> Probably as a thank you for my 25 years of #OpenSource work, someone called the police on me and had be #SWAT'ed & #handcuffed while live-streaming t2 #Linux development on Twitch!
In the video description, apparently it happened in Germany. The streamer posted that he is leaving Germany, as they dont feel safe anymore.
I can understand sending cops based on a phone call - better safe than sorry - but being handcuffed and hauled away should require the cops to have seen something when they got there. No one should be detained solely based on an anonymous tip.
I suppose it's easy to get people swated in Germany since every personal blog must have that person address clearly visible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressum
That's really terrible. I'm surprised this kind of law survived Germany splitting and then reunification. I would have thought that it would have gotten lost in the wash somewhere along the way.
If it is not already, swatting someone should be considered a serious offense, like calling in a bomb threat. Baiting emergency police services to handle personal disputes is absolutely ridiculous.
Someone sent an email to the police saying he had killed his partner and was going to suicide. Guessing that German police has little experience with swatting.
Pretty much yeah. SWAT'ing is doable pretty much anywhere that you have a functional PD, and all you have to do is call in a credible threat - "I shot someone, I have hostages" etc.
It's unfortunately common, and most PD's also don't have any way or system in place for you to inform them that this is likely to happen ahead of time. In fact there are people who get SWAT'd multiple times a week, and the PD shows up every time all gung ho. In one case I know of, the police started threatening to charge the victim for all the false calls.
But yeah. Someone can just call the police on you and they come and arrest you.
> and all you have to do is call in a credible threat
Doesn't even have to be credible. Working as a paramedic, I saw first hand several SWATings that were the furthest thing from credible:
"I'm standing in front of the house and they have a family lined up and kneeling with their hands on their heads and men in balaclavas standing behind them with guns, upstairs" (the house in question is one story). "What color is the house?" "Brown" (it's actually blue). How do you see people kneeling in the middle of a room upstairs from the street - what, do they have the lights on, and all the curtains and blinds open? And that sounds more like "something I saw on a movie once".
I know YouTube comments are a cesspool, but my god it is amazing how so many comments are immediately saying "Rust devs did it," including some using slurs to do so.
The guy that tried to SWAT me was extremely enthused about Rust: never shut up about it.
I'd say its the language most likely, right now, to attract the "opinionated" people who cannot tolerate any difference of opinion, and think that SWAT raids are a valid means of addressing disagreements.
No, we were making game mods and shared a discord channel. As far as I heard, his actual problem with me was that I made and published a mod to make all the characters in the game into lizards, and he found that racist.
That person was also a very vocal Rust and VSCode advocate. That fact I use emacs was an issue for them, too.
I noticed that as well. Is there actually any reason he might've pissed off bunch of rustbros or are these just more baseless accusations?
Also, everyone should know if you have some type of online exposure or receive threats you should be able to contact you local law enforcement, inform them of the situation, and warn them someone might try to have you SWAT'd. I couldn't guarantee all police would respect a heads-up call but I've heard it has worked for many in the past.
I wonder if they would worry about that being used as cover though. Make that call for a place you’re about to do something illegal in so the popo stays away.
Yes but that mostly includes those who've attached themselves to fashionable identity groups, and not just the much, much smaller number of those medically diagnosed, the latter of whom aren't just following a trend.
Nonsense. People are born to use only two kinds of programming languages: either those which everyone complains about, or those which no one else uses. Never the twain shall meet.
1300 is a nice sample size if you're sampling randomly.
If 1/3 of people have a trait, you'll get a good sense it's common after asking 300 people, even if the total population is a million. Surveying more gives diminishing returns as the result quickly converges on the real proportion.
The real problem with all surveys is the sampling isn't truly random, which skews results.
In the video description, apparently it happened in Germany. The streamer posted that he is leaving Germany, as they dont feel safe anymore.