Pirated music infiltrating US prisons, record label says

Found on Ars Technica on Friday, 09 January 2015
Browse Legal-Issues

Filed Tuesday, this suit claims that Keefe, its owner, and associated business units sell "care packages" of "various items that family members and friends can send to inmates who are incarcerated in correctional facilities." Besides various foodstuffs and even electronics, the packages might include mixtapes, according to the lawsuit.

Maybe the best solution would be to put them into prison. Oh wait...

Boko Haram crisis: Nigeria's Baga town hit by new assault

Found on BBC News on Thursday, 08 January 2015
Browse Politics

Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official in the area, said that fleeing residents told him that Baga, which had a population of about 10,000, was now "virtually non-existent".

Those who fled reported that they had been unable to bury the dead, and corpses littered the town's streets, he said.

While he raised fears that some 2,000 had been killed in the raids, other reports put the number in the hundreds.

Yesterday Charlie Hebdo, today this. When will it end, and how?

State group defends officers' actions in teen shooting death

Found on WECT on Wednesday, 07 January 2015
Browse Legal-Issues

On Sunday, Keith Vidal's parents called police for help after they say the 18-year-old was suffering from a schizophrenic episode and was carrying a screwdriver in his hand. At the scene, Vidal's stepfather Mark Wilsey said an officer shot and killed his son after a confrontation at their home on President Drive.

The PBA release said the officers realized there was an immediate threat on Officer Thomas' life, so Detective Vassey "employed authorized law enforcement action to stop the continuing threat of deadly harm to Officer Thomas and others."

Wilsey said officers had his son down on the ground after the teen was tased a few times and an officer said, "we don't have time for this." That's when Wilsey says the officer shot in between the officers holding the teen down, killing his son.

Now a small screwdriver is considered a "deadly weapon" and justifies to kill a mentally challenged person who has been tasered and hold down. Maybe more cops should follow the NYPD and work less after complains about using too much violence.

The MPAA has a new plan to stop copyright violations at the border

Found on The Verge on Tuesday, 06 January 2015
Browse Censorship

The MPAA has consistently pushed for the power to block infringing sites from the internet: first by pushing for new laws like SOPA in 2011, then through a series of novel legal tactics.

As with SOPA, the biggest concern is what content owners can do without ever going to court. As long as there's a credible case, the simple threat of legal action against ISPs may be all that's required to take something down.

Censorship does not work. Never did, never will. Simple as that.

Young people are 'lost generation' who can no longer fix gadgets, warns professor

Found on The Telegraph on Monday, 05 January 2015
Browse Technology

Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at the University of Manchester, claims that the under 40s expect everything to ‘just work’ and have no idea what to do when things go wrong.

“All of these things in our home do seem to work most of the time and because they don’t break we just get used to them. They have almost become like Black Boxes which never die. And when they do we throw them away and buy something new.

While this is true, it's also a fact that those who actually want to fix things are facing problems: the industry makes it especially hard to take the gadgets apart. They do their best to turn them into throw-away gadgets. Nevertheless, try to fix it. It can't get much worse.

Netflix Cracks Down on VPN and Proxy “Pirates”

Found on TorrentFreak on Sunday, 04 January 2015
Browse Internet

Netflix is starting to block subscribers who access its service using VPN services and other tools that bypass geolocation restrictions. The changes, which may also affect legitimate users, have been requested by the movie studios who want full control over what people can see in their respective countries.

Netflix is not the only streaming service that’s targeting VPN and proxy users. A few months ago Hulu implemented similar restrictions. This made the site unusable for location “pirates,” but also U.S. based paying customers who used a VPN for privacy reasons.

People actually want to pay for content, yet the big media does everything it can to block them; and they stil wonder why there is piracy?

Marvel releases tiny teaser trailer for 'Ant-Man'

Found on CNet News on Saturday, 03 January 2015
Browse Various

On Friday, Marvel decided to release a teaser of "Ant-Man" with a sense of humor by showing off 10 seconds of exciting moments in miniature.

Fans wanting to see the full-sized trailer can catch it during the two-hour series premiere of "Marvel's Agent Carter" Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Another comic adoption. Pretty sure the trailer size fits to the plot.

US imposes sanctions on North Korea over Sony hack

Found on CNet News on Friday, 02 January 2015
Browse Politics

President Barack Obama signed an executive order Friday to authorize sanctions that allow the US Treasury Department to restrict North Korean officials, entities and supporters from accessing the US financial system. This means Americans are not allowed to do business with them.

The FBI said it had determined the North Korean government was responsible for the hacks, based on the software used during the attacks.

Where is the evidence? The FBI said it's likely because of the language used in some software. Other security professionals say it was an inside job. So far no real evidence has been provided; and on this unstable ground Obama imposes sanctions. It could have been worse though: if North Korea would have oil like Iraq.

UFOs in the '50s skies? CIA admits: 'IT WAS US'

Found on The Register on Thursday, 01 January 2015
Browse Various

The US government's Central Intelligence Agency has 'fessed up about reports of UFO sightings in the 1950s by playfully tweeting "it was us".

Its secret U-2 spy plane flew at very high altitudes, which baffled ordinary folk on the ground, unaware at the time that such heights were possible for contemporary aircraft.

They foolishly assume anybody would believe what they say. Snowden has proven that almost always the exact opposite of what they say is true.

North Korean defector to airdrop DVD, USB copies of The Interview

Found on Ars Technica on Wednesday, 31 December 2014
Browse Politics

"North Korea's absolute leadership will crumble if the idolization of leader Kim breaks down," Park told the AP, which noted that the dispatched versions will have Korean subtitles.

"I believe that if we can get 100 times more balloons, then we will make [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong Un paranoid—sending more and more balloons to North Korea is more effective than sending a bomb on North Korea," Park said at the time. "The thing is that if South Korea or the United States Air Force dropped a bomb, there's a way that [North Korea] would react to it, but the thing is with leaflets there's no way to react."

Kim does have things he can send back too, and it's not balloons. Assuming that he has "no way to react" is foolish.