Open WiFi Connection Leads To SWAT Raid

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What is the best way to get your house raided by a SWAT team? An unsecured WiFi connection. Excuse me while I lock down my router. ;)

For those of you that do not know, they breached the wrong person's house. This house had a wifi internet connection that was not secure. A neighbor was using it... it was just a foolish, arrogant teenager that made the 'specific threats'.
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in this day and age, with all we know...there is no reason to not have your WiFi locked down....people need to start paying attention to stuff like this.....when SWAT breaks my door down, you can bet its because I was the one making the threats..not my neighbor....:)
 
Not locking down a router does not excuse this thuggish overreach by bunch of hyperventilating clowns in black.
 
Whatever happened to police actually doing some investigation before sending in SWAT?

The police in this country might as well just go ahead and officially label themselves a paramilitary organization, because they no longer operate under the definition of police.
 
Crosshairs said:
in this day and age, with all we know...there is no reason to not have your WiFi locked down....people need to start paying attention to stuff like this.....when SWAT breaks my door down, you can bet its because I was the one making the threats..not my neighbor....:)
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Yeah tell that to the next 60+ year old, that walks into the store and asks you for advice on this wiffy thing, that his grandson said he needs, and then don't be shocked when they ask if you can install it for them.

You need to realize that in this day and age, most people over 50 will have almost no clue about network security, unless they work in the industry, or helped invent the bloody standards and protocols.
 
They'll never crack my router. I has hexa encryption with twin WPA2 and 1mbit AES.

No one will ever guess the password is 1234567890
 
I see people expounding on hosting open hotspots and how it's a public service... and then I see crap like this. This is precisely why it never pays to try doing anything nice.
 
The real question is why would a SWAT team raid a house purely on an assumption that a message originated there. You would think a little bit more confirmation would be necessary than simply an IP address.

How many thousands, or TENS of thousands of times have we been through this all over the country now where it has been proven over and over and over that an IP address never automatically equates to an exact person or location.

LAW ENFORCEMENT SHOULD KNOW THIS.
 
Outamyhead said:
Yeah tell that to the next 60+ year old, that walks into the store and asks you for advice on this wiffy thing, that his grandson said he needs, and then don't be shocked when they ask if you can install it for them.

You need to realize that in this day and age, most people over 50 will have almost no clue about network security, unless they work in the industry, or helped invent the bloody standards and protocols.
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I understand what your saying, but today's consumer routers come with clear instruction on how to change the password and set it up securely......anyone who knows how to read, has no excuse for not doing it.
 
:eek:It would be good fun if you were playing SWAT when it happened!:D
 
Crosshairs said:
I understand what your saying, but today's consumer routers come with clear instruction on how to change the password and set it up securely......anyone who knows how to read, has no excuse for not doing it.
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Don't they usually have encryption turned on by default too? I've seen lots of them that rely on knowing a PIN on a sticker of the device to get access through WPS.
 
Advil said:
The real question is why would a SWAT team raid a house purely on an assumption that a message originated there. You would think a little bit more confirmation would be necessary than simply an IP address.
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To search the home (with a warrent). Did you not read the article?


I don't know how much more confirmation you could possibly get without gathering physical evidence from the home in question. I honestly have no problem with the raid per se, but 2 flash bangs? was that really necessary?
 
Crosshairs said:
I understand what your saying, but today's consumer routers come with clear instruction on how to change the password and set it up securely......anyone who knows how to read, has no excuse for not doing it.
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I don't know man. It seems easy to people like us, but I've tried countless times to try walking my mother/aunt/etc through that type of very simple process (even as simple as sending an email via outlook) and it gets so frustrating that I just tell them nevermind and come over to do it myself.

People that weren't brought up on technology have a lot of trouble with even the most basic things on a computer.
 
SkribbelKat said:
Don't they usually have encryption turned on by default too? I've seen lots of them that rely on knowing a PIN on a sticker of the device to get access through WPS.
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They may now, I remember when I last bought a Linksys, it was wide open unless you locked it down..that was few years ago...I'm on FIOS and the router they supply comes with WEP enabled..while it not the most secure protocall, at least its not wide open.

I changed it to WPA as soon as the installer left
 
Also don't forget that the FIOS routers also can be cracked with a calculator since the in is derived from a simple equation of the SSID. Search if you don't believe me.

Also nearly all of those pin protected WPS routers can effortlessly be cracked in an hour or two now.... It's almost as bad as WEP.

WPA2 w/ a > 24 char password, WPS disabled, then you should be decently secured.
 
Naieve said:
Whatever happened to police actually doing some investigation before sending in SWAT?
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That went out the window when police organizations started having full time SWAT teams. It used to be they had "trained" SWAT guys who were beat cops/etc and just got the call-up when time was needed. They're being paid to sit around like firefighters (jk! I respect those in red), so they take some of these very dangerous missions, probably to hone their skills.

I had a full SWAT raid down the street from me for a "noise" complaint. Yes, a party that was too loud that supposedly had underage kids. SWAT truck (armored) and full gear. Lovely.

When I read SWAT and open WIFi, I figured it was going to be something more serious like downloading two songs. Not like making threats against someone. The hell.
 
Crosshairs said:
They may now, I remember when I last bought a Linksys, it was wide open unless you locked it down..that was few years ago...I'm on FIOS and the router they supply comes with WEP enabled..while it not the most secure protocall, at least its not wide open.

I changed it to WPA as soon as the installer left
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Quite a few do offer some kind of security out of the box. In most cases, that's enough to discourage someone into using a different access point that is open for casual surfing. I wonder what the long term effects are though. As more WiFi is secured out of the box are people going to start cracking security more often because they can't fetch wireless or will they just not care because they're carrying around a phone that can touch the net?
 
tazeat said:
Also don't forget that the FIOS routers also can be cracked with a calculator since the in is derived from a simple equation of the SSID. Search if you don't believe me.

Also nearly all of those pin protected WPS routers can effortlessly be cracked in an hour or two now.... It's almost as bad as WEP.

WPA2 w/ a > 24 char password, WPS disabled, then you should be decently secured.
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no doubt, but your average neighbor will latch onto the first open network...that's who I'm trying to keep out...not Kevin Mitnick..we all know wireless security is a misnomer.

I have 3 open networks within range of me right now.....not much chance of someone trying to hack mine
 
Spidey329 said:
That went out the window when police organizations started having full time SWAT teams. It used to be they had "trained" SWAT guys who were beat cops/etc and just got the call-up when time was needed. They're being paid to sit around like firefighters (jk! I respect those in red), so they take some of these very dangerous missions, probably to hone their skills.

I had a full SWAT raid down the street from me for a "noise" complaint. Yes, a party that was too loud that supposedly had underage kids. SWAT truck (armored) and full gear. Lovely.
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Apparently the acronym "SWAT" doesn't stand for Special Weapons and Tactics anymore, then.
 
dr.stevil said:
To search the home (with a warrent). Did you not read the article?


I don't know how much more confirmation you could possibly get without gathering physical evidence from the home in question. I honestly have no problem with the raid per se, but 2 flash bangs? was that really necessary?
Click to expand...

dont most munitions have a certain shelf life? maybe the "expiration date" was coming up *REALLY SOON* and they didnt want it to go to waste :D
 
Spidey329 said:
That went out the window when police organizations started having full time SWAT teams. It used to be they had "trained" SWAT guys who were beat cops/etc and just got the call-up when time was needed. They're being paid to sit around like firefighters (jk! I respect those in red), so they take some of these very dangerous missions, probably to hone their skills.

I had a full SWAT raid down the street from me for a "noise" complaint. Yes, a party that was too loud that supposedly had underage kids. SWAT truck (armored) and full gear. Lovely.

When I read SWAT and open WIFi, I figured it was going to be something more serious like downloading two songs. Not like making threats against someone. The hell.
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I don't see anybody pissed off when the fire department sends 2 ladders and an ambulance to a fender bender
 
It's kind of sad that I have to read news that happens in the US posted on a UK site when I live in the US.

Securing your router, damn if you either way. Sadly, the average American isn't really technical to know how to lock down their network.

Too bad they didn't knockdown the door of a law abiding citizen with a strong sense of castle doctrine and get gun down because these past weeks a group of thugs in the bay area pretended to be law enforcement, busting down doors and killed a couple of people.
 
so in this case, who pays to fix the fucking door ?

front doors are expensive. Several hundred dollars.
 
It's nothing but the police brutality, sometimes I think police work too hard where it is not need, and were it IS, there they don't bother. Seems that's the only reason why public crimes still happen.
 
Naieve said:
The police in this country might as well just go ahead and officially label themselves a paramilitary organization, because they no longer operate under the definition of police.
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A lot of departments officially do use that label.
 
Max Mike said:
Not locking down a router does not excuse this thuggish overreach by bunch of hyperventilating clowns in black.
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See below.
Naieve said:
Whatever happened to police actually doing some investigation before sending in SWAT?

The police in this country might as well just go ahead and officially label themselves a paramilitary organization, because they no longer operate under the definition of police.
Click to expand...
Do you think before you type? Direct threats with a point of origin traced back to a physical address. What more could you ask for? All of the info they could have possibly gathered was correct and accurate. It's not like they had the physical address of the ISP account wrong and barged into the wrong house associated with the trace.
 
Yet another reason to not even use wireless. Maybe it makes me a bit of a Paranoid Parrot, but I have everything hard lined. No signal > any form of encryption.
 
teh_chem said:
See below.

Do you think before you type? Direct threats with a point of origin traced back to a physical address. What more could you ask for? All of the info they could have possibly gathered was correct and accurate. It's not like they had the physical address of the ISP account wrong and barged into the wrong house associated with the trace.
Click to expand...

So if someone mails a threat to local authorities with your return address on it, then you wouldn't mind if SWAT busted in your house and hog-tied you then, right? Just saying. A little common sense and a modest amount of further investigation could have avoided an embarrassing waste of public resources. Quote from the article regarding the second attempt to nab the assailant:

"We did surveillance on the house, we knew that there were little kids there, so we decided we weren't going to use the SWAT team."

In other words, they decided to do the second time what they should have done the first time: think, observe, and plan rather than merely reacting.
 
article said:
Even more embarrassingly for police though, they had been so eager to show off their decisive action they invited television cameras and the local press.
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Do cops not watch all the viral videos of cops screwing up? I'm guessing these guys didn't see the SWAT raid for pot wherein they shot the guy's dog and scared the girlfriend and child shitless... while one of them recorded it.
 
teh_chem said:
See below.

Do you think before you type? Direct threats with a point of origin traced back to a physical address. What more could you ask for? All of the info they could have possibly gathered was correct and accurate. It's not like they had the physical address of the ISP account wrong and barged into the wrong house associated with the trace.
Click to expand...

Do you have any idea how many threats are posted over the internet on a daily basis?

Suddenly some people threaten the police and there are now SWAT teams coming out of the woodwork. Might as well get the police to get XBOX accounts, they can spend the next 5 lifetimes sending SWAT teams into some kids parents house. Oh wait, they don't respond like this when it is an average civilian. My bad.

This was about the police sending a message. Unfortunately for them I interpret it as "Hey look, we are idiots with guns."
 
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