richlv writes “Latvian police recently raided the home of a history teacher and confiscated his computer. The crime? Scanning a history book and making it available on his website covering various topics on history. The raid was based on a complaint from the publisher (Google Translate to English), which has a near-monopoly on educational materials in Latvia, often linked with shady connections in the Ministry of Education.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Taunting the police on Facebook has limited benefits — as one wanted man in the U.K. discovers when it takes police just 12 hours to catch up with him. They leave him a taunting message on Facebook in return. [Read more]
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A 15-year-old in Las Vegas dies after the passenger in a car allegedly tries to steal his iPad as he walks down the street. Police say the teen wouldn’t let go of his iPad and was run over. [Read more]
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Italian police arrested four suspected hackers Friday, accusing them of having taken control of the Italian branch of the Anonymous network.
Computerworld News
An anonymous reader writes “In a decision that’s almost certainly going to result in this issue heading up to the Supreme Court, the Federal 1st Circuit Court of Appeals [Friday] ruled that police can’t search your phone when they arrest you without a warrant. That’s contrary to most courts’ previous findings in these kinds of cases where judges have allowed warrantless searches through cell phones.” (But in line with the recently mentioned decision in Florida, and seemingly with common sense.)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Sockatume writes “The Sunday Times has revealed that analytics firm Ipsos MORI and 4G network EE attempted to sell detailed information on 27m subscribers’ activities to various parties including the UK’s police forces. The data encompasses the gender, postcode and age of subscribers, the sites they visit and times they are visited, and the places and times of calls and text messages. Ipsos MORI were reportedly ‘bragging that the data can be used to track people and their location in real time to within 100 meters’ in negotiations. Ipsos MORI has rushed to contradict this in an effort to save face, stating that the users are anonymized and data is aggregated into groups of 50 or more, while location is only precise to 700m. Despite their prior enthusiasm, the police have indicated that they will no longer go ahead with the deal. It is not clear whether the other sales will go ahead.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AchilleTalon writes “As the US continues to grapple with the idea of letting drones fly through the country’s airspace, our neighbors to the north have reported a new milestone for unmanned aerial technology: the first life saved using a drone. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the province of Saskatchewan announced yesterday that they successfully used the small Draganflyer X4-ES helicopter drone to locate and treat an injured man whose car had flipped over in a remote, wooded area in near-freezing temperatures. Zenon Dragan, president and founder of the Draganfly company that makes the drone, said in a statement: ‘to our knowledge, this is the first time that a life may have been saved with the use of a sUAS (small Unmanned Aerial System) helicopter.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New submitter ukemike points out an article at CNET reporting on a how there’s a “waiting list” for Apple to decypt iPhones seized by various law enforcement agencies. This suggests two important issues: first, that Apple is apparently both capable of and willing to help with these requests, and second, that there are too many of them for the company to process as they come in. From the article: “Court documents show that federal agents were so stymied by the encrypted iPhone 4S of a Kentucky man accused of distributing crack cocaine that they turned to Apple for decryption help last year. An agent at the ATF, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ‘contacted Apple to obtain assistance in unlocking the device,’ U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell wrote in a recent opinion. But, she wrote, the ATF was ‘placed on a waiting list by the company.’ A search warrant affidavit prepared by ATF agent Rob Maynard says that, for nearly three months last summer, he “attempted to locate a local, state, or federal law enforcement agency with the forensic capabilities to unlock’ an iPhone 4S. But after each police agency responded by saying they ‘did not have the forensic capability,’ Maynard resorted to asking Cupertino. Because the waiting list had grown so long, there would be at least a 7-week delay, Maynard says he was told by Joann Chang, a legal specialist in Apple’s litigation group. It’s unclear how long the process took, but it appears to have been at least four months.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Authorities in Maryland say a 37-year-old man walked down railway tracks while shutting out the world and was hit by a train, despite the conductor’s warning signal. [Read more]
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It turns out that the security features on the iPhone are so robust, that police are unable to decrypt them in order to gain access to possibly crucial information on suspects’ devices. This has led to federal agencies getting a hold of Apple in order to decrypt iPhones for them, but it turns out that
The Dutch government today presented a draft bill that aims to give law enforcement the power to hack into computer systems — including those located in foreign countires — to do research, gather and copy evidence or block access to certain data.
Computerworld News
The man suspected of participating in a large DDoS attack on an antispam organization that caused intermittent Internet hiccups drove around Spain in a van he used as a mobile office, Spain's Interior Ministry said Sunday.
Computerworld News
Now more than ever, people are becoming more worried about their privacy, specifically being monitored while out in the public. Whether it’d be commuting to work or going out with friends, people aren’t too comfortable with the idea that there are people watching them. However, it’s not going away anytime soon, according to NYC police
An anonymous reader writes “What do you get mugged in Central London and the local police are too incompetent to find a mugger even with his address and photograph? You may not be able to get to the laptop, but you still own the photos and data on it, so you set up the NSFW Plumpergeddon blog which gives details of the subsequent ‘owner’s’ ‘Brick House Butts’ fetishes. Now of course later the IT media might get interested and offer an interview with a promise to let him review the article and keep his name secret. luckily our hero is not so innocent and demonstrates the value of using a false name on the internet as well as planting your own monitoring software on your laptop.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
hypnosec writes “Authorities in Japan are presumably worried about their inability to tackle cybercrime and, in a bid to stem one of the sources of anonymous traffic, the National Police Agency (NPA) is asking ISPs to block Tor. The recommendation comes from the special panel formed by the NPA after a hacker going by the name Demon Killer was found to regularly use Tor to anonymize his online activities, like posting of death threats on public message boards.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Boston police today used Twitter and Facebook to reach out to residents during a manhunt for one of the men suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon this past Monday.
Computerworld News
Police have captured believed Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was “pinned down” in a boat stored behind a house in Watertown, Massachusetts. You can listen to the live police feed here.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It’s no secret that Samsung and LG have been less than enthused with each other in recent months, with Samsung having sought an injunction against the latter company last year. The competitors aren’t calling a truce any time soon, and it seems things might have jumped a notch, with Samsung’s display business’s office in Korea
Using the alias of “Joe Sly,” the “Boston Punk Zombie,” the Boston Police Department is allegedly sleuthing out illegal DIY indie-rock shows on social media. [Read more]
CNET News
A group of U.S. lawmakers has introduced legislation that would require law enforcement agencies to get court-ordered search warrants before obtaining a suspect’s mobile phone location or GPS data, instead of using prosecution-issued subpoenas.
Computerworld News
Europe’s antitrust agency put Microsoft on the honor system, letting the company monitor its own compliance with a 2009 settlement that required it to offer other browsers to Windows users, the EU’s top regulator admitted.
Computerworld News
A Pennsylvania police chief claims his Facebook account was hacked — which doesn’t entirely explain a picture of him displayed there. It features a fetching lady with a bare midriff and two guns. [Read more]
CNET News
Kosovo’s culture minister says seven smuggled artifacts dating as far back as 4,000 B.C. are being returned to the country some seven years after they were found during a police raid in Germany.
FOX News
Police in Georgia say they tried traditional methods to contact Anna Lamb-Creasey before resorting to Facebook. She doesn’t get the message for weeks, as it didn’t come from a friend. [Read more]
CNET News
On Monday The Pirate Bay, the world’s largest file sharing site, reported an anti-piracy organization to Finnish police for allegedly breaching its copyright.
Computerworld News
An anonymous reader writes “In a real life Prisoner’s Dilemma taking place in the French city of Marseille, twin brothers have been arrested for a string of sexual assaults. While say they are sure that one of them committed the crimes (corroborated by a standard DNA test), police were told that it would cost upwards of €1m euros (£850,000, $ 1.3m USD) to distinguish between them using DNA evidence.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Bob the Super Hamste writes “The St. Paul Pioneer Press is reporting that Andrew Henderson was recording Ramsey County sheriff’s deputies frisking a bloody-faced man, who was then loaded into an ambulance by paramedics. Then sheriff’s deputy Jacqueline Muellner approached Henderson and confiscated his video camera, stating, ‘We’ll just take this for evidence,’ which was recorded on Henderson’s cell phone. On October 30th, Henderson went to the Arden Hills sheriff’s office to retrieve his video camera, where he was told where he would have to wait to receive his camera back. A week later, Henderson was charged with obstruction of legal process and disorderly conduct, with the citation stating, ‘While handling a medical/check the welfare (call), (Henderson) was filming it. Data privacy HIPAA violation. Refused to identify self. Had to stop dealing with sit(uation) to deal w/Henderson.’ In mid November, Henderson went back to the sheriff’s office to attempt to retrieve his camera and get a copy of the report when Deputy Dan Eggers refused. … Jennifer Granick, a specialist on privacy issues at Stanford University Law School, states that the alleged violation of HIPAA rules by Andrew Henderson is nonsense, stating, ‘There’s nothing in HIPAA that prevents someone who’s not subject to HIPAA from taking photographs on the public streets, HIPAA has absolutely nothing to say about that.’” The article notes that the Deputy in question basically told the guy he was arrested for being a “buttinski” and recording someone in the midst of a violent mental health breakdown. Supposedly the footage was deleted from the camera while in police custody.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
identity0 writes “According to Japan Probe, Hiroyuki Nishimura, the founder of 2ch.net, has been charged with drug offenses by Japanese police over a forum post made on 2ch in 2010. He is not even accused of making the post, but of failure to have moderators delete it. The post apparently discussed drugs. 2ch.net (also called 2channel) is Japan’s biggest forum, with over a million posts a day, of which the post in question was one. The site inspired image board 2chan.net (but is not directly related to it), which spawned copycat English site 4chan.net. More info at Slashdot Japan, if you can read Japanese.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In the wake of his Belize neighbor’s unsolved murder, John McAfee’s lurch through the news damaged the reputation of his namesake, the security company McAfee Inc., a brand expert said Thursday.
Computerworld News
Police say they have rescued a half dozen motorists in recent weeks who were using the app to navigate to a city only to find themselves stranded in the wilderness of a national park. [Read more]
CNET News
Police in Victoria have urged motorists to avoid the use of Apple Maps, warning that faulty directions on the much-criticized app has left motorists stranded in the Australian outback for up to 24 hours without food or water.
Dupple writes “When a cellphone is reported stolen in New York, the Police Department routinely subpoenas the phone’s call records, from the day of the theft onward. The logic is simple: If a thief uses the phone, a list of incoming and outgoing calls could lead to the suspect. But in the process, the Police Department has quietly amassed a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a court order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose. The call records from the stolen cellphones are integrated into a database known as the Enterprise Case Management System, according to Police Department documents from the detective bureau. Each phone number is hyperlinked, enabling detectives to cross-reference it against phone numbers in other files.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
cstacy writes “The Nassau County (New York) Police Department is ‘very concerned’ about reports that shreds of police documents (with social security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, license plate numbers, incident reports, and more) rained down as confetti in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The documents also unveiled the identities of undercover officers, including their SSNs and bank information, according to WPIX-TV. Macy’s has no idea how this happened, as they use commercial, colored confetti, not shredded paper.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I know I’m not the only one that thinks record companies and other groups have gone entirely too far in trying to protect copyrights for music and other files illegally traded on the Internet. It seems that sometimes copyright holders and authorities simply go too far for minor infractions. This is exactly what happened this
zacharye writes “Copyright enforcement might be getting out of hand in Scandinavia. As anti-piracy groups and copyright owners continue to work with authorities to curtail piracy in the region, police this week raided the home of a 9-year-old suspect and confiscated her “Winnie the Pooh” laptop. TorrentFreak reports that the girl’s home was raided after local anti-piracy group CIAPC determined copyrighted files had been downloaded illegally at her residence. Her father, the Internet service account holder, was contacted by CIAPC, which demanded that he pay a 600 euro fine and sign a non-disclosure agreement to settle the matter. When the man did not comply, authorities raided his home and collected evidence, including his 9-year-old daughter’s notebook computer.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How young will the casualties become in the ongoing war against online piracy? You have to wonder, when you learn that a 9-year old girl’s laptop was seized by Finnish police in a raid on her home, following a complaint by the CIAPC anti-piracy group which had ISPs block The Pirate Bay in Finland. The raid followed a request that the girl’s father pay up around €600 to settle piracy accusations.
TechCrunch
After a medical student writes a mild message of protest on the social network, she is arrested for hate speech. She has now become the symbol of the country’s intolerance of free speech. [Read more]
CNET News
PolygamousRanchKid writes “Forget texting while driving. German police say they nabbed a driver who had wired his Ford station wagon with an entire mobile office. Saarland state police said Friday the 35-year-old man was pulled over for doing 130 kph (80 mph) in a 100 kph zone while passing a truck Monday. Built on a wooden frame on his passenger seat they found a laptop on a docking station tilted for easy driver access, a printer, router, wireless internet stick, WLAN antenna, and an inverter to power it all.”
I’ve driven some long trips with a similar passenger-seat setup (minus the printer). but of course for use only while stopped. Since the police in this case had no evidence that the rig was being used while driving, the driver was ticketed only for speeding and for having unsecured items. Really, it seems like something that Skymall should offer in neater form; now I regret not picking up a surplus police cruiser computer when they were in stock at the local Goodwill.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Swedish police confiscated three servers allegedly connected to copyright infringements during a raid on PRQ, a hosting service that was once home to The Pirate Bay. The main target was the Swedish torrent site tankafett.nu, according to the hosting company's owner.
Computerworld News
Owner of Internet service provider PRQ believes police investigations into his company have to do with sites that deal in illegal file-sharing. [Read more]
CNET News
A Dutch girl forgets to make a Facebook party invitation private. So 4,000 people turn up, and she has to flee her home.
[Read more]
CNET News
An anonymous reader writes with this bit from the Globe and Mail: “Quebec police are on the hunt for a sticky-fingered thief after millions of dollars of maple syrup vanished from a Quebec warehouse. The theft was discovered during a routine inventory check last week at the St-Louis-de-Blandford warehouse, where the syrup is being held temporarily. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, which is responsible for the global strategic maple syrup reserve, initially kept the news quiet, hoping it would help police solve the crime quickly.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AT&T Wireless has partially disabled service at 16 cellphone towers in Oakland after the California city said they were interfering with its emergency communications system.
Computerworld News
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