Comments on: Brian Krebs talks to hacker who may have SWATted him and attacked Wired's Mat Honan

By: jhoosier

jhoosier — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:58:00 +0000

Yeah, I’m as wary as the next guy about abusive police power, but this sounds like a fairly decent response.

By: R. Whitney

R. Whitney — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:39:00 +0000

toyg, actually these crimes are considered felonies, unlike your average bus stop vandalism.
The problem however is gaining evidence, showing means+motive+opportunity. Authorities who respond also need to reach out to federal authorities, as it is very likely that the people who actually committed the crime are going to be out of the PD’s jurisdiction.
After that you have hours of collaborating evidence between the two agencies. Then federal authorities need to prove that they have enough evidence to gain a search warrant from a judge.
The steps that are involved make it a long process, where as us internet dwellers have a much easier time tracking those down who actually committed the crime within only a matter of days or hours.
This, of course, is a very unfortunate flaw in our Judicial system.

By: R. Whitney

R. Whitney — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:32:00 +0000

Bullshit! I’ve been researching the SWAT’ings for 6 months and Phobia never came up as a blip on the radar. Never even heard of the dude!

By: slabman

slabman — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:15:00 +0000

You’re right. It was actually the taxpayers who pay for the police who were defrauded.

By: wizardru

wizardru — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:12:00 +0000

Cory,why do you describe the cops in this situation as ‘trigger-happy’. Everything I read in the article makes them sound exactly the opposite, unless you use that descriptor simply because they had their guns drawn? From Krebs article:
“One of the officers asked if it was okay to enter my house, and I said sure. Then an officer who was dressed more like a supervisor approached me and asked if I was the guy who had filed a police report about this eventuality about six months earlier. When I responded in the affirmative, he spoke into his handheld radio, and the police began stowing their rifles and the cuffs were removed from my wrists. He explained that they’d tried to call me on the phone number that had called them (my mobile), but that there was no answer. He apologized for the inconvenience, and said they were only doing their jobs. I told him no hard feelings. He told me that the problem of SWATting started on the West Coast and has been slowly making its way east.”

This sounds pretty reasonable to me. They arrived with a warning of a crime in progress and approached cautiously. As soon as it was clear what was really going on, they packed up, apologized and went home, promising to be smarter in the future. They’d even tried to verify before they got there. This isn’t ‘the man’ running wild here.

By: angusm

angusm — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:46:00 +0000

We have met the enemy, and he is … a pimply-faced near-teenager who lives with his parents and whose dad would really like him to stop talking to the reporter NOW.

By: toyg

toyg — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:54:00 +0000

They’re just random vandals, of the online variety. The DOJ cares about them as much as they care about thugs vandalizing bus stops.

Things would be different if they were, say, activists with a political agenda threatening the profits of some corporation. Then the hammer would fall down hard.

Fucking priorities, how do they work?

By: knoxblox

knoxblox — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:08:00 +0000

Don’t worry. Soon, it’ll be as commonplace as “We take this matter very seriously”.

By: pjcamp

pjcamp — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 02:38:00 +0000

Kind of amazing the DOJ doesn’t seem to care.

By: Daemonworks

Daemonworks — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:17:00 +0000

It’s more than OK, it’s actually correct, unlike defraud which, to paraphrase a wise man, does not mean what Cory thinks it means.

de·fraud – verb (used with object)
to deprive of a right, money, or property by fraud: Dishonest employees defrauded the firm of millions of dollars.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:08:00 +0000

“Just to prove a point that, like…the security is breachable.”

Those crazy hackers, always proving points in such outlandish and destructive ways… almost like it’s an excuse!

By: Substance McGravitas

Substance McGravitas — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:46:00 +0000

someone defrauded his local police department into

“Tricked” is okay.

By: pfooti

pfooti — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:16:00 +0000

Fascinating that “Christ What An Asshole” is such a useful tag to click on in this blog.

By: Jim Saul

Jim Saul — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:13:00 +0000

There’s a whole lot of activity with stolen credit cards and social security numbers in that article. Kind of amazing how much evidence of major felonies these guys are posting to their youtube accounts. Well, maybe not so amazing.