We've just heard from the Met that they are dropping their investigation into MN Swatter

So what are MNHQ doing to make sure it doesn't happen again?

Disappointing - but thanks for the update.

It sounds like they couldn't find out who Twitter twat was. He, she or they could have been anybody, anywhere in the world. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ah. So posh boy wasn't the one on twitter?

I'm confused though. Someone was caught etc as said upthread but as he was a posh kid at a very good school he wasn't prosecuted. Does this mean that they can't catch a further person?

The boy, David Buchanan was prosecuted and was sentenced to a 12-month community order and 200 hours community work plus £220 in court costs and a whopping £60 victim surcharge. While he wasn't the person who organized the swatting attack - the person who was got the personal information about his victims from the information that David Buchanan hacked and published.

So sorry Justine and the other MNer who was swatted. It's shit

It sounds like this person covered their tracks so well the police decided it was not worth the resources to try further to crack it. I can kind of understand their decision. The internet remains ungovernable in many ways - servers in different countries that have different laws, ways to fake IP addresses and hide tracks etc. it can take a huge amount of resources to catch hackers and even with the best investigations it can sometimes be impossible to find the culprit. Even govt agencies who have been hacked don't always see justice.

It's still a horrible thing to have happened to you and I hope the culprit is caught one day. I doubt it's the only nasty thing he's done.

Well. That's rubbish.

Ah well it was only an act of extreme aggression against women.
So nothing to make a fuss about hey?

Well that suck balls doesn't it.

I'm confused though. Someone was caught etc as said upthread but as he was a posh kid at a very good school he wasn't prosecuted. Does this mean that they can't catch a further person?
It's a real shame because the smug cockend will be sat there thinking he has won.

Sorry for being thick: so Twitter are not obliged to give info or IPs or they have said they would but can't because the only info they have is proxies?

Oh I'm so sorry Justine. It's infuriating to know that the fucker's got away with it. I hope he gets a plague of boils.

I think it was the lad from Haslemere ( David Buchanan ) who published the user names - he was a student at The Royal Grammar School in Guildford, a very posh private school He used to advertise for part time work as a computer security expert - guess the hacking was educational for him

Ahh, thank you for keeping us informed. A sad outcome but not overly suprising

Is this the person who published usernames etc

Well done Met police for failing to set a precedent.

I'm sure we can look forward to more hacks like this in future seeing as there is apparently nothing more they can do.

Hope MNHQ and the swattees are not too pissed off about this... MN rocks so the swatter may be thinking they've had the last laugh but I wouldn't agree.

They can want to pursue it all they like; without the evidence from Twitter they won't have a case for the CPS. They won't be allowed to charge. Most social networks hide behind the legislation of where their servers are based and refuse to divulge client information as it 'invades privacy' but will happily sell that information to advertisers.

I'm sorry - particularly for Justine and the MNer who were the specific targets. It must have been so distressing - and to find out the bastard has just got away with it is really galling.

That's really disappointing, I'm sorry to read it Justine.

I'm surprised that they aren't going to pursue something that resulted in in two police teams being deployed for no reason.

Thanks for the update

Twitter have very clear policies about the circumstances under which they will release information to law enforcement agencies. Mostly designed to protect its users' personal data, but it's frustrating when it appears to stonewall legitimate requests for information. Considering that they don't allow governments to access information to help thwart terrorist activity, I'm not surprised that Twitter hasn't been more helpful in this case.

It does read a bit as if they don't want to dedicate any more resource to the investigation. I think for me the worst bit was the use of swotting. That waste of public resource and the possible harm that could have been done surely warrants effort. Presumably that is a criminal offence?

Not surprised.

"Not law enforcement friendly"

Diddums.

Thanks for the update, Justine. Disappointing, but not too surprising.