An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Within the past year, there have been approximately five times more school shooting hoaxes called in to police than actual school shootings reported in 2023. Where data from Everytown showed "at least 103 incidents of gunfire on school grounds" in 2023, The Washington Post recently uncovered what seems to be a coordinated campaign of active shooter hoaxes causing "swattings" -- where police respond with extreme force to fake crimes -- at more than 500 schools nationwide over the past year. In just one day in February, "more than 30 schools were targeted," The Post reported.

The Post "examined police reports, emergency call recordings, body-camera footage, or call logs in connection with incidents in 24 states," which seemed to reveal a "distinct pattern" potentially linking swatting hoaxes nationwide. A man who "speaks with a heavy accent" -- and possibly uses a device or app to alter his voice in real time -- relies on a virtual private network (VPN) to mask his IP address, then places the hoax calls on non-emergency lines using free Internet-calling services. He frequently pretends to be a teacher hiding from the fake shooter on campus and sometimes falsely reports student shootings. To some law enforcement officials, the voice sounds too similar from call to call to be chalked up to coincidence. The Post stitched together audio that shows why many authorities believe these hoax calls might be coming from the same caller, whose motivations are currently unknown. It's possible the hoax calls are being orchestrated by one person with a hostile compulsion or by one or several perpetrators advertising swatting services available for hire online. [...]

According to The Post, the FBI has been investigating this string of school shooting hoaxes, but it's unclear how far that investigation has gotten -- mostly because tracing the hoax calls has perplexed many law enforcement agencies nationwide. Tracing calls is difficult partly because many VPN providers outside the US don't always cooperate with law enforcement, and some of the most popular free Internet-calling services only require an email address to sign up. However, The Post reported that it has increasingly become clear to law enforcement that one particular Internet-calling service appears to be the most popular choice for hoax callers reporting school shootings: TextNow. One police captain in Lousiana, Shannon Mack -- who is described as specializing in "cases involving Internet-based phone services -- told The Post that "nine times out of 10," hoax calls she has investigated have come from a TextNow number.