Swatting
Swatting:
“to hit with a sharp slapping blow usually with an instrument (as a bat or flyswatter) ” Merriam-Webster Online, Retrieved Feb 2, 2009 at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/swatting
Swatting:
“In the field of information security, swatting is an attempt to trick an emergency service (such as a 911 operator) to dispatch an emergency response team. The name is derived from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), one type of such team” Wikipedia.com, Retrieved Feb 2, 2009 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting
Swatting is becoming a very real danger to individuals and only for fast thinking by the police departments, people could die. The term now referrers to individuals who trick the 911 emergency system into dispatching the SWAT team to your home in mistaken belief that a crime is happening. Could you imagine waking up at 4 AM to see police with automatic rifles looking into your windows? It has happened hundreds of times already, and will continue to grow unless technology changes.
While some do not consider Wikipedia an authoritative source, I have found it interesting that on Wikipedia it has additional links for more information, and one of those links is computer insecurity. This may highlight the multiple uses of technology (good and bad), and that technology must change in the future. Can we design technology that cannot be used in harmful manners? As the old adage goes, guns don’t kill, people kill, it looks like from this technology people actually may get killed. In addition, if technology cannot be built with safeguards in place, more regulations and laws will be created, and if some say current laws do not work, will future laws have a better impact.
So the question becomes – can we?
Might make a great research project
Dr. Steven A. Brown
Subscribe to comments via RSS 2.0 
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
