If you’ve jailbroken your iPhone or iPod touch with little to no regard for the law, maybe it’s time you reconsider your evil ways. Apparently, jailbreaking your iDevice will get the cops on your back if you’re not careful. → Read More
Here’s a fun story. Police in Australia thought they were being mighty clever when they took over an “underground hacking forum.” (The forum is r00t-y0u.org, though it seems to be down right now.) One of the hackers on the forum then retaliated by breaking into police computers using a simple SQL injection. Security fail. → Read More
This is a few days old, so apologies in advance for that. Anyway, the Washington D.C. police chief, Cathy Lanier, has chided people who use radar-detecting technology, including iPhone applications, for their “cowardly tactic.” With apps such as EyeWiki, people are able to flag known locations of traffic cameras using GPS. Then, as you approach a flagged camera, the app rings out, “Hey, slow… → Read More
Some privacy news to freak you out this fine Monday. A court ruling in Wisconsin means that police there can track your movements with a GPS device without a warrant. So, let’s say you’re suspected of something. The police can then slap a Garmin on your car, without any permission from the courts, and follow your car’s movements about town. Sorta scary, sure. → Read More
As weird as this apparatus looks, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it’s actually not a bad idea. The $50 “CoolCop” is basically a length of vacuum-like hose that goes from a car’s air conditioning vent on one end and clips to a police officer’s bullet-proof vest on the other end. Those vests are hot, I tell you! Well, I don’t tell you, actually. Not much need for a blogger to wear a… → Read More
The REDFLY Mobile Companion embiggens even the smallest of compatible Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs. In light of this, the Memphis police department just threw down for 12,000 of the devices and deployed them in their cruisers, saying, “The REDFLYs save hardware costs while increasing productivity and also improving the quality and accuracy of the officers’ field reports.” → Read More
Poor Simon Cowell. Apparently someone on a motorcycle had been constantly following closely behind the notoriously cranky American Idol judge’s Bentley and he couldn’t figure out why. Turns out, there was a magnetic GPS tracking device stuck to the undercarriage of his car, which helped explain why the aforementioned motorcyclist kept showing up at Cowell’s private meetings. It’s unknown… → Read More
We can jokingly say things like “buy a cellphone jammer to silence those annoying people on the bus” but that would be irresponsible. Quite irresponsible, it turns out, as criminals are now using such devices to impede law enforcement efforts. It happened last month in Canada. Two Mounties had pulled over a car, and as they approached to car their radios went out. It turns out that the two… → Read More
Carbon Motors, never heard of ‘em either, is working on a custom police car to catch all of Gotham’s baddies. It kind of looks as if K.I.T.T. and Robocop breed a Transformer offspring meant just for police duty. It’s dubbed the E7 and specific details about all the gadgets haven’t been released, but this short video shows off it’s bad-ass styling. Allegedly, the car… → Read More
Those wacky Israelis! Police there used a “skunk bomb” for the first time on Friday as part of a crowd control action. The bomb is actually more like super soaker water gun that sprays a vile smelling liquid on people. The liquid is so foul smelling, that people instantly recoil against it. The theory is, if people are freaking out over the horrific smell, they’ll stop doing whatever it… → Read More
Here’s a fun little story that ought to excite your Freedom Bone. It seems an 18-year-old was recently pulled over for speeding, with police claiming that the lad was 17 mph north of the speed limit. An on-board GPS unit disagrees. Yup, the kid had a GPS device(an RMT Rover, seen here) in his car at the time , and its data indicates that he was doing the 45 mph speed limit all the way to his… → Read More
Japanese accessory maker Carrot Systems began to sell a flashlight [JP] last month, which is able to record video and sound via an integrated mini CMOS camera and microphone. The AD-1500 stores recordings in MP4 format on miniSD cards. 2GB can hold up to 180 minutes of video material. The flashlight is ready for infra-red video recording (within a distance of 4 meters). Carrot Systems wants to… → Read More
A couple from Long Island left their camera at a restaurant in Florida where two of the employees found and kept it . The camera contained an Eye-Fi card which automatically found an open wireless base station and began uploading their photos including some photos the thieves had taken of each other. When they contacted the restaurant with the evidence, the camera was returned and the couple… → Read More
It turns out that the lead investigator of the Pirate Bay raid from a few years ago has been working for Warner Bros. Naturally, that’s causing all sorts of commotion online, with cries “corruption,” “conflict of interest,” and whatever other insult you can think of. The Pirate Bay is already spinning the news, calling the officer’s Warner Bros. employment a… → Read More
Sure, we all get a laugh at someone else’s expense when watching taser videos on YouTube, but did you know that the device may affect your heartbeat? That’s not cool, especially since Taser, Inc. says its devices are totally safe and in no way affect your biological functions. It all stems from a recent incident where a man was running from police and hid in a lake (?!) to escape them. → Read More
Since last fall, police in New York’s Orange County have been using experimental gun-mounted camera technology that begins recording the moment a police officer’s gun is pulled from its holster. The technology was adopted after a public outcry surrounding the 2006 shooting of a Newbugrh, New York man in which, “the street version of the story differs massively from the one told… → Read More
Did American companies violate U.S. law by selling hi-tech police equipment to the Chinese? The Old Gray Lady asks this today, examining a recent Chinese police equipment trade show held in Beijing where several American companies, including Motorola and DuPont, were notably present. (An old law going back to Tiananmen Square prevents American companies from selling police equipment to China.) On… → Read More
Attention Police: We’re really getting tired of reminding you about this stuff, bit you should really pay attention this time. MP3 players are not guns. Please quit tasing, arresting, and otherwise antagonizing those of us with them. This is Darren Nixon, and it wasn’t really the police’s fault, as a woman called them suspecting he had a gun. But the cops should have been able to… → Read More
Police in New Carrollton, Maryland are among the first in the state to use the magic of modern technology to issue tickets to motorists. Information about the driver in question is pulled from the Maryland motor vehicle database and then printed out in the squad car. Sounds very simple, no? Before this system, "officers would write out 5 copies of each citation by hand" and about 10-15… → Read More
In June, the city of Boston set up an anonymous text-a-tip line for its police department, allowing people to send text messages reporting suspicious behavior and crimes-in-progress. Now the neighboring city of Cambridge is developing a similar system for its own police department but will add an outgoing alert option that allows the city’s residents to subscribe to alerts issued by the… → Read More
Police raided and shut down the OiNK BitTorrent site earlier today after a two-year investigation, shocking users across the BT community. Additionally, the 24-year-old man who ran the site was arrested. Good luck, bro. I really love this quote by one of the anti-piracy guys that make OiNK users sound like war criminals: OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. → Read More
A Minnesota man (not me) has demanded to see the source code for the breathalyzer that landed him in the clink. Whether or not Dale Lee Underdahl would know what to do with the source code once it’s in his clammy hands is uncertain but “if a company proves unwilling to turn over the code, the case is often thrown out…” → Read More
If you’re a geek thinking of moving to Michigan, I suggest you keep looking. A Michigan man was recently fined $400 and ordered to perform 40 hours of community service. Damn, he must have assaulted a police officer or something, right? Actually, the dude was just using a cafe’s Wi-Fi connection to check his e-mail and surf the web. A nosy police chief confronted the gentleman about it… → Read More
Nothing scares the living crap out of you more than the po’ kicking down your door and telling you to freeze. So if you woke up to the sound of a police officer screaming “This is the police, you have until the count of three to get out of bed or we are coming in, 1…..,2…..,3” with a hail of siren sounds and flashing lights going off soon after, I’d bet 10 bucks that… → Read More
Sure you can pin the blame on your unsecured router when the RIAA or MPAA comes knocking at your door, but when it’s the FBI and you’re accused of having tons of child pornography, don’t think you’re getting out of this one so easily. A guy in Texas had his home raided and the police found lots of child porn on his computer. When confronted, he blamed his router’s… → Read More
This is a bit of an odd situation. Normally I’d be all against the cops arresting someone for posting some bills on walls. No big deal, see it every block in NYC, right? Well the difference here is that this guy who was putting up posters worked for Microsoft and was throwing up Zune posters all over town. After a while, the Austin Po Po got fed up with his DRM-laden hi-jinx and arrested him… → Read More
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Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
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