From an article in ComputerWorld:
In June, four people were charged in Texas with operating a chat line where they taught people how to make false 911 calls, sending emergency response teams to targeted victims, a practice known as “swatting.” In a June 12 swatting incident, a swatter called the Cleburne, Texas, 911 dispatch using a commercially available spoof card and Skype, and then “stated that he had shot and killed members of the family, that he was holding hostages, that he was using hallucinogenic drugs, that he was armed with an AK-47, and he demanded $50,00 and transportation across the U.S. border to Mexico,” according to court filings.
I always thought that emergency lines had deeper access to the phone system than the rest of us; that they wouldn’t be fooled by the caller ID info sent down the local loop. I guess I was wrong.
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