The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies.

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. "A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug," the article said, "enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down."

Last week when we pointed to Universal Music's bad decision to sue MySpace we noted how aggressive the company has been recently in demanding that everyone pay them for using their music in any form whatsoever.

Last week, one of the popular viral videos that got passed around was the incredibly earnest, but squirm-inducing, Bank of America employee singing a parody of U2's One to celebrate the bank's merger with MBNA. It's both hilarious and painful at the same time.

However, far be it from Universal Music (who supposedly owns the rights to the U2 song) to recognize parody as fair use. They've apparently been sending cease and desist letters to sites hosting or embedding the video -- and they apparently have threatened Bank of America as well. Of course, it's possible these aren't really the actions of Universal Music.

A federal district judge on Friday rejected the Bush administration's request to halt a lawsuit that alleges AT&T unlawfully cooperated with a broad and unconstitutional government surveillance program.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said the lawsuit could continue while a portion of it was being appealed, despite the U.S. Justice Department's arguments that further hearings and other proceedings would consequently endanger national security.

Friday's ruling represents another preliminary victory for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed its lawsuit against AT&T in January. In its suit, the EFF charged that AT&T has opened its telecommunications facilities up to the National Security Agency and continues to "to assist the government in its secret surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans."

In July, Walker rejected the Justice Department's attempt to have the suit against AT&T dismissed. That prompted federal prosecutors to appeal to the 9th Circuit a few days later. Along with AT&T, Verizon Communications, BellSouth and Comcast, they urged Walker to delay the case in front of him until the appeals courts reached a decision, which could take years, if it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Singapore teenager charged with hopping onto his neighbour's wireless internet connection faces charges punishable by up the three years imprisonment.

The teenager also faces a possible fine of up to 10,000 Singapore dollars ($6,425) if convicted despite the lack of aggravating factors to his alleged crimes.

There's no suggestion he did any mischief beyond allegedly freeloading his neighbour's net connection without permission.

Investigators looking into Hollywood Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom's role in helping a company win an $18 million sludge-handling contract peeked into his computer in 2005 and saw nothing.

According to reports released this week, the Broward State Attorney's Office ordered a search of Wasserstrom's computer seeking any information about his alleged involvement in helping Schwing Bioset win the contract with the city.

But Wasserstrom's Maxtor 40GB hard-drive inside his law firm's computer was apparently wiped clean, according to a U.S. Treasury investigator who checked the computer on April 29, 2005.

"[Hard-drive] appeared wiped and does not contain any data," wrote the investigator, Jim Greene.

Paul Henry, senior vice president of Secure Computing, an international computer safety firm based in San Jose, Calif., said information could still be extracted even after a crash.

"When [the Treasury Department] says a hard-drive was wiped, it usually means a wiping utility program was used several times," he said.

British gambling site BetOnSports has agreed to cease accepting wagers from U.S. customers, closing the civil component of the feds' battle against the operation.

Under a settlement entered Thursday by a federal judge in St. Louis, the company must also return all wagers received from U.S. customers as of July 17, 2006, to the appropriate account holders and set up a toll-free telephone hotline that gives U.S. members instructions on how to obtain their refunds.

The court instructed BetOnSports to cancel its U.S. trademarks to the name Betonsports.com, among others, and to cease advertising its properties inside the United States. The company must also place prominent markers on its sites to alert potential gamblers that "it is a violation of U.S. law to transmit sports wagers or betting information" on international telephone lines.

A US court is forcing the Recording Industry of America to explain why it charges people it catches pirating $750 a single rather than the 70 cents they flog them to retailers for.

If the RIAA was forced to claim back the real market value of the music that was nicked by pirates it probably would not be worth the effort. It also looks better on a press release if they can claim that a pirate stole $7,000 worth of music when they actually only stole $7.

Judge Trager was not buying it either he said that the RIAA lawyers could not cite any case law to justify its position whereas Lindor could.

Lindor could also prove that the RIAA was only out of pocket by 70 cents a single and not $750.

Now it was up to the RIAA to show m'learned friend how it came up with its $750 figure. If it can't manage the task then it is pretty likely that the robed but not wigged one will rule that the amount of damages the RIAA is seeking is unconstitutional.

The Iraqi prime minister has hailed the sentencing of Saddam Hussein to death by hanging for crimes against humanity as "a verdict on a whole dark era".

The former Iraqi leader was convicted over the killing of 148 people in the mainly Shia town of Dujail following an assassination attempt on him in 1982.

Mr Maliki welcomed the conviction in a televised address, saying it did "not represent a verdict for any one person", but "a verdict on a whole dark era... unmatched in Iraq's history".

"Maybe this will help alleviate the pain of the widows and the orphans... and those who have paid at the hands of torturers," he said.

President Bush called the verdict a "milestone" in the efforts of the Iraqi people "to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law".

Mr Bush's Republican Party is at risk of losing control of Congress, in part because of voter dissatisfaction over its handling of the Iraq conflict.

Well, here's a story that combines a few different things we've seen lately, from police (and star basketball players) raiding the home of the wrong person due to a faulty IP address to the fact that all these big data mining companies often have wrong info about you, including incorrect criminal records. In this case, a guy who got a job as a security guard as a retailer ended up spending a week in jail after the company did a background check on him and data mining firm Choicepoint (whose name became well known when they sold info to a group of identity theft scammers) incorrectly found that there were arrest warrants out for this guy for child molestation and rape. The problem was that the guy had been a victim of identity theft earlier, and while he had reported it, Choicepoint didn't take that into account. It's somewhat amusing (if disturbing) that a firm that had sold data to identity thieves later was unable to fix the false data in someone's file that was due to identity theft.

We've had a series of posts lately about ways in which people seem to be beating the RIAA when they're sued without much real evidence, such as pointing out that the IP address does not identify who actually was involved in file sharing. Ray Beckerman, who is the source for so many interesting posts on these types of cases, now has one about how the RIAA is running scared after they discovered that a lawyer who beat them before (and made them liable for the attorney's fees of the person they falsely accused of file sharing). The interesting part here is that they're trying to drop out of the case they already filed, but are asking the judge specifically to have the case dropped "without prejudice." Why? Because in the last case, the case was dropped "with prejudice," which was the reason they are on the hook for legal fees. So, now, when they see the same lawyer, they know they don't want to go through with the case, but they want to make sure they can drop it in a way without admitting they made a mistake and without paying the legal fees for the person they dragged into court incorrectly.