I got in a political argument with some clown on Facebook. He managed to retrieve my wife’s cell phone number and our home phone which is unlisted and technically just provided by our Internet company that we never use.
None our personal info is really available on Facebook and our profiles are pretty locked down, but he called my wife’s phone a few times last week which she has blocked and never answers. Comes up as anonymous on her id.
He tried our home phone 16 times which I ignored, everything stopped, he called again tonight. I decided to answer. He said he knows where I live my wife and daughters name, and our address. He never gave out that though and that he is coming to kill us. Said that on the line
I have called my local police department. But this is rural Nebraska they said they can’t do anything or have our phone companies run a trace.
Is there anything I can do to figure out who this guy is?
If he were going to physically harm you or your family in any way, he wouldn’t be harassing you on the phone. He’s legit just trying to scare you.
The best approach here is to “grey rock” him, which in this case just means not answering. You said you don’t use the home phone so just disconnect whatever device. You said your wife has blocked him so that’s sorted. Close your fb account or don’t log in or whatever.
Call the police and make an actual report to get an actual report number. Here any kind of threat made over a “wire service” is a crime. They may not investigate but that’s not the point, in the infinitessimal chance the guy escalates, you want some history.
Refresh home security without going nuts. Maybe a
ringdoor camera, make sure window locks are installed.Then just go about your life, but maybe avoid throw down arguments on fb.
Edit: don’t buy a ring camera.
I think it’s dangerous to apply logic and reason to these people.
The report number is very important. Cops want to brush off stuff that involves protecting people in my experience, buy having evidence of all this is vital if he starts stalking or something like that. He’s unlikely to escalate directly to shooting, but he is at risk of escalation
That’s not my experience here in Australia.
Like in domestic violence situations, even where no serious injuries have occurred, police are fairly pro-active in establishing restraining orders and so on.
The thing is, the police I’ve interacted with are very practical, have limited tools at hand, and tend to work on an if-this-then-that basis. If your situation doesn’t slot in to an established “this” situation then you’re not going to get a “that”.
If I’m really honest, while I’m sympathetic to OPs situation, I don’t really think anyone is in imminent danger. Yes a law has probably been broken but the copper OP spoke to doesn’t have the ability to get the ID of the caller, so there’s not really much of a process for them to follow. They can’t post a couple of cops outside OPs house for the next month just in case he gets into another FB argument.
I don’t say that to be dismissive of OP, just to demonstrate how it appears from their end.
If you don’t actually ask to submit a formal report and obtain a report number then it’s understandable they don’t want to go to the effort to do that either.
Also if he is threatening a minor then that escalates things legally.
Please do not buy Ring cameras, Amazons vast surveillance network is a privacy nightmare and is also regularly accessed by ICE and other law enforcement.
Eufy cameras can be used with a home base and stay offline, recording to the SD card in the base. Or if you’re into it, there are many self hosting options that give you much more control and options.
Eufy doesn’t have a good track record for keeping things local or secure, despite claiming they are, btw. Source
This. This. A thousand times a thousand times, yes. Nobody should be blindly trusting their safety to Amazon, one of the worst abusers of trust and privacy.
(Plus they’re the most common hardware… Guess what’s getting targeted for mass exploits?)
Almost anything is better than giving Amazon access to your home.
The only thing worse than giving info to Amazon, is having no security for your home. I have a ring camera that was a gift from my previous employer when I moved states and I’m very glad to have it. It faces my street, where anybody can see anyways so privacy is not a concern. I’d never put ring cameras inside or in the rear of my house, and would rather not use ring but given what a life saver it has been since i bought my house several times, i will not be doin without until I can replace with a offline system. But being able to check in at work is nice, and any security is better than no security. Hell just bolting an old cctv camera to the side of your house without hooking it up is better than nothing.
Fair. I have a frigate set up myself, I just said the first thing that came to mind.
One day i will replace Echos with something better (still waiting for the Home Assistant devices to catch up). Until then, what doorbell camera A) has a battery option (rewiring isn’t currently an option) and B) will trigger Echo chimes when rung (really really handy when on the back porch or basement), C) are end-to-end encrypted (Eufys are NOT) without the manufacturer able to access the stream.when they choose
Just having driveway alarms can be useful. Battery motion sensors trigger a chime on the base unit. Enough to give you an alert that something needs to be checked.
Hmm.
I’m sure you can find this information in selfosted or other more tech oriented communities. Usually the convenience comes at the cost of privacy. It’s up to you if you want to keep the microphones in your home to turn off the lights and set timers. I used to trust Apple more and had HomePods installed, but everything has been sold on and I bought egg timers for very cheap that work just as well. (Granted Siri was never very capable…)