The ills of the Internet age have long outpaced legislation to control them — from digital theft of copyrighted music, films, and credit card numbers, to all manner of online harassment, hoaxes, and invasions of privacy.

But some forms of Internet crime are more pernicious than others, and require stiffer penalties than do more benign forms of harassment or fraud.

One such practice is “swatting’’ — calling in to law enforcement a false report of an “active shooter,’’ hostage situation, or other serious crime in progress to elicit an emergency response, potentially in the form of a SWAT team.

This type of Internet hoax has been on the rise in recent years, beginning as a kind of harassment in the online gaming community. There have also been high-profile attacks against celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Rihanna, and Justin Timberlake. But the practice has become more widespread, victimizing teen gamers as well as politicians and social activists. In each of these cases, the swatter reports a specific crime at a specific address, providing names of the residents. Using voice-altering software as well as misleading IP addresses, they’re able to elude detection. In the worst-case scenario, a family household that’s under no immediate threat is surrounded by heavily armed police. A New York Times Magazine article last year reported scores of such incidents across the country, including several instigated by a single teenage “serial’’ swatter.

In response to the trend, US Representative Katherine Clark, a Massachusetts Democrat, last year drafted the Interstate Swatting Hoax Bill, making it a federal crime to file false reports via the Internet or mail with the intention of creating an emergency response. Although such actions as bomb scares and false reports of terrorist attacks are already federal crimes, swatting is not covered; as such, it is often subject to lesser charges of conspiracy and computer fraud, or to municipal and state laws regarding the filing of false reports with the police — infractions that are no more than misdemeanors. The Clark bill would close those loopholes and stiffen penalties.

Ironically, Clark herself became a swatting victim after filing her legislation — one Sunday evening last month, her Melrose home was surrounded by police as cruisers closed off the street. In a similar case last year, a New Jersey state assemblyman who was proposing a law against swatting found himself one of its victims, as have other opponents of the practice.

The Clark legislation is a step toward reversing the trend, giving the law some teeth and providing a greater deterrent. The bill would increase the penalties forswatting, and would provide increments for further penalties depending on whether injury or death resulted. It would also make the perpetrator responsible for reimbursing the cost of police action — which can sometimes reach tens of thousands of dollars.

The Internet is rife with hoaxes of various levels of severity, from phony pizza deliveries to “text-bombing,’’ to more serious crimes like “doxing’’ (publishing private information) and fraud. Swatting is on another level. “You’re calling in a military-style unit, usually to a local residence, with the report of some heinous crime that’s occurring,’’ says Ed Davis, a security consultant and former Boston police commissioner, whose clients have included the Globe. “And with the prevalence of active shooters, it just heightens the potential for mistakes. It’s a very, very dangerous practice.’’

Swatting is no joke. The law needs to make that clear.