Swating in Houston, fool me once, fool me twice

[Abraham]

On another note: Why is such malicious effort assigned a 'cutesy' name?

This particular evil should be assigned a name that is more self descriptive like: Attempted Murder.

[gringo pistolero]

On another note: Why is such malicious effort assigned a 'cutesy' name?

Maybe it's a product of our society. We like acronyms and nicknames. I don't know about Europe, but masked men carrying military-style weapons forcing their way into people's homes in the middle of the night don't get a cute name like "SWAT" in Latin America.

[abom2]

This type of "joke" as said above is very dangerous to the prankee's. Some homes are always armed and LEO's storming the house would be the last expectation of the occupants. Very scary for all who are victims of this "prank". These "jokers" need to do something constructive like "cow tipping".

[MechAg94]

"I was just sitting there watching football and fell asleep. The next thing I know, I wake up to the constables with shotguns pointed at my face," said the homeowner.

He is fortunate he didn't wake up a few seconds earlier.

[MechAg94]

There were articles of this happening in California a few years ago and they said the swatter did it via the internet using a 911 system designed to receive calls from devices meant for deaf people. I think they caught the guy and he wasn't anywhere the near the victims and didn't know them.

Don't the VOIP providers keep records similar to phone companies? I can see that required in the future if not.

[MechAg94]

Question: Should spoofing caller ID be made illegal? Thoughts?

I can live with it as long as their are no exceptions.

[cb1000rider]

Don't the VOIP providers keep records similar to phone companies? I can see that required in the future if not.

They may keep records of the originating IP, which can be traced to carrier. If the carrier keeps records, that can sometimes be traced to a person.
Of course, to work around, all you'd need is internet access (open Wi-Fi) that you didn't own.

Requiring recording of the originating IP does very little good if you're not a completely dumb criminal.

Question: Should spoofing caller ID be made illegal? Thoughts?
I can live with it as long as their are no exceptions.

That'd be nice, but we're in a global economy now. It's probably functionally impossible to make it illegal world-wide. The way the systems interact, especially VOIP, you can't ever really be sure of the originating phone number... No way to "police" the issue.