Gamergate hits new low(s)

[badbabysitter]

I know some of you are tired of hearing about this, but as a gamer chick it's relatively important for me

Gamergate seems to somehow to limp along despite the blasting from the media , complete about face from thier alleged sponsors and general disdain from the vast majority of the population... but it seems they still have some fight left in them.. and by fight, I mean continuing to be douchebags

the new tactic is known as " swatting" as listed in the trifecta below

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...amergate-critic-sends-cops-to-an-old-address/

An 8chan forum thread (now removed) outlining a plan to "swat" artist and GamerGate critic Grace Lynn appeared to succeed, sparking 20 police officers to respond to a Portland, Oregon, home on Friday night. However, there was a tiny problem—the swatting attack targeted an old address for Lynn.

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Screen-Shot-2015-01-04-at-6.17.57-PM.png

According to The Oregonian, authorities showed up at the Portland home around 12am Saturday after receiving reports about an armed man with hostages inside. Officers were developing a plan to contact the residents when they received notice the entire situation may be a hoax. However, police ultimately wanted to (and did) ensure the residents were safe.

"It's not going to result in the prank playing out the way the prankster wanted it to," Portland Police Sgt. Pete Simpson told the paper. "But it does create significant risk to the public and significant risk to officers responding. And the prankster can face state and federal charges."

Portland police have encountered one or two other "swatting" attempts according to the report, and investigators are working to ID the caller and make a possible arrest in Lynn's case. Improper use of an Emergency Reporting System is a crime in the state.

Lynn admits to being a former GamerGate participant, but she said she left the movement when GamerGate's anti-transgender bias surfaced (Lynn herself identifies as a transgender woman). Speaking with the New York Daily News, Lynn said she is "afraid for my safety," and she receives daily threats and harassment from GamerGate supporters. "If I can ever afford a lawyer, I plan on filing restraining orders against the GamerGate supporters who harass me," she told the paper.

A swatting attack involves someone reporting a false escalated situation to local authorities in an attempt to solicit a strong and potentially scary response (see video from when a Halo executive was targeted last fall). Often, the contact with authorities is done anonymously through things like a TTY, or a text telephone, designed to help those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech-impaired communicate through phone calls. In recent years, targets of such schemes have run the gamut, from Justin Bieber to security reporter Brian Krebs.

The original forum post, from 8chan user Swat Anon, offered a sort of target lottery for either a dox or swat attack:

I'm bored, so if someone gets post ending in 88 I will do one of the following:
-If they are already doxed I will swat them, results are normally pretty noteworthy
-If they aren't doxed I will attempt to dox them and swat them. If I can't dox them (rare) I will chose the next post and so on.

Also, all hate should be directed towards @Eclipso on twitter, it's me. Fuck you, SJWs.

PS, I'm behind 7 proxies and I live in Serbia

 

[badbabysitter]

http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...w-with-attempts-to-send-swat-teams-to-critics



Internet trolls are attempting to get police Swat teams sent to the homes of critics of Gamergate in an escalation of intimidatory tactics.

Five police officers were sent to the home of a Seattle-area web developer after an anonymous tip was phoned in, in the latest attempted “swatting” attack linked to the Gamergate movement.

Swatting – also known as “SWATing” – involves placing hoax distress calls to police departments in an attempt to encourage the dispatch of an armed response team to the targeted address.

Such hoaxes – which more commonly involve the sending of takeaway food to be paid for on delivery – can be conducted from anywhere in the world with little chance of the culprit being traced, making them a popular intimidation tool.
Gamergate: a brief history of a computer-age war
Read more

Web developer Israel Galvez, the most recent swatting target, is a prominent opponent of Gamergate, a movement opposed to the increasing prominence of feminist critics and designers in gaming.

Aware of the use of swatting, Galvez had warned his local police department that they may receive such hoax calls, in order to prevent a full scale police response with the potential for a tragic outcome.

Heavily-armed police units have been known to respond to calls with overwhelming force. In October, a man in Utah was shot and killed by a Swat team dispatched after he had called a suicide hotline, and in November, a Swat team was videoed shooting and killing a dog after responding to a dispute between neighbours.

The swatting incident, the second this week linked with Gamergate, was co-ordinated on the “baphomet” subforum of the 8chan image board, a 4chan-style community which has become a hub of the movement, along with a subforum on the social news site Reddit.

Once the group had Galvez’s personal details, including his address, they sent his information to community colleges, car dealerships, and magazine subscription services, before making the hoax distress call to police.

The board also attempted to swat a former member-turned-critic, Grace Lynn, successfully sending 20 police officers to her former home in Portland, Oregon, in early January. An anonymous caller claimed he had taken “multiple hostages and was threatening violence”, according to local newspaper reports.

The term swatting dates back to at least 2008 . But the practice has become more serious in recent years, with a campaign in 2013 to swat multiple celebrities including Tom Cruise and Ashton Kutcher.

 

[badbabysitter]

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/...-of-gamergate-swatting-attempt-comes-forward/

Earlier today, we covered a SWATing incident that happened to a critic and detractor of the GamerGate movement named Israel Galvez, a Seattle-based web developer.

Galvez isn’t the only victim of SWATing. Ashley Lynch, a British Columbia-based film and television producer also fell victim to the malicious “prank” after police were called to her home upon receiving a report that someone had been concerned for her well-being.

I spoke to Lynch, who disclosed that she hadn’t been actively marked as a target, but rather caught up in a sweep against a Gamergate critic who goes by @Cernowatch on Twitter, whose handle is a reference to Mike Cernovich, a prominent supporter of the GamerGate movement.

“I wasn't so much targeted as just caught in the net,” she said. “On Saturday, they actively tried to dox Cernowatch because he was being vocal against them. When they came up empty, they decided to start doxing Cernowatch's followers.”

“They doxed me because I'm easy to dox. I'm a creative professional and part of getting work means having my info out there. They really didn't have to work hard to get my info.”

Lynch informs me that several people on Twitter had alerted her to her dox being posted on 8chan board, a place where Gamergaters congregate.

“I didn't think much would come of it because I'm in Canada. I expected some lame long distance calls and maybe my website to get hacked.

I asked her why she thought Gamergaters were responsible for her doxxing and eventual SWATing.

“Well it's one in the same—GG was born out of 8chan which was then 4chan. It's all the same people.”

“There's a lot of people on Twitter who are actually kind of altruistic about what they want and why they support Gamergate,” she clarified. “But it doesn't change that the movement came from these very nasty roots of trying to perpetrate and justify harassment and attacks.”

I asked Lynch what she thought could be done to prevent this from happening in the future.

“By standing up to these bullies and providing support for those who are victimized,” she said. “But as long as they're allowed to hide behind total anonymity free from consequence, it's going to continue. There needs to be legal consequences for their actions. Until that happens, it's going to just keep moving around. And the best cover they have is that it's all just malicious pranksterism.”

“When you tell police someone has firearms and explosives in their home, you're directly trying to create an accidental conflict that results in someone getting hurt or killed. Not only is it terrorism, but it's also an incredible waste of much needed resources. It sickens me to think those policemen were desperately needed at another call at the same time but were delayed dealing with this crap.”

“And that's just the least of it. I fear it's going to take someone getting hurt or killed before authorities ramp up.”

 

[dolf]

how inadequate would a person have to be...

i'm sure their families would be thoroughly ashamed o them if they knew.
and while the swat team are off on a hoax, they're not on call for a real emergency. those extra minutes could lead to deaths or injuries.

 

[KingOrfeo]

My primary reaction to Gamergate was astonishment that anyone could be so emotionally invested in gaming as to issue death threats over anything having to do with it.

That astonishment is now topped.

 

[lovetoread]

Ah yes, puppygate.