‘Swatting’ hoaxes pose perils, challenges to police
Authorities have to ‘pull out all the stops’ says CPS cybercrimes unit spokesman
It had been about a week since a man called Calgary 911 on Dec. 22, falsely claiming he shot his father and was holding his mother and younger brother hostage, and Calgary police investigators were spinning their wheels.
With few clues about who placed the call — which sent tactical, patrol and K9 units to the 2300 block of 17B Street S.W. — or on where the call originated, a break in the case came suddenly and tragically.
Police in Los Angeles arrested 25-year-old Tyler Barriss on Dec. 30, accusing him of having made a hoax emergency call two days earlier to police in Wichita, Kan., involving a story about a shooting and kidnapping. This incident, unlike the Calgary one, led SWAT police officers to fatally shoot an innocent, unarmed man at the door of his home.
“I had already listened to the Calgary 911 recording and my professional opinion was it was the same caller,” said Const. Darrin Chaplin of the Calgary police cybercrimes unit, the lead investigator for the case. “That really started the ball rolling for me where I said, ‘OK, this is the same voice on these two tapes, and not only that, but he’s telling the same story.’”
Cases that involve “swatting,” a term used for bogus reports of serious crimes intended to get response from police tactical — or SWAT — teams, are incredibly complex, according to Chaplin. That’s because of how easy it is for perpetrators to cover their tracks by forging fake identities and pretending to be calling from somewhere else in order to escape police detection.
“I think that if we didn’t have those details (from Wichita) that I would still be working on the investigation,” Chaplin said.
Swatting hoaxes aren’t new and their origins align closely with the rise in popularity of online gaming a decade ago. The prank is often committed with the hope of a large police force interrupting a gamer’s live-stream, as their audience of thousands watch the intended target get tackled in real time.
“I haven’t heard of prank swatting happening to people outside of the games industry,” said Caroline Sinders, an online harassment researcher for Wikimedia Foundation. “It started because people were playing video games together and live-casting their faces together. They were in a group, Google Hangout or Skype or some form of video chat, and people were recording it. You’ll see someone get swatted and then people will think that it’s funny.”
Sinders called swatting a systemic form of harassment. “I think a big thing is really sort of questioning, ‘how is it so easy?’” she said.
In swatting cases, authorities have to “pull out all the stops,” said Chaplin. During the pre-Christmas incident, the police helicopter was dispatched and ambulances and firefighters were on standby, as more than 20 police cars surrounded the Calgary apartment building where the suspected swatting happened. A woman named Lisa, who live-streams video games on Twitch under the alias “stpeach,” called police after receiving an anonymous warning that she was being swatted.
On Tuesday, police issued an arrest warrant for Barriss in connection with the incident.
“They’re really unpredictable situations because the person that’s opening the door or that’s the target of this is unsuspecting, like they don’t even know what’s going on,” said Kathy Macdonald, a cybersecurity and safety specialist who is also a retired Calgary police officer. “It can make it a very difficult situation for everybody. It’s very terrifying actually.”
Macdonald said swatting incidents are often possible because bits and pieces of personal information have been unknowingly shared while playing video games. She advises to watch out for social engineering tactics that appeal to one’s emotions and to avoid being enticed to visit bogus websites or open attachments.
It’s also important to be extra cautious about giving out your home address, cellphone number, birthdate and even the city you live in.
IP addresses should always be kept private, as well.
“You can get caught up in these games and sometimes without knowing it you’ll give out personal identifying information, which in the hands of somebody who wants to swat you can be very detrimental,” she said.
Police say Barriss allegedly contacted Lisa online earlier that day, however she never responded to the alert. Lisa, who declined to give her last name over safety fears, said she had no idea who Barriss was and had never interacted with him.
Barriss has an extensive swatting history in the U.S., having made dozens of hoax calls involving false threats at schools, TV stations and homes. He was sentenced to more than two years in jail in 2016.
Chaplin said swatting calls have evolved from a prank into a “goto method for retribution” that some gamers use. But as their intent has evolved, so, too, has the technology in play, with swatters often relying on voice-over IP, or VoIP, to spoof a phone number. This poses a challenge for police, who can only trace a call as far back as the VoIP company that carries it. If a call comes through a proxy server based halfway across the world, that company wouldn’t be required to co-operate with local authorities in Canada, said Chaplin.
“When (swat calls) first started coming in, I would argue that police services North America-wide didn’t really have the technology or the capabilities like we do (now),” Chaplin said.
“There’s almost infinite methods that an individual can apply to try and mask what they’re doing, where they’re doing it from, why they’re doing it.”
Sinders said that as swatting hoaxes become more commonplace, there’s a greater need for authorities to collect and publicize public data on the incidents.
“Someone can engage in swatting just once against you but for the most part it’s continual harassment,” she said. “It’s often not an isolated thing.”
While Calgary police in the past didn’t actively investigate swatting statistics, Chaplin said the cybercrimes unit has recently made a point of requesting officers be more proactive in reporting them, so that each instance can be further analyzed in terms of similarities and possible connections.
“Police services in North America, in Canada and in Calgary specifically, we don’t think swatting is a joke,” he said. “It’s not a funny prank. We want the public to be aware of the consequences that can result as an end point of these incidents.”