A Second Hand Conjecture

When threats are phoned in, how seriously should they be considered?

At my last company, one of the buildings we had offices in would get a bomb threat called in 2 or 3 times per month. Now, the company gave us the latitude to go wait outside the building until it was cleared, or we could ignore it. After the first couple of times, everyone got to the point of ignoring it (unless you wanted to go pick up Starbuck’s, or something, in which case it was convenient.)

Now, this tactic would seem to be easily spoofed by having a few employees do something odd, like jumping jacks in front of the window. Of course, with Google and others wiring up the planet for live 24/7 video, a potential extorter would still be able to see what was going on.

This seems like cell-phone version of the Nigerian Scam. If they make 100 calls, and only 10% of people wire money, your still talking $300,000

So what happens when that funky new table reads the contents of your wallet, or that key-fob credit card (for the cash-less society) and some one’s hacked into the table. Yep, progress. Sometimes I feel like becoming a Luddite, despite my career in software technology.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070830/D8RB656O0.html

Large grocery and discount stores across the country have been targeted by a caller who threatens to blow up shoppers and workers with a bomb if employees fail to wire money to an account overseas, authorities said.

Frightened workers have wired thousands of dollars – and in one case took off their clothes – to placate a caller who said he was watching them but may have been thousands of miles away. The FBI and police said Wednesday they are investigating similar bomb threats at more than 15 stores in at least 11 states – all in the past week.

“At this point, there’s enough similarities that we think it’s potentially one person or one group,” FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said from Washington.

No one has been arrested, no bombs have been found, and no one has been hurt, though the calls have triggered store evacuations and prompted lengthy sweeps by police and bomb squads.

…

Kapin said the FBI found the call was made from a cell phone registered to a Los Angeles phone number but was leased out from a European company. Investigators determined the call had come from somewhere in Portugal.

Callers also tried to extort money with calls to a US Bank in Boise, Idaho, Wednesday morning; a Wal-Mart in Hutchinson, Kan.; bank branches at Wal-Marts in Salem, Va., and Fairlawn, Va., on Tuesday; to a Vons store in Vista, Calif., near San Diego, on Friday; and to two Giant Eagle grocery stores in the Pittsburgh area, authorities said. The FBI said it was also investigating similar incidents at a grocery store in Orem, Utah, on Monday and a store in McAllen, Texas on Saturday.

Separately, the FBI is looking into bomb threats on college campuses, including two in Ohio – the University of Akron and Kenyon College. No explosive devices have been found. Law enforcement officials said there was no evidence at this time linking the college bomb threats with those at grocery and discount stores.

Kenyon, in Gambier in central Ohio, received six separate bomb threats in a general admissions e-mail account between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday, college spokesman Shawn Presley said. Local and federal authorities determined the threats to be a hoax and the school was not evacuated as officials swept buildings searching for the bomb, he said.

The University of Akron closed classrooms, labs and offices in its Auburn Science and Engineering building on Wednesday, after a secretary in a dean’s office received an anonymous e-mail that included a bomb threat.

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