g. if
| you are formerly convicted of a serious crime, have mental
| health issues, or a history with drug use or violence. And
| you need to provide a reason for owning a gun, where "self
| defence" does not count.
|
| If you can prohibit people from owning guns made for
| killing lots of other people, and prohibit people who
| obviously should not own guns from getting them, you've
| made substantial progress.
| beaglesss wrote:
| It's mostly culture. I could get a gun+ammo in a week in
| Germany with no license. So could you and so did 'John
| Stark' (fgc9).
| SahAssar wrote:
| Are you arguing that the US has high numbers of homicide
| because of high gun ownership or high gun ownership because
| of high numbers of homicide?
| lolinder wrote:
| Your characterization is a bit more tame than their description
| of the interaction in the YouTube comments [0]:
|
| > I thought about making the incident accessible to a wider
| public through YT for 24 hours and ultimately decided to do so
| in order to document to us Germans and Europeans that SWAT'ing
| is not a phenomenon limited to the USA and is dangerous. also
| to document what kind of criminal energy there is and how
| completely inappropriately the police acted in my case in my
| opinion.
|
| > During a live stream while bi-secting a SPARC Linux bug in
| our ExactCODE GmbH office, the bell rang, the door was banged
| and the police were called. Unsuspecting - I assumed someone
| else was missing or there had been a break-in - when I opened
| the door I was confronted by a good 10 police officers with
| drawn weapons and at least one with what looked to me like a
| Taser. After I was identified, I was immediately handcuffed
| when I heard "hands out of my pockets" in the video!!! I had
| seen about 10 police officers in front of and in our office,
| and it wasn't until the following day that neighbors reported
| that the entire street, right up to the next intersection, was
| full of a dozen (or more) emergency vehicles!!! about 10 police
| cars, 2 fire departments, 1 ambulance, an emergency doctor
| etc...!!!
|
| > According to the conversation with the police, an email was
| sent to the police and another to other rescue workers saying
| that I had killed my wife and now wanted to take my own life. I
| assume an email of the type Hans Musterman 6345234@xyz? With
| his real name @t-oline, hardly anyone would provoke such an
| action. I find it completely disproportionate that the police
| go out with such a number of devices and personnel to a
| registered company registered as a GmbH and not first Google
| the name and company in order to presumably find my YouTube
| (and Twitch) activities directly.
|
| > A team of two or four officers, and if necessary a test call
| to the company, would have been more than sufficient given such
| low-quality evidence. Likewise, neither to identify myself nor
| to put handcuffs on me immediately. The police should act more
| prudently and balanced here and not allow themselves to be
| paraded like this.
|
| > But I would like to express my gratitude that I was otherwise
| treated reasonably humanely, that I survived it and that there
| was no other damage to property. It could have been much worse.
| If we had all just been on our lunch break, for example, the
| office would probably have been forced open by the fire
| department. To be honest, completely unacceptable for an IT
| company...! :-/
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIEwcTKUFCA (translated
| inline by Google Translate)
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| The similarity between swatting in US and Germany is pretty
| shocking: they raid and arrest people with no proof. Good job
| /s
| michaelteter wrote:
| While less dangerous than a US SWATting event, it is still absurd
| that he was taken away for questioning. They could have made a
| reasonable observation of the scenario and then given him an
| invitation to come to the station at a given time the next day.
|
| Taking someone in shouldn't happen unless there's an obvious
| crime and/or the target had a police record which would suggest
| they were a threat or were likely to flee instead of coming for
| an interview the following day.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Talking about an amazing alibi though. Just play back the live
| stream and see it wasn't me. If only Shaggy had that kind of
| alibi.
| jsheard wrote:
| Last year someone actually tried staging a livestream while
| committing murder, to manufacture an alibi. It didn't work.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-64494847
| cassianoleal wrote:
| > When I opened the door there was a team of police officers with
| their weapons drawn and what looked to me like Tasers. When I
| heard "hands out of my pockets" in the video, I was immediately
| handcuffed!!! I had seen about 10 police officers in front of and
| in our office, and it wasn't until the following day that
| neighbors reported that the whole street was full of about 10 (or
| more) emergency vehicles right up to the next intersection!!!
| about 10 police cars, 2 fire departments, 1 ambulance, an
| emergency doctor etc...!!!
|
| I do hope they investigate and find whomever was responsible for
| this email tip. At the very least I would want this person to
| repay the costs of this operation.
| lolinder wrote:
| To anyone else wondering: this comes from the dev's description
| of the episode in the YouTube comments section. Highly worth a
| read to get the whole story, it has information not in TFA.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIEwcTKUFCA
| richardboegli wrote:
| Dupe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41532098
| dang wrote:
| That's true, but the other thread is pretty bad, plus was a
| couple days ago, so I guess we can leave them unmerged.
| smileson2 wrote:
| Well at least it isn't another Hans Reiser situation
| Jyaif wrote:
| Website literally unreadable on mobile!
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Earlier discussion:
|
| _Linux kernel contributor swatted and handcuffed live on stream
| [video]_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41532098
| smsm42 wrote:
| It boggles the mind that you can just send an email to the police
| and they'd act as if whoever is targeted by that email is in fact
| a dangerous criminal and they'd arrest them and subject them to
| all kinds of humiliation and harassment and mistreatment - just
| based on a single unsubstantiated email.
|
| I thought this idiocy is endemic only to the US police but it
| looks like German police is the same too? And people just accept
| it as normal? I mean kudos to German police not rushing in with
| guns drawn and not treating the scene like they are in the Battle
| of Falluja, but it is still fscking insane - why did they have to
| cuff him and subject him to a hour-long questioning at the
| station - what did it take them an hour to find out? Why is all
| this considered normal?
| lolinder wrote:
| > I mean kudos to German police not rushing in with guns drawn
| and not treating the scene like they are in the Battle of
| Falluja,
|
| Sounds like the second half yes, but according to his story in
| the YouTube comments they did have weapons drawn (one being
| maybe a taser, but presumably the rest were firearms?):
|
| > Unsuspecting - I assumed someone else was missing or there
| had been a break-in - when I opened the door I was confronted
| by a good 10 police officers with drawn weapons and at least
| one with what looked to me like a Taser.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIEwcTKUFCA
| Marsymars wrote:
| > It boggles the mind that you can just send an email to the
| police and they'd act as if whoever is targeted by that email
| is in fact a dangerous criminal and they'd arrest them and
| subject them to all kinds of humiliation and harassment and
| mistreatment - just based on a single unsubstantiated email.
|
| Well it kind of makes sense if you believe people are generally
| going to follow social norms and not make false accusations for
| no reasons.
|
| Like, all you have to do in a crowded theatre is shout "FIRE",
| and everyone acts as if there's a dangerous situation and
| everyone is subjected to being forced out of the theatre based
| on a single unsubstantiated shout.
|
| Or if you put your mind to it, there are any number of false,
| anonymous allegations one can make with large asymmetries
| between the effort to make the allegation and the effort
| required to clean up the situation.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| It does not matter you believe, accusations should not be
| enough to swat someone. Accusations != proof and proof is
| what matters.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| The problem is that those are not typically accusations,
| those are reported emergencies.
|
| If you see your neighbor, for example, actively trying to
| kill his wife during a domestic incident, the last thing
| the police should do is sit on that report and carefully
| investigate whether that is true. They should act, because
| it might be a life or death scenario.
|
| What logically follows, is that false reports like this
| should come with very heavy punishment. I would say at
| least as grave as attempted murder.
| beaglesss wrote:
| Make it simple, equal ground rules for police as
| citizens. If it's illegal for me to point a gun at
| someone because someone told me a scary, it ought be the
| same as police. The dichotomy exhibits the standing army
| effect the founders warned against.
| mxscho wrote:
| As can be seen from the comments, the person concerned probably
| felt that he was being treated disproportionately. Regardless of
| the fact that it would of course be better for the police if they
| were better able to recognize fake reports, I found the situation
| to be handled rather well. This can be an example of how the
| average police interaction can go in a country where not every
| second citizen is expected to carry weapons or pose other
| threats. Being in handcuffs for a bunch of seconds in this
| unclear situation is not the fault of the police, but the
| swatter.
| lolinder wrote:
| He was greeted at the door by 10 police officers with their
| weapons drawn who immediately ordered his hands out of his
| pockets and handcuffed him. That's about how a swatting episode
| in the US usually goes. I see no evidence in the dev's
| description that would suggest that this incident was _less_
| likely to lead to a death than the typical police response in
| the US.
| mxscho wrote:
| I agree that just from the picture side, this looks very
| similar.
|
| However, in Germany, police is taught in a very different way
| than US: They are only allowed to use firearms as a last
| resort, and only to use it after non-lethal measures like the
| taser have been used beforehand.
|
| They are also asked to only use it to wound, not to kill
| suspects. In contrast, US police is e.g. trained to shoot at
| the center of mass as they argue that anything else would be
| more difficult under stressful circumstances.
|
| I see the situation itself as the problem (that fake reports
| can lead to it), but realistically, there is probably no way
| to avoid them compeletely, so just looking at the way how
| such interactions are going on from there on can make the
| difference as well.
| lolinder wrote:
| Just to be clear what we're talking about: I can find
| evidence of exactly three swatting deaths _ever_ , with one
| being a heart attack, not gunfire. So two cases of police
| opening fire due to a prank call in the entire US in the
| entire history of swatting.
|
| Those cases are unacceptable, but how confident are you
| that it's not that Germany hasn't had one yet by dint of
| much smaller population sizes and therefore fewer police
| calls, rather than different police training? Again: these
| officers _had their weapons drawn_.
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