26th January,
the Indian Republic Day, was targeted by ISIS operatives to stage multiple
terror strikes designed to cause terror and panic in major Indian cities. The
Indian intelligence and police agencies over the last few weeks successfully
nabbed ISIS operatives foiling major terror plots in the run up to the 26th.
With tensions
running high, and the anti-terror squads under full alert, a mentally disturbed
man swatted airport and railway helpdesks claiming that bombs would go off on
Mumbai-bound flights, and cars stuffed with explosives would blow up at the
airports and the Pune Railway Station.
Wikipedia describes swatting as an act of deceiving an emergency service
(via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into dispatching
an emergency response based on the false report of an ongoing critical
incident.
The man who was
later apprehended had made four calls made over two days to airports and
railway stations claiming that there was a car packed in the airport vicinity
loaded with explosives or that a person onboard a flight was carrying a bomb in
his hand luggage. This ensured that over 200 policemen were diverted from
deterring real terrorists to comb these routes and flights. One flight was
delayed and another diverted mid-air to the nearest airport for an
anti-sabotage check.
While swatting
is relatively new in India, it is quite common in the US. Swatting may occur
for pranks, online harassment or even for revenge. Recently Skype introduced a
patch which protected the privacy of a callers IP address, a flaw which could
be exploited to launch swat teams on rival gamers using IP geolocation.
Such acts are akin to
terrorism and punishable as a crime
because of its potential to cause
disruption, waste the time of emergency services, divert attention from real
emergencies and possibly cause injuries and psychological harm to persons
targeted. Cybercitizens are advised not to make prank calls for whatever
reasons as the joke may turn into a long ugly jail term
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