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 police department. There will also be separate network to alert business owners of any mischief. The entire system has been approved and should be functional by early next year. Cops to roll out text-a-tip program soon [Cambridge Chronicle] → 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. This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online. What a paranoid industry, thinking everyone’s out to get them. Well it was fun while it lasted. The thing that always amused me on OiNK was how so many people wanted you to keep it a “secret.” “Don’t tell anyone about us, we want to stay under the radar.” I should hope these people didn’t think the authorities were oblivious to the site’s existence. That would be stupid. Music piracy Web site closed after UK, Dutch raids [Reuters] → 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 and eventually booked him on fraudulent computer access. Michigan’s computer access law apparently states that using a Wi-Fi connection without authorization is a felony. Yeah. You could spend up to five years in jail and be fined $10k for using a Wi-Fi connection that doesn’t have WEP or WPA on it. I guess the police in the town of Sparta are a bunch of straight up jerks. God forbid they spend time, ya know, fighting real crime. Wi-Fi Poaching Draws Fine [PC World] → 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 you wouldn’t dare to hit the snooze alarm again. Though I doubt it beats Clocky, it’s still a pretty unique way of waking up. All the standard alarm clock features like snooze, etc are there and the LCD is big and easy to read, albeit stuck in 1983. You can pick up a Sleep Squad Alarm Clock for only $27 plus the cost of a 4-pack of AA batteries. Be afraid of the Sleep Squad [Ubergizmo] → 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 open WiFi connection for the kiddie porn, which everyone knew was BS. Turns out the guy had been looking at the stuff for years and was sending law enforcement on a wild goose chase trying to find out who was distributing child porn on the net. But the kicker? They found a CD full of it in his home. Cased closed. The sicko appealed but luckily was denied an overturned ruling and is now serving close to five years in prison. So next time the police raid your home for animal porn/illegal MP3s/cockfighting, don’t blame it on the unsecured WiFi router. It’s just not gonna work. Police blotter: Open Wi-Fi blamed in child porn case [News.com] → 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 for vandalism of public property, which will probably just result in Edelman paying off an ass-ton of fines for him. Though he probably should do some jail-time for hanging up Zune posters… Zuned! Austin P.D. Hauls Off Microsoft Street Spammers at SXSW [Los Anjealous] → Read More
