Lets talk about "Swatting" and loss of freedom in America

[MrPopo]

Do kids get told the stories about crying wolf or chicken little anymore?

Sadly, I doubt it is children who are engaging in this behavior, and I suspect that most of the people sophisticated enough to do it successfully are legally adults.

Legally adults, but still children.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Legally adults, but still children.

Undoubtedly.

[Hobie-wan]

Do kids get told the stories about crying wolf or chicken little anymore?

Sadly, I doubt it is children who are engaging in this behavior, and I suspect that most of the people sophisticated enough to do it successfully are legally adults.

Legally adults, but still children.

Well my point being that those stories are about lying and/or creating false alarms, so if you hear them and are taught that's a bad thing as a small child, hopefully you won't engage in that behavior when you grow up. I heard them all the time as a kid, but what about kids born in the early 90s? What about now?

[ninjainspandex]

I actually had a close call with being swatted back a few months ago, before I knew it was a real serious thing. I was playing Cod ghosts with a friend and we were completely destroying the other team, apparently a member on the other team really didn't like this and continued to shit talk me, he claimed he was a famous hacker/swatter named Clerke and he was tracking my IP address to find out where we live and was going to call the police saying we just murdered our family and have them send in a swat team or hack our bank accounts and leave us broke. I thought he was just some asshole talking shit, but he sounded dead serious it gave me goosebumps. He actually figured out my friend lives in Lake Forest Illinoise and that is when me and my friend dropped out of the Lobby. Who knows if he was actually serious, but I'm just glad I didn't stick around to find out. Needless to say I stick to party chat from now on.

[Ack]

I actually had a close call with being swatted back a few months ago, before I knew it was a real serious thing. I was playing Cod ghosts with a friend and we were completely destroying the other team, apparently a member on the other team really didn't like this and continued to shit talk me, he claimed he was a famous hacker/swatter named Clerke and he was tracking my IP address to find out where we live and was going to call the police saying we just murdered our family and have them send in a swat team or hack our bank accounts and leave us broke. I thought he was just some asshole talking shit, but he sounded dead serious it gave me goosebumps. He actually figured out my friend lives in Lake Forest Illinoise and that is when me and my friend dropped out of the Lobby. Who knows if he was actually serious, but I'm just glad I didn't stick around to find out. Needless to say I stick to party chat from now on.

I would suggest, if this were to happen again, to call the non-emergency line for the police and tell them what is happening. Say you're playing a game, the guy threatened you, so on and so forth. That way, if he did try to go through with it, your local police are already aware of the situation. And if he was threatening your bank account, the same thing applies. Call them, explain the situation, and tell them you're worried about the threat.

Or the next time some punk kid tries to start talking trash, reply with a deadpan voice "That's nice, kid. I work for the FBI. Do you really want to continue this?" And hope he doesn't call your bluff...or work for the FBI. Seems easy enough.

[Flake]

Solution: Play online through a VPN using a screen name that has no relationship whatsoever with your actual social media presence.

Source: This is how the people who do this do it without getting caught.

[Hobie-wan]

FYI it's easy to look up an IP address and find the general area where someone lives. There are websites to do it and you'll get the general neighborhood since the ISP will have an IP range set for pieces of the network in a neighborhood. That's how I check that new member HamburgerMcJohnson who likes "football, shopping, and beer"* and puts their location as USA is actually SpammerMcDickface somewhere in the east. I doubt there was anything to worry about other than playing with immature dickbags that couldn't handle losing unless they were really motivated and you and your friend are loose with information on the net or use high profile sites that get hacked or filled with malware ads all the time.

*Yes, some spammers put profile info that's stereotypically American sounding like that thinking they'll actually fool someone.

[ninjainspandex]

I actually had a close call with being swatted back a few months ago, before I knew it was a real serious thing. I was playing Cod ghosts with a friend and we were completely destroying the other team, apparently a member on the other team really didn't like this and continued to shit talk me, he claimed he was a famous hacker/swatter named Clerke and he was tracking my IP address to find out where we live and was going to call the police saying we just murdered our family and have them send in a swat team or hack our bank accounts and leave us broke. I thought he was just some asshole talking shit, but he sounded dead serious it gave me goosebumps. He actually figured out my friend lives in Lake Forest Illinoise and that is when me and my friend dropped out of the Lobby. Who knows if he was actually serious, but I'm just glad I didn't stick around to find out. Needless to say I stick to party chat from now on.

I would suggest, if this were to happen again, to call the non-emergency line for the police and tell them what is happening. Say you're playing a game, the guy threatened you, so on and so forth. That way, if he did try to go through with it, your local police are already aware of the situation. And if he was threatening your bank account, the same thing applies. Call them, explain the situation, and tell them you're worried about the threat.

Or the next time some punk kid tries to start talking trash, reply with a deadpan voice "That's nice, kid. I work for the FBI. Do you really want to continue this?" And hope he doesn't call your bluff...or work for the FBI. Seems easy enough.

In hindsight that is what we should of done, it was just so creepy when I found it that this stuff actually does happen. How disturbed does someone have to be that they are willing to ruin someones life over losing a silly video game. Its a fucked up world we live in.

[Hobie-wan]

In hindsight that is what we should of done, it was just so creepy when I found it that this stuff actually does happen. How disturbed does someone have to be that they are willing to ruin someones life over losing a silly video game. Its a fucked up world we live in.

But mommy said I was a special snowflake and I'm a winnar! I cannot lose!

[Flake]

But mommy said I was a special snowflake and I'm a winnar! I cannot lose!

I don't think it needs to be pointed out who the special flake is around these parts.