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Other Stuff That Has Little To Do With PLA => Phones in the News => Topic started by: rbcp on August 02, 2012, 10:56:14 AM

Title: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on August 02, 2012, 10:56:14 AM
Miley Cyrus's home surrounded by police after prank home invasion call (http://www.examiner.com/article/miley-cyrus-s-home-surrounded-by-police-after-prank-home-invasion-call) - LAPD received a phone call that made them believe they needed to rush to her house. They got a 911 call that said shots were fired and that there was a home invasion at her house. They showed up with their guns drawn of course, but found nothing going on at all.

How much you wanna bet that the same people who were doing all the Xbox SWAT calls also did this one.  I think this is going to be their new thing.  SWATTING celebrities will make the news and it's super easy for anyone to get giant lists of celebrities home addresses.  I predict lots more of these.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: polaris on August 04, 2012, 08:46:52 PM
the xbox stuff is pretty crazy too. i guess this is the first high profile swatting thats happened, huh? with swatting there is a lot of things that have to happen i think, i dont want to speak about it publicly to keep from putting any info out there about it. certainly going way too far with things.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on October 03, 2012, 05:26:26 PM
Ashton Kutcher's home targeted for 'swatting' prank (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-ashton-kutcher-home-invasion-prank-20121003,0,3668526.story)

Ashton Kutcher is the latest famous name to be associated with a "swatting" — a malicious prank in which a seemingly serious distress call to police turns out to be a false alarm with a spoofed phone number, aimed at luring a SWAT team to swarm a particular location.

Police hurried to Kutcher's Lake Hollywood home late Wednesday morning after a woman called police — more on that "call" later — and claimed to be hiding in a closet because there was an armed man inside the home, L.A. Now reported. The actor was not home at the time.


There's video of the SWAT team ordering a guy on the ground on this one.  I knew this would be their new thing.  Oddly enough, no Xbox SWATting has happened since the Miley Cyrus thing.  Wonder which celeb is next.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on October 10, 2012, 11:15:43 AM
Hey look, Justin Bieber got swatted! (http://www.tmz.com/2012/10/10/justin-bieber-swatting-prank-911/) A 911 call came in last night ... the caller claiming someone was waving a gun right next to Justin's L.A. home.  Police sent the cavalry ... cars, helicopters, the works.  Sources tell us ... Justin's security let the cops in, and they did a sweep of the house but found nothing.  We're also told cops did a similar sweep of 2 other homes on the block.

Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: BishoP on October 11, 2012, 10:57:14 AM
its an epidemic!
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on November 26, 2012, 02:51:31 PM
Simon Cowell gets SWATTED (http://www.tmz.com/2012/11/26/simon-cowell-swatting-911-call-beverly-hills/)  The female caller claimed Simon was bound and gagged in the bathroom of his Beverly Hills estate. We're told cops responded in force but found nothing.  Simon was at home at the time. It's the latest in a string of swatting incidents.

Still no new Xbox user SWATs in the news since all the celebs started.

Wonder if the female caller was actually a deaf relay operator.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: murd0c on November 28, 2012, 08:57:36 AM
WHAT LIKE WOMEN CAN'T MAKE PRANK CALLS?

(Because they can't, stupid women.)
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on November 28, 2012, 10:42:06 AM
You'd think they'd be good at it since most kitchens have phones in them.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: ravenmaddox on December 14, 2012, 11:38:01 AM
You'd think they'd be good at it since most kitchens have phones in them.

ZING!
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on December 19, 2012, 09:59:52 AM
Some kid arrested for the celeb swatting pranks. (http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/18/showbiz/kutcher-swatting-arrest/index.html?iref=obnetwork)

"Los Angeles police believe they've caught the person who made a fake emergency call claiming that several people had been shot at Ashton Kutcher's Hollywood home.

A Southern California juvenile, who was not identified, is suspected of being behind the October 3 "swatting" incident at Kutcher's home and targeting Justin Bieber's Calabasas, Caifornia, home a week later, according to a police statement."
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: N01zii on December 26, 2012, 08:15:19 PM
If you guys are looking to get into any of this SWATTING type of stuff, it's actually fairly easy to find/do.

For practically no risk, you can (For 20$ worth of Bitcoins, of course) call the SWAT team on anyone in the United States. There's a website on the Deep Web advertising the guy's services (I doubt it's the same person as the news posts in this thread) and you can order them anonymously haha. There's even a YouTube video someone recorded when they SWATTED their neighbor's house.

It seems pretty funny, but I would never do it because of the risk of getting caught. Also, I feel that I could come up with a funnier prank that would land me a lot less jail time than calling the SWAT team to someone's house.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on January 18, 2013, 12:13:36 PM
Tom Cruise is the latest SWAT victim. (http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/01/18/16583217-tom-cruise-latest-celebrity-victim-of-swatting-prank-calls)

The article says that the kid arrested last month was 12-years-old.  I doubt it's him, though, if the pranks are still happening.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on January 20, 2013, 11:44:05 AM
Fake 911 call targets Kim Kardashian's LA home (http://www.scpr.org/blogs/news/2013/01/20/12112/fake-911-call-targets-kim-kardashians-la-home/)

Nothing exciting or original in the article.  Just another one.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on January 22, 2013, 10:58:46 AM
Chris Brown (http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/chris-brown-swatted-article-1.1244808)
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on January 24, 2013, 07:26:39 PM
http://www.examiner.com/article/swatting-is-stirring-up-the-nation-from-celebs-to-legislators (http://www.examiner.com/article/swatting-is-stirring-up-the-nation-from-celebs-to-legislators)

Many states are proposing legislation to stop the swatting. On Wednesday California state Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) proposed new legislation to make it easier to prosecute offenders and to increase penalties for making false calls to emergency personnel as well as making the offender responsible for all costs resulting from the false call.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff, Lee Baca, requested the bill as a result of the recent onslaught of swatting pranks. This bill would change the current sentencing of just probation or only up to a year in jail to a mandatory sentence of a minimum 120 days of jail time.


Sounds great, except for the part where they have no idea who's doing these SWAT pranks.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: ravenmaddox on January 25, 2013, 05:19:31 PM
This is like so much else where government keeps wanting to make new laws... there are ALREADY laws about the misuse of emergency services... if they can't catch the criminals and stop them now, how is making another law going to stop them?

I would love to hear one of these swatting calls. I would be willing to bet that anyone with a minimal education could easily figure out this was a prank. I think government needs to look into the people that are authorizing the sending of swat teams. They seem to me as much to blame as the person pulling the prank.
Title: Re: SWAT prank calls in the news
Post by: rbcp on February 07, 2013, 09:28:17 PM
12-Year-Old Charged in Hollywood Prank Call Case (http://hollywood.patch.com/articles/12-year-old-charged-in-prank-call-cases)

"A 12-year-old boy accused of making prank calls that sent police swarming to the home of actor Ashton Kutcher in October and then to a Well Fargo Bank branch a week later was charged Thursday with four felonies."

Weird, I kind of thought they had the wrong guy since more celebrity SWATs have happened since they arrested this kid.  They're only charging him with the Ashton Kutcher SWAT and then another one where he sent cops to a bank, but they think he could be linked to others. 

ravenmaddox - If you search for "Little Hacker" swatting incidents, you'll probably find recordings of the ones he did.  I think maybe it was The Smoking Gun that posted clips of the calls.  He's doing a few years in prison for his phone stuff.  I think these newer ones are using relay operators, though, so there's not much to hear.  All the Xbox swatting was being done via relay.