Man Hacks 911 System, Sends SWAT on Bogus Raid 754
An anonymous reader writes "The Orange County Register reports that a 19 year old from Washington state broke into the Orange County California 911 emergency system. He randomly selected the name and address of a Lake Forest, California couple and electronically transferred false information into the 911 system. The Orange County California Sheriff's Department's Special Weapons and Tactics Team was immediately sent to the home of a couple with two sleeping toddlers. The SWAT team handcuffed the husband and wife before deciding it was a prank. Says the article, 'Other law enforcement agencies have seen similar breaches into their 911 systems as part of a trend picked up by computer hackers in the nation called "SWATting"'"
Stupid & dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stupid & dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid & dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stupid & dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stupid & dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
It's usually not all that difficult to tell the difference between a police raid and a home invasion. The cops will not even attempt to be subtle once they start moving in.
I'm slow, but I get it right every time now! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah! Well, it took me a while, but I've gotten to the point where I don't even have to wake up to tell the difference!
Just last week I woke up to find my already splintered and duct-taped door kicked in yet again, and I'd slept right through it! I'm pretty it was the police based on what they took and what they didn't take.
See, I've gotten to the point where I keep two packages handy whenever I go to bed: one with ID, a personal statement, some donuts, coffee, milk, etc., and the other with a few valuables and convincing amount of cash I round up before I go to bed. I give the appropriate one to whoever breaks in that night. I used to mess up *all* the time -- and while, sure, the thugs appreciated the donuts, they'd always want the valuables, too, even though they'd get nicer about it if the donuts were good. And you could see the police really had their feelings hurt when they thought I was trying to buy them off, and nobody wants that.
But I've gotten it right the last 15 times -- even last week, when I woke up in the morning to find out I'd slept through it all. The donuts were gone and the valuables were still there! I'm looking forward to the time when this will all be sorted out and I can just buy myself another door and stop spending all this money on donuts, duct tape, and miscellaneous valuables, but in the meanwhile, I'm glad I've adapted and learned to cope before doing anything really stupid like overreacting when someone breaks in.
Re:Stupid & dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
Sitting down to eat dinner when a swat team breaks down the door, yes. The police, however, favor pre-dawn raids. You presume that someone would have the same capacity to tell the difference in the 1.7 seconds between "sound asleep", "guys with guns yelling at me", and "fire off as many rounds at my attackers as possible".
You also presume someone would care about the difference, rather than considering the police just as dangerous (if not more) than most actual criminals.
Re:Stupid & dangerous (Score:4, Informative)
He did try to defend himself (Score:4, Informative)
Would not have been murder (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Manslaughter is reserved for places where you didn't intend for there to be a death, and it would be hard to argue that you weren't intending someone to die when you send a van full of armed men to their house. The kid is lucky as hell; if someone had died, they'd have charged him with the absolute maximums.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So he needs better weapons...
If you can't kill all members of a SWAT team invading your property, then you need to rethink your strategy for defending yourself
Okay, having rtfa (Score:5, Informative)
They handcuffed the homeowner because he went out in his skivvies with a kitchen knife because he thought he heard people on the lawn. I guess he saved his door getting kicked in, but I'm not sure he sees it as a good thing.
Re:Okay, having rtfa (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like he picked the family at random (from his earlier entry into AOL's systems), then called them to verify their name and address. It seems to me that he tried to come up with a scenario that would generate the maximum possible response from the police, which is about what he got. If the homeowner was carrying a gun instead of a knife, he'd most likely be dead now. That was probably the high score that Ellis wanted to hit.
We'll see if anyone ever leaks how he did it. Could have been as simple as a compromised VOIP switch sending bogus ANI data down a trunk. Or maybe he entered a record directly into the dispatch system (which isn't supposed to be connected to the net).
At least he wasn't smart enough to fully cover his tracks.
Re:Stupid & dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
This may have something to do with the divorce rate for cops:
[sultry] "Hey, honey, look what I put on for you."
"Police, wow."
[confused] "Huh?"
"Police, I like it."
[hurt] "Knock that off!" {*sniff*}
"Police, I can't."
[angry] "Goodbye."
hawk
...with two sleeping toddlers (Score:4, Funny)
Forged CID (Score:3, Insightful)
It sounds to me that this was not really a systems penetration type of 'hack', rather the kid forged his Caller ID.
Re:Forged CID (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While his hack could turn out to be something that simple, my understanding is that emergency response systems use the ANI identification information (Automatic Number Identification, the actual identification information that phone companies use for billing) rather than the Caller ID (easy to spoof, block, etc. and in general much less accurate than people give it credit for).
Proxy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So if he got someone else to make the phony call to send SWAT to the wrong house, it would be "assault with an assault weapon by proxy by proxy"?
dealing with innocents (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally don't condone the "prankster" jerk's behavior in this incident, or anything similar.
However, I have to say that a silver lining in this sort of incident is that it might help the more zealous members of law enforcement (ever more beefy, ever more armored, ever more anonymous, ever more hair-triggered) remember that there are innocent people out there who don't deserve a knee in the back, a taser in the ass, or a broken door. A citizen who is drunk at a restaurant, or who is loud at a rally does not equate to being dangerous or resisting.
When you assume, it makes an ass of you and me. When a cop assumes, all too often he reaches for his sidearm.
It's asshats like this one (Score:3, Insightful)
The real crime here (Score:4, Funny)
How does this keep happening? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Surely it's possible to run an internal network (ethernet or whatever) in such a way as to make it completely inaccessible from the outside world, while running an email and web gateway?
The problem is that you can get in through the web and email gateways. Any interface to the outside world has the potential to be hacked, especially when the interface is one that naturally lets things through (such as email or web sites). The hacker can now attack the server software directly or they can try and sneak something malicious through. If the email server lets a virus through, then there's plenty of ways that an attacker could control that computer and wreak havoc.
That's also not counting on
Jerk.... (Score:4, Funny)
Jail time need (Score:5, Insightful)
The victimized family should bring a a civil suit and make sure they get a monetary judgement that docks his wages for years to come. If he gets away with it, we'll be hearing about him again.
Stupid Kid. Lucky Kid. (Score:3, Informative)
Phillip Dick story? (Score:3, Funny)
At which point the cog in the machine becomes the hero in various hollywood ways and somehow joins forces with the prankster that has some far reaching political message wrapped around his pranks.
New hacker category (Score:5, Funny)
Whitehat Grayhat Blackhat Asshat
It may be the police's / politician's own fault for having the unprotected system and bla bla bla... But when they catch the guy who did it, 5+ years in the slammer I say. That's the kind of situation when you can take the Hacker Manifesto and wipe your ass with it.
More details on how he did this... (Score:5, Informative)
Ugh, more TDD abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
At any rate, guy I know owns a computer store. So he gets a TDD call from someone overseas who just happens to need his no-name local shop to ship out a ton of high end hardware, next day
Not a minor (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
The cops should be held responsible for acting with preparation and intent to utilize lethal force based solely upon such readily compromised intelligence, and the flaw should be fixed immediately. The hacker--an idiot. But everyone knows the old saying--fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The cops have been getting fooled around the country for years and still done nothing to correct the situation.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good grief (Score:4, Interesting)
I think this guy [wikiquote.org] said it well:
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree wholeheartedly with this. Though I do commend the cops in question on having made the right decision and they didn't shoot the guy. But it could easily have gone the other way. With a little more knowledge by the teenager he could've set the cops up for it even more than he did and made it that much more likely.
Assassination by tricking the cops into doing it for you has now been proven to be possible. It's only a matter of time. And I bet if it had gone down that way instead of the way it did, we'd never even be hearing about this case.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if orders do get sent to SWAT saying "kill person xyz at address abc", they aren't going to do anything because they'll immediately recognize that it's not real. The only reason SWAT members discharge their weapons is if there is an immediate danger to themselves or others (I.E. madman pointing a gun at police or shooting from a window at people below).
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's very true. But it would be stupid to do that, and I clearly somehow manage to miscommunicate my point in my post if that's what you think I meant.
To be perfectly clear, here are the steps you would follow:
Poof, there's a recipe for a likely 'accidental' shooting of an innocent person by the cops. You've basically told them there's a horribly deranged and dangerous person somewhere and then primed the person to react belligerently in the first instant the person notices anything.
It wouldn't work as well if your target were a woman because of cultural conditioning, but you might still be able to pull it off.
Even better, because the cops never, ever admit they're wrong, ever, the person then ends up framed for some bogus crime so the shooting seems justified.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not saying it would necessarily cause the person to be shot, but it would certainly raise the odds, don't you think?
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
If the bogus orders were "the people inside the house just shot a cop!" then unquestionably the trigger fingers would have been quite a bit happier.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason SWAT members discharge their weapons is if there is an immediate danger to themselves or others (I.E. madman pointing a gun at police or shooting from a window at people below).
Yeah, that's what our firearms cops said too, right before they shot the guy carrying a table leg in a bag based on nothing but a poorly executed confrontation (easy to say with hindsight, of course) after a tip-off from a paranoid guy in a bar. Oh, and that little incident on the London Underground, where they shot the guy for getting on a tube train. (Apparently he was exhibiting suspicious behaviour by getting off a bus on the way to the station, then getting back on again; the observing officer had failed to notice that the underground station he had got off to enter the first time happened to be closed that day, and the controlling officers interpreted his actions as counter-surveillance techniques. This was just one in a string of ****-ups that led to the man's death.)
I appreciate that cops with guns are in an inherently difficult position. Make the wrong call, and someone you're supposed to protect dies because you didn't take out the criminal; make the wrong call the other way, and you kill an innocent civilian. But don't ever kid yourself that just because these guys are cops with some firearms training that either their physical or emotional reactions are perfect in a high-stress situation. Humans just don't work that way, no matter how well-intentioned and well-trained.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Informative)
The officer involved, a 17-year veteran with long tactical experience, pulled up in a car behind the undercover officer's. "As the officer came out," Horan said, "he was bringing his weapon up. In the course of bringing his weapon up, it discharged. He has no real explanation how."
The officer's name was not released.
Horan said the officer shouted "Police!" at Culosi. "Right after 'Police!'" Horan said, "it went pow."
Culosi was killed almost instantly.
Horan said the bullet entered Culosi's left side, traveled through his body and was recovered on his right side. Horan said the officer was aware that he should not have had a finger on the trigger and that he should not have had his
Cheryl Noel feared criminal intruders had broken into her home and grabbed a lawfully registered gun and held it pointed at the floor, the suit states.
Artson kicked in her bedroom door with his boot and, without identifying himself or telling Noel to drop her weapon, shot her three times, including once after she already had slumped to the floor [examiner.com]
Re:Good grief (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good grief (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't the point to NOT have SWAT teams show up at random addresses?
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Informative)
It's not so much the act of informing them, but rather the act of breaking into the system in the first place.
Picture this: you come home from a days work. There's this teenager sitting at your dinner table waiting, and when you come in he says "Dude, did you know your lock is really easy to pick? Change it. I promise I didn't take anything. Later!".
I know one kid who is taking a quick trip to jail for breaking into my house . . .
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd agree with you if the hackers had told the cops about the flaw and they didn't fix it - but in this case, they just exploited the flaw for their own amusement.
Tell the cops about it? Are you fucking insane? He would have been arrested and charged with some kind of terrorism. If he knows of a security issue, that means he was testing security -- a.k.a. "hacking." Sadly, this was probably the only way to point out the flaws in the system without ending up in prison. Unfortunately he didn't cover his tracks well enough.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good grief (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
scenario: Instead of a knife the homeowner gets out a gun (who cares what kind, pistol, shotgun, rifle). He goes outside and sees a cop in shadows under a bush and points the gun at him/her... all perfectly legal to him since all he can't tell is that these are prowlers trespassing on his property. (I am assuming California is a state that allows a home owner to actively defend his/her home with a gun. Regardless, the 'hacker' could have caused this to happen in a state where it is permissible.) The other police see him point the gun and shoot him. This could have been the result of this and would not have the fault of the police nor reflect badly on their training or on the quality of their work. It would be well within their training since they think the home owner is an armed and dangerous felon.
There are many permutations of this scenario.
Bottom line: you are wrong. Anyone, including the police can say that, 'this was an irresponsible and dangerous action the hacker took and someone could have been killed.' And by saying it, it certainly does not indicate any lack of confidence in the police training. And I don't believe the police are infallible, nor do I think that they believe they are infallible. Otherwise they wouldn't train so hard to make sure they do things as well as they possibly can. Why train if you are infallible?
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
SWAT teams specifically deal with "high-risk" warrants, i.e. cases where they are trying to arrest people who are believed to be armed and dangerous. Or do you think that if you commit a violent crime, you should be able to just go home and be perfectly safe from any form of police response, like in a video game?
In the situation we're discussing, the 911 system has been 'hacked' and the SWAT team are given bogus information. They don't know it's bogus: they're responding to the kind of dangerous situation that they are supposed to respond to. If someone at that premises appears to be an imminent threat to them, of course they're going to respond with force, often lethal force.
This is the reason for the outrage: you're sending people who are amped up and expecting to encounter life-or-death situations to some random person's house. If someone points a comb or remote control at them in poor lighting, they're going to assume it's a gun (they wouldn't be there if the person wasn't considered too dangerous for the regular police).
One big question is, why is a purely electronic hack able to mobilise a SWAT team? Surely there should be more checks and balances than that. Why is it possible to mobilise a response like this without someone in charging physically seeing and verifying a warrant?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, you can't really expect them to go around shooting people on their days off, can you?
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
What if the guy whose house this is happened to be at home cleaning his gun in his basement or in some way looked threatening to someone who was looking to assault his house? Sure, SWAT is trained not to shoot first and ask questions later, but I wouldn't be particularly happy to be flashbanged or tear gassed because some little shit can send a SWAT team to my house for no reason.
And of course, people who happened to be armed tend to look unfavorably at people attacking their home, whether they yell "Police" or not upon busting down their door. Sending a special weapons and tactics unit anywhere is a firefight waiting to happen.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm afraid that I'd have to disagree with this. At least compared with normal officers, SWAT is indeed trained to shoot first.
This can be considered acceptable if SWAT usage is restricted to high risk situations, where not using these tactics is likely to result in more deaths, but some areas have them serving most of the warrents - even on unarmed, non-violent dentists moonlighting as bookies [washingtonpost.com].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most officers can justify quite a bit of force. I'll note that the officers you pointed to DID go to trial. While they were ultimately acquitted, I'd tend to say that the fact that it went to trial indicates that it was exhaustively investigated.
It varies by department and jurisdiction; there can be huge differences between county and city police in the same area. One city'
Re:Good grief (Score:4, Insightful)
It's what we have when we live in a post-911/tripwire society. Shoot first, ask questions later. The fact that teh swat can be tricked into overkill mode/business as usual like this is quite frightening.
Re:Good grief (Score:4, Insightful)
So what would have them do? Ignore a 911 call? Wait around playing cards while a patrol call investigated a situation they might not have been able to handle (had the call been real)?
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
HELLO???
Try "Post-Nixon's initiation of the War On Drugs".
Now, it's perhaps unfair to blame you for not knowing the entire history of something that probably started before you were born (I was in grade school, but it had an "educational" impact back then), but ... surely you've heard of no-knock warrants and their related atrocities which have been going on for decades and decades???
Bipartisian and nothing to do with the GWOT.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Informative)
Dominos can find the right house, you'd think the cops could. Then again, when it's not right the pizza guy isn't going to be kicking in the door holding a gun.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Interesting)
It's all fun and games until someone gets shot for resisting arrest?
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/ [cato.org]
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I'm more afraid of the police than those they're supposed to protect me against.
'Prank' a very *poor* choice of words (Score:3, Insightful)
'Prank' is a very poor choice of words. A prank does not put innocent people in mortal jeopardy. SWAT teams are trained for high risk arrests and when they make an entry they are a fraction of a second away from firing. If that innocent husband or wife accidentally made a suspicious/threatening move they may have been killed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
SWAT are paramilitary - just like soldiers in Iraq, they're generally much more primed to 'shoot first and ask questions later'. This, while acceptable in high risk situations like clearing buildings with terrorists in them, hostage situations, and active shooter cases, you don't want them running around in active mode in normal areas/situations.
SWAT has been known to kill people [cato.org] when stuff like this happens.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"just a prank"?
This boy intentionally caused a highly trained urban assault squad to burst into an innocent family's home under false pretenses that there was a murder in progress. They had been told by the "prankster" that there was someone with a live firearm inside the house--someone who had already supposedly shot the "prankster" and his sister. This was more than "just a prank"....the people in the house are VERY lucky that nobody was hurt.
Re:Good grief (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider that you could probably make $30,000 per year as a bus driver. You would have to rob at least 5 banks per year to come close (No taxes
An average 'tech' job probably earns you more than the most active bank robber.
Re:So what state is the crime? (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll think that until you end up being on the short end of the stick. It's nice to have the police show up and you getting a few round from a MP5 popped into your chest for trying to make heads or tails of the commotion. Don't think it won't happen sooner or later. I know if someone was beating in my door at 3 a.m. the first things I'm reaching for is a flashlight and my H&K 45.
Defacing a webpage is funny. Risking some unknown family's lives over a prank is just idiotic.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Its almost certainly a felony in any case. Crossing state lines makes it more likely to also be a federal crime; but the two categories are orthogonal.
Re:One really stupid hack (Score:4, Insightful)
Then something would be done about it.
I remember reading stories (here i think) that people have already died because of resisting mistaken police swat teams breaking into their house without warning in the middle of the night.
Re:One really stupid hack (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah. I get pretty embarrassed watching goth kids have sex too.
Obligatory and most likely ignored... (Score:5, Insightful)
So do we all feel safer after the establishment of Homeland Security and the billions of dollars spent in upgrading the ease of violating our civil liberties here at home in the name of protecting those same distinctions that make America different? This is another nail in the coffin of fear that we're building for ourselves here in the name of safety. When our most basic methods of crying out for help to our protectors can so easily be broken and used by the tormentors I feel a tremendous sense of loss for what we could have done with the same motivation and money that has been spent on this fear mongering compaign with the almost transparent attempts to simply gain power using the real threats that we face as a shield. America is great because of the people who don't love it or leave it, but protect it and improve it. The swearing in of the presidency is the paramount symbol of this nation, to make an oath to protect America against threats forign and domestic and uphold the constitution. It's not a choice between the two. For without the constitution there would have been no America to protect. At least no America where you would have the rights that allow you to be protected in the first place.
It's sad that the most basic of methods to protect the people is so vulnerable.
Re:Scary that a computer report alone... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you didn't read the story.
It was a PHONE CALL. He somehow forged the CID and it looked like the call came from that address.
So what you would like is this," Someone with an assault rife is trying to break into my home". We will send you some help as soon as we get permission?
"We live in a time where fear is threatening *WAY* more people than terrorism ever could." Yep in in this case it is your fear of the goverment that is outside of reason. The police seemed to have acted properly in this case and showed good restraint. The man "heard" a noise in his backyard and went out with a "KITCHEN KNIFE" to see what it was. Brilliant... So the SWAT team after being told that there was someone with a weapon at that location runs into a guy in his PJs with a knife! And they didn't shoot him.
If you got to be arrested, be it by swat (Score:5, Insightful)
They are the real pro's and will NOT shoot you just because you got a knife. That is because unlike regular police they get to train, and train, and train, and train. A regular cop is someone who was given some extremely basic weapons training ages ago, vists a static shooting range every year or so and then in a split second has to go from ordinary average day routine into making a life and death decision.
CAR ANOLOGY! (Didn't think I could do it in this story, well I can)
You are an ordinary driver, you might have one day learned about what to do if you get into a skid, you may even have taken some training, but when you are just driving around and suddenly it all goes wrong and you are expected to suddenly get that 2 tons of metal out of a high speed skid, you probably will NOT do it as the book says.
Unlike a rally driver, to whom this is routine.
IF we want our regular police to be highly capable, and react correctly in an emergency, we better be prepared to pay them for endless training. Are we? No.
Most people understand this, if you got a medical emergency, where do you go, the hospital OR your family doctor? To a building filled with strangers who deal with emergencies ALL the time, or the guy you know and trust but whose last training was 30 years ago?
The swat team did what they are trained to do, lets hope this guys cellmate does what he has been training to do. He is going to get his ports probed.
Read the story (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, had they gone to some other random house, then I'd be with you on needing authorization, however this was, as far as they could tell, an emergency call from the resident in need of immediate help. Given that the emergency call involved drugs, a shooting and a potential hostage situation, this was an appropriate response. When you call for help, that's all the authorization they should need. The failure is in the identification system, not in the response. Had this been a real call, that's the kind of power you want to send, especially if there's a potential hostage situation.
The cops did everything right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to the world of emergency response, where seconds matter and people get killed every day.
Sure, there's a lot of fascist crap going on in the US today. Is the government out of control? You betcha.
But in this situation?
A call comes in, saying that one person is dead and another is ABOUT TO BE MURDERED, and the cops respond appropriately - they burst in with guns drawn and in overwhelming force. And, the cops even have the presence of mind to take down the armed homeowner (who, from hi
Re:Drugs (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, That's the problem with people hacking the 911 system to dispatch SWAT teams, good call.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe if drugs were legal, the guy would have just made up a different crime instead to get the SWAT team to go to the house.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People will still get baked on legal drugs, and if taken improperly, they will proceed to have the same violent altercations that they had before. They'll just do it with less involvement from organized crime.
And legalized drugs doesn't mean there still wouldn't be a black market. Guns are legal (in the US), but there is still a thr
Re:Drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats not a problem, our bodies have evolved to be addicted to things. Millions are already addicted to sugar, caffene, etc. Do kids deal alcohol at school with guns? No because alcohol is readily available everywhere. If your kid gets addicted to drugs, its really the same as if they get addicted to television or sugar or lack of physical activity. Thats bad parenting, but we shouldnt stop people from CHOOSING to be bad parents. If it gets really bad, they take your children away. I would imagine drug use would be treated similarly.
People do not currently knock over 7/11s for alcohol or cigarette money. In any case, the crime should be robbery, no matter the motivations behind it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The system should have been secure yes. This idiot should have known that sending a SWAT team off on a wild goose chase to someone's house was a dumb idea.
The ability to commit a crime is not a justification for committing that crime.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if you might feel the same way if you (or someone you care about) was on the receiving end of such an 'awesome' prank?
What if someone had died? Would it still be awesome?
<sigh>
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because someone dies doesn't mean something isn't awesome.
Plenty of awesome things result in death.
Also, it's not like there's a shortage of people on earth.
Re:Really risky hack (Score:4, Insightful)