Even thought it may seem that criminals are getting smarter, and the crimes humanity faces are more sophisticated; underneath it all, they are simply using a new tool that is rapidly growing beyond it’s scope. In the information age, now reliant on cyber technology, we have a dense, reactionary, and mostly unskilled criminal justice system where cybercrime is poised to undermine the entire system, as we know it. To make matters even more atrocious, the pool of individuals seemingly prone to criminal behavior has mushroomed with the interconnection of the Internet to include the largest age range of criminal activity, with the most erratic demographics, on a worldwide basis. In this report, we will look at how practical jokes in the digital age are squandering tax dollars, and introducing a new kind of risk for traditional police forces and forcing the call for awareness and action against cyber criminals.
Trending in today’s cyber world is a hoax mentality that is finding victims from frightened high-school students to high profile celebrities, and politicians, to video gamers who play live on the Internet, into an instantaneous public spectacle. Swatting is a type of prank calling or messaging where the person calls the police or a school reporting an alarming crime, such as a shooting or a bomb threat, which triggers massive police responses that are frequently described as highly trained Paramilitary swat operations.
“The sick joke, known as swatting, takes advantage of the 911 system by painting the scene of an unfolding crime so heinous that local police forces often unleash the full might of their paramilitary units upon an unsuspecting household. It has occurred hundreds of times over the past decade, costing taxpayers up to $10,000 each time the cavalry rolls in” (Coburn, 2013).
History of Prank’ers
With a traceable history that spans, at the very