It was late at night when the call came in to the Roswell 911 center.
A woman in the wealthy Willow Springs golf club community was reporting that four burglars had broken into her home. Two were carrying guns.
But when police arrived at the home on Aug. 5 and spoke with the residents, it became clear they were dealing not with a home invasion, but a dangerous hoax perpetrated by a faceless hacker. Police say this kind of prank, known as “swatting” because it sends police and SWAT teams scrambling to a fake emergency, is far from funny. It puts any of metro Atlanta’s 5.3 million residents who have phones at risk, and puts officers in jeopardy.
For one thing, it diverts police resources from other important calls and sends emergency vehicles hurtling through traffic. It also endangers citizens, who could trigger a deadly police response if they encounter a responding officer looking for an armed suspect.
Police say the calls are almost impossible to trace. Roswell police notified AT&T about the incident, since the call was relayed through the company on a hearing impaired line, spokesman Lt. James McGee said.
“It could’ve originated overseas,” he said. “There’s no way of knowing.”
In the recent Roswell case, a hacker accessed the Voice-over-Internet Protocol system on the victim’s computer to place the call, McGee said.
The Roswell E-911 system identifies the source of incoming calls, whether cellular, land line or VoIP, said Terry O’Connell, day-watch communications supervisor. But, in this case, the call came in from a third party, AT&T, and was relayed to the 911 center.
Dispatchers know phony calls are possible, O’Connell said, but they have to treat each one as authentic.
Hackers also can use a “spoofing” service like Spoofcard.com to make another number appear on the 911 system’s caller ID.
Spoofing services can be useful for business people such as doctors who want to use their personal telephones without revealing private numbers. But, in a prankster’s hands, they can cause more than a little mischief.
“It really is putting innocent people at risk, and it is just a matter of time before one of these victims gets seriously injured,” said Kevin Kolbye, an assistant special agent in charge of the Dallas field office of the FBI who has investigated several swatting cases.
The motive could be revenge or mean-spirited meddling.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Atlanta said no swatting cases are being prosecuted locally, but charges against swatters have been brought successfully in other states.
The FBI office in Dallas was the first to bring federal charges in a swatting case in 2007. Investigators in that office have since indicted 10 people linked to making hundreds of phony 911 calls nationwide.
No one law enforcement agency is tracking swatting incidents. That makes it difficult to say whether incidents are increasing or whether they are just getting more attention, Kolbye said.
“I am not convinced it is an increasing crime,” Kolbye said. “I think people are copycatting, and there are groups doing this from the original group we arrested.”
“Swatters” can face federal fraud charges. They could also be charged with conspiracy if more than two people are involved, Kolbye said. Sentences for people convicted of swatting have averaged between two and three years in prison, with a few receiving sentences of more than 10 years.
For now, there is little that police or civilians can do to prevent the scam.
Current 911 technology doesn’t offer dispatchers any way to recognize or filter out hoax calls. NG 911, next-generation 911 systems that process calls with VoIP technology instead of analog or digital technology, may include some ways to detect spoofing.
That type of system allows callers to not only talk to a dispatcher, but to text or send photos and videos to them during an emergency, said Jeroen de Witte, vice president of research and development for Cassidian Communications, a California-based company that provides 911 systems to about 4,000 911 call centers nationwide.
But adoption of NG 911 systems is years away, and no metro Atlanta agency has made any immediate plans to purchase one.
“When that is fully realized, many years from now, there may be ways to detect a few more scenarios of spoofing, but I don’t think it will make it fully detectable,” de Witte said.
People can make themselves harder targets by using anti-virus software and setting passwords that are impossible to guess, said Michael A. Covington, associate director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Georgia.
“That will keep swatters from breaking into your account on a service like Skype or MagicJack,” Covington said.
With all the safeguards, swatting can be done in ways that don’t involve you, he said.
All the perpetrator has to do is fake your phone number in the caller ID data when he calls the police.
“That’s easy because there are commercial services that will let anyone make calls with false caller ID,” Covington said. “They ought to be illegal, but they’re not.”
Alpharetta resident Don Nahser said he’s not heard of swatting, but it sounds despicable.
“It’s beyond my comprehension why someone would want to use something good — like 911 — for something bad,” he said. “Playing around with SWAT is expensive.”
About the Author
