On Sunday, May 2, the city and county of DeKalb, Ill., dodged a bullet to the local 9-1-1. That morning, a tech savvy freshman from Northern Illinois University programmed his iPhone, which he had reported stolen, to call 9-1-1 repeatedly, tying up both of the city’s 9-1-1 lines. Approximately three 9-1-1 calls per minute came in. Amazingly, it took only six minutes for Carol Halsey, a DeKalb Comm Center dispatcher with 20 years of experience, to stop the loop and restore service to the area. 

When Halsey arrived at work at 7 a.m., it seemed like any other morning. The college town was quiet after a busy Saturday night during finals week. There was only one active call: an iPhone had been reported stolen around 4 a.m., and the task hadn’t been closed out by the responding officer yet. Radio traffic was quiet. The evening dispatcher, Michael Callahan, briefed her and held over for 15 minutes, waiting for the second morning dispatcher to arrive.

Halsey was reviewing the iPhone report when Callahan answered the first call at 7:08 a.m. “The first 9-1-1 call that came in was treated like a hangup,” says City of DeKalb Sgt. Lisa Miller. “[The line] was just dead. The next call came in at 7:09 a.m., and it was a hangup. [Halsey] was trying to do a callback, but when the phone disconnected, the 9-1-1 line would just ring again.”

One call at 7:08 a.m.; three calls at 7:09 a.m.; three calls at 7:10 a.m. Halsey realized that the calls were coming from the number that belonged to the stolen iPhone.

At 7:11 a.m., she located the ALI Trakker Keypad in the system and began to dial the iPhone’s number while listening to the line she had just answered.

Miller says, “In the ALI Trakker, you can use the keypad to dial back a number while leaving your line open and still listening to that line. She has just learned that [trick] the week before.”

Miller continues, “[Halsey] still had the ticket open from the theft. It was open for three hours because [the officer] was probably busy — Saturday night in a college town. Thank God, because they would not have caught it. [When doing the callback], she didn’t know if the thief or the owner would answer.”

The thief didn’t pick up; someone else did, because the iPhone’s number had also been forwarded to another phone. Halsey asked for the owner of the iPhone, Ben W. and made it clear that this needed to stop, “I realize that you are pinging 9-1-1 in a loop. The only phone call I can get is from your phone.”

The calls stopped almost immediately. The city’s 9-1-1 is set up to roll over to the Dekalb County 9-1-1 system when both lines are tied up. One call did just that, and the calls would have continued to roll over.

“He felt so bad,” says Miller. “What Ben thought would happen was that by telling his phone to call 9-1-1 that the [GIS location] would show up and lead us to his phone. But the phone wasn’t really [physically] dialing 9-1-1.”

Because the phone wasn’t physically dialing the number, but rather the computer application or network were, when Halsey resubmitted the ALI information, the iPhone’s location wasn’t coming through the system.

At 7:15 a.m., Ben called 9-1-1 from a friend’s phone, trying to explain that his iPhone was still stolen. Halsey picked up. At that moment, the officer who had investigated the incident walked into the comm center at the end of his shift. Halsey transferred Ben to him. (Click here to listen to the 7:11 and 7:15 calls.)

“The officer is 6’5″ – a huge guy,” says Miller. “He made sure that Ben would never do that again. If we hadn’t gotten Ben on the phone, the officer would have gone to Ben’s house. We only knew who it was because [Halsey] was paying attention.”

No charges have been brought against Ben. In the state of Illinois, abuse of the 9-1-1 system is specific to an individual making a false claim to 9-1-1. “There was no intent behind it to do harm,” says Miller. “I don’t think he realized that it would run on a continuous loop. Thankfully, Halsey was at work because she is very tech savvy, has been in dispatch for 20 years and was able to put this together.”

In their discussions after the incident, Miller and Halsey realized that they got lucky. They also did some research, finding multiple phone applications that were designed to dial out from computers. Miller has also been in touch with an AT&T representative who was able to determine that the suspect application for this incident, ilocalis, was not an Apple or AT&T approved application and was listed online amidst other applications for hacked iPhones.

“It was 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning in a college town. If Ben had done this at 2 a.m. or three hours later, it would have impaired us,” says Miller. “It might have crippled us and DeKalb County — I believe the whole county. We only have two 9-1-1 lines for the city, the county only has five positions and the university only has one. If he had done it the following day, it wouldn’t have been caught. Because the ticket was still active, Halsey caught it right away.”

She adds, “I think the biggest lesson is the keypad on the ALI Trakker. Know your technology — and [Halsey’s] experience in dispatch and with technology. We knew who it was because she was paying attention to the screen.

“Not all bad guys are stupid,” Miller says. “They could jam all 9-1-1 centers in a certain area and do whatever they want if no one can call 9-1-1. This was [9-1-1] technology fighting against technology, and we just happened to win this time, but who is to say that that is how it will work out the next time.”

About the Author
Natasha Yetman is associate editor for APCO’s Public Safety Communications magazine. Contact her via e-mail at yetmann@apcointl.org.