Apr 14, 2023 23:00:00

An agency that fully automates the harassment 'swatting' that sends special forces by reporting a lie has appeared

In America, a gun society, in order to prevent terrorism and shooting incidents, some states have a system in place to immediately send heavily equipped special forces upon notification. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in '

swatting ,' in which special forces are sent to completely innocent people by making false reports or intimidating the police by exploiting this strict security system, and it is regarded as a problem. Motherboard, an IT news site, reports that a vendor has appeared that automates such swapping and takes over.

A Computer Generated Swatting Service Is Causing Havoc Across America
https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7z8be/torswats-computer-generated-ai-voice-swatting

In February 2023, I received a phone call to a police station in Iowa, USA. The person who called was a man's voice, who seemed to be a little panicked, 'Hello, I just committed a crime and I want to turn myself in. I planted an explosive at a local school.' talked.

Surprised, the police identified a high school where explosives were planted, blocked the surrounding area and searched for explosives with special forces, but in the end nothing was found. This kind of harassment is called swatting, and it has become very common in recent years.

In fact, there are more and more cases where popular broadcasters are swatted, and the police rush into the live broadcaster's home during the live broadcast, which has become a social problem.

The damage of ``swatting'' that urgently dispatches armed special forces during the live broadcast of the game distributor is increasing-GIGAZINE

'The FBI takes Swatting very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk,' Steve Bernd, a spokesman for the FBI's Seattle branch, told Motherboard. It is extremely dangerous for first responders and victims of harassment.'

Below is the voice of the phone actually received by the police in Iowa. After listening to the recording of the phone call to the police, Motherboard describes that ``the male voice can be heard through a voice changer or as an artificial voice synthesized with some tool.'' .

Stream Torswats Call 1 by Joseph Cox, Motherboard | Listen online for free on SoundCloud


It has been reported that police across the United States have been receiving calls for months with false warnings of bombs and mass shootings similar to this call. According to independent news media NPR , as of October 2022, 182 schools in 28 states in the United States have received false threatening calls.

Motherboard reports that a company called 'Torswats' on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, is doing a paid job to make this fake threatening phone call. It claims to automate everything by using voice.

The request fee presented by Torswats is $ 75 (about 9900 yen) once for closing the school, and $ 50 (about 6600 yen) for swatting to send a special unit to the target individual to search the house. yen), and if the target is a celebrity such as a live broadcaster, the price will be negotiable. Torswats has accepted the request on Telegram and said that the request fee is paid in virtual currency.

Regarding the incident that occurred in the state of Iowa above, it turned out that it was a 16-year-old boy who asked Torswats for the threatening phone call of a lie, and the boy was charged with threatening terrorism. However, the identity of Torswats, the perpetrator, is still unknown, and in February 2023, he closed the Telegram channel and disappeared after deleting the recording from Telegram when he made a false threatening phone call. That's right.