"It's not a game" - no, but for the people calling in hoaxes, it can very well be. The administration can't choose to stop responding. But the cost of committing such a hoax is effectively zero - what's to stop the hoaxer from calling in each day?
How do other police handle high volumes of hoax calls that aren't traceable (i.e., aren't 911)?
From a past example at the University of Pittsburgh[1], the result is simply a campus-wide lockdown and increasingly strenuous security requirements for those caught in between the hoaxer and their target.
Lots of other people have also taken to this tactic. SWAT teams have been sent to an ADA's personal residences by someone forging a call from within the house, as just one example.
It took over an hour after the report of an armed gunman on campus for the community to be notified? Even though it sounds like they were doing a great job physically clearing buildings with armed security, a lockdown procedure seems like a no-brainer. At ~7:30 most people are still in their dorms and it would be easy to keep them there.
Well, it'll be at a minimum at least. Grad students probably won't quite be in yet, and for undergrads nothing is going to be due Saturday, so I wouldn't expect too many people pulling all-nighters.
That's a ridiculous assumption to make. Every screening process has flaws. I would expect the majority of the people at MIT to be really brilliant, but there are bound to be at least a couple immature idiots that slipped through the cracks.
It hasn't been proven that the person was associated with MIT, but at the very least, I'd be chasing down anyone who had a potential grudge against the MIT employee that was accused of being a gunman. There's other ways that a person could have known his name, but it does seem kind of suspicious. Unless more information gets released, there's nothing to indicate that it wasn't.
I started reading and saw "A big gun" and "armor" and thought it was going to turn into a normal MIT prank, with a guy wearing a metal suit of armor and carrying a cardboard cannon.
Was displeased to learn it was an actual hoax and not a ha-ha-laugh prank.
The attacks on MIT are really unintelligent. MIT has some of the most brilliant students and future/current tech leaders, who may have a large impact on how information policy will be shaped. These attacks have only served to alienate MIT students from the cause.
If you made a call from your AT&T home phone, sure. However there are countless anonymous proxies that you can chain, and countless VOIP providers (many free). Making anonymous, practically untraceable calls is not a difficult thing.
Relays are a necessity for letting the deaf engage with phone services. Authentication would inevitably deny some deserving deaf people access to those services, so it's not really an option.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 88.7 ms ] threadhttp://techblogs.mit.edu/news/2013/02/letter-from-israel-rui...
How do other police handle high volumes of hoax calls that aren't traceable (i.e., aren't 911)?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_University_of_Pittsburgh_b...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting
> Are you an enemy of Anonymous? If so, you’d better be sure to keep your home address closely guarded, lest you be targeted for a “swatting.”
http://anonymouslegions.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/anonymous-s...
But touché, I didn't ask for a reputable link.
It took over an hour after the report of an armed gunman on campus for the community to be notified? Even though it sounds like they were doing a great job physically clearing buildings with armed security, a lockdown procedure seems like a no-brainer. At ~7:30 most people are still in their dorms and it would be easy to keep them there.
That's not the same MIT I remember.
Yes, yes I do. The alert response system here is impressively fast. Good luck getting our response time at any other school comparable to our size.
Couldn't have been someone affiliated with the institute; MIT hacks are creative and witty.
Source: If At All Possible, Involve a Cow (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/407327.If_at_All_Possible...)
It hasn't been proven that the person was associated with MIT, but at the very least, I'd be chasing down anyone who had a potential grudge against the MIT employee that was accused of being a gunman. There's other ways that a person could have known his name, but it does seem kind of suspicious. Unless more information gets released, there's nothing to indicate that it wasn't.
Was displeased to learn it was an actual hoax and not a ha-ha-laugh prank.