Fake Reports

[Isaiah Montgomery]

Hello all,
I've noticed a spotter (Laura Green) making some ridiculous reports recently, across Oklahoma, Arkansas, and tonight, Kentucky. Cutting across distances in times that aren't physically possible, making reports that aren't verified by others in places that are unreachable by vehicle. Tonight she reported a funnel cloud near Hartford, KY, at 23:19Z, then in Lexington, KY, at 1:25Z (This drive is close to 3 hours). All while her location was somewhere totally different. I've brought this up on my Twitter (@gumrywx) but the SN account is not monitored there. I'd like someone to please take action against this person! This is the page that the support page brought up... I hope an admin sees this. It's very dangerous and flagrantly against the rules.
Thank you!

 

[Isaiah Montgomery]

I unintentionally posted this at the same time as someone else. It's the same story, but their post has more evidence. Hoping this is caught soon! Someone is moving their position manually and making false reports

 

[Jake Thompson]

My post about this was hidden for some reason, saying it needs approval before being displayed publicly.

Until then, here is more documentation about this issue.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1514437003357601794

 

[John Wetter]

Thanks for alerting us, we will investigate and take action as necessary.

 

[John Robinson]

According to news reports, SN investigated, confirmed whose account it was, and blocked the person. it would have been nice if that information had been posted here, as well as what SN is doing to keep this from happening again.

 

[rdale]

There’s nothing to stop people from posting fake reports in the future. Just like fake Skywarn reports can’t be stopped.

If you see them and think they are suspect, post here and SN will investigate.

 

[John Robinson]

Supposedly the account that originated the fake reports was in Ohio. There should be a way to keep people from posting events hundreds of miles from where they are.

 

[rdale]

There will be in a matter of hours. Remember SN has been around a LONG time - far before RadarScope automatically plotted your lat/long It needed a way to allow people to manually enter their coordinates if they had a separate GPS.

 

[Matthew Wann]

There will be in a matter of hours. Remember SN has been around a LONG time - far before RadarScope automatically plotted your lat/long It needed a way to allow people to manually enter their coordinates if they had a separate GPS.

So does this mean the API is going to be disabled? Or just the web interface to manually set position?

 

[rdale]

The interface to set your position manually has been disabled.

 

[John Wetter]

Hello Everyone, If there are additional questions, please feel free to post them. Thanks @rdale for responding. I've been responding to requests as quickly as possible and working with the NWS on making sure we understood everything as it happened. We have a very good working relationship with the NWS which I look forward to continuing.

As Rob mentioned, we have since disabled this option of manual location entry in our service.

We will have more information on this and additional changes in our newsletter which is expected to be out in the next couple days.