Two words: Doran Martell.

There may be some stupid comments here, but the general discourse (as we are having now) is actually WAY above average for tech sites. And infinitely more intelligent than, say, the "CopBlock" Facebook page of which the comments are about 95% either images/memes of cops getting beat up or various statements related to killing cops.

And while I agree there is probably almost zero reason for a SWAT team going to a random anonymous tip, they are certainly needed for raiding known gang or drug operations. Basically, use appropriate force - when you think the criminals have automatic weapons, go in with automatic weapons. When the tip is anonymous and against a 22 year old with no criminal record, maybe a bit of discretion is in order.

Basically, the police don't seem to have any actual policies or playbooks for various situations (or if they do they ignore them), and instead are following the "let's use everything we have" strategy to way too many situations...

That's ok, at long as the 8th got the joke ;)

To include the somewhat overused quote from Ben Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Problem is, (to paraphrase) people prefer security over freedom, and so are giving up the latter left and right these days. The problem is, honestly, for the vast majority they will have (somewhat) increased security with no noticeable loss of freedoms. People only realized how bad things have become if they are one of those small minority whose rights are violated, wrongly prosecuted, or killed.

If you have ever actually read posts of the Facebook followers of those sites, it's basically a bunch of morons (including many gamers) posting various anti-police rants and meme photos about killing cops.

The sites themselves do at least get valuable information and videos published about clear examples of police overreach and brutality - but the majority of commenters on these sites are the worst kind of trolls not helping reform anything, just promoting more violence (luckily, of course, they are just a bunch of dipshits hiding behind keyboards instead of actually acting on their impotent threats).

Just give them a lifetime ban them from using computers along with house arrest. That would be a fate worse than death - living in their parents' basement with nothing to do.

It's not that flawed.

If the police HAD ended up killing someone over the incident it's very possible the person calling in the fake threat could be tried for murder, so if the police didn't end up killing anyone it could still be attempted murder. It's all about intent.

If there was no proof of malice or intent to have the person killed but he was, it would likely be manslaughter - and "attempted manslaughter" is pretty rare since if you didn't mean for someone to be killed and they weren't, it's probably not applicable.

Why would you need a proof of concept for something that is almost completely useless? It's not like they are going to now put the effort into making it a "real product". As far as "hacks" go, it's pretty hokey.

Except no, they just put a fairly lame hardcoded demo in ROM. This is such a non story...

Yes, it was more or less a hoax. It was just a hardcoded few pages of static data and a small chunk of one "video" embedded in the ROM.

Shouldn't it be called the Google Ames Research Center?

Except honestly if you are committing a robbery with a fake gun and you get shot by someone who thought it was real, I could give zero fucks about your death. That still doesn't make the robbery itself "a gun issue." You can get fake guns pretty easily in many countries that ban real guns...

And I am generally for increased gun control and have no interest in having one in my home (many more people are killed with their own or relatives' guns at home than they kill people invading said home).

This isn't a gun issue - it was a BB gun, which is a half step up from airsoft. Not sure who the "us" in "do it like us" is, but in the end it's a robbery issue, not a gun issue. Armed robbery with a knife would be much more dangerous.

So you think if someone put a BB gun (which can still do some serious damage) to your head and took $130 from your wallet they should get no jail time?

I'm not saying 4 years in prison is appropriate, but something stronger than this minor slap on the wrist sure is...