Topic: COMPUTER - on May 11, 2010 at 10:42:00 AM CEST
US prosecution of McKinnon 'spiteful', says ex-top cop
The senior former policeman in charge of the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit squad which first arrested Gary McKinnon has described the ongoing US prosecution of the Pentagon hacker as "spiteful".
Marc Kirby, retired former detective inspector at the NHTCU, was in charge of the team which first arrested McKinnon for cybercrime offences in 2002. US attempts to extradite McKinnon only started three years later in 2005, after the signature of a controversial extradition treaty between the US and UK.
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Topic: STRANGE - on May 11, 2010 at 10:40:00 AM CEST
Scroogle has been blocked
We regret to announce that our Google scraper may have to be permanently retired, thanks to a change at Google. It depends on whether Google is willing to restore the simple interface that we've been scraping since Scroogle started five years ago. Actually, we've been using that interface for scraping since Google-Watch.org began in 2002.
This interface (here's a sample from years ago) was remarkably stable all that time. During those eight years there were only about five changes that required some programming adjustments. Also, this interface was available at every Google data center in exactly the same form, which allowed us to use 700 IP addresses for Google.
That interface was at www.google.com/ie but on May 10, 2010 they took it down and inserted a redirect to /toolbar/ie8/sidebar.html. It used to have a search box, and the results it showed were generic during that entire time. It didn't show the snippets unless you moused-over the links it produced (they were there for our program, so that was okay), and it has never had any ads. Our impression was that these results were from Google's basic algorithms, and that extra features and ads were added on top of these generic results. Three years ago Google launched "Universal Search," which meant that they added results from other Google services on their pages. But this simple interface we were using was not affected at all.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on May 8, 2010 at 11:27:00 AM CEST
U.S. Lets Hollywood Disable Home TV Outputs to Prevent Piracy
The film industry can block outputs on home television equipment so studios can offer first-run movies while preventing viewers from making illicit copies, U.S. regulators said.
Temporarily disabling the outputs will “enable a new business model” that wouldn’t develop in the absence of such anti-piracy protection, the Federal Communications Commission said today in an order.
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Topic: POLITIK - on May 8, 2010 at 9:44:00 AM CEST
ENDLICH IN SICHERHEIT!
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Topic: CARS - on May 8, 2010 at 9:40:00 AM CEST
Rare 1936 Bugatti Atlantic sets record in automobile auction
While many consider the 1936 Bugatti Atlantic as one of the most bizarre yet expensive cars ever made, for the Bugatti enthusiasts this first ever supercar is the masterpiece with exceptional originality. This is the reason why it came as least surprise, when a 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic traded hands for $30- $40 million, thereby setting the record for the highest sum ever paid for a single automobile.
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Topic: POLICE REPORT - on May 8, 2010 at 9:37:00 AM CEST
Naughty T-shirt landed woman in jail
A Round Lake Park woman was held in contempt and jailed for two days for the message on her T-shirt. The message was: "I own the (female body part), so I make the rules." Jennifer LaPenta, 19, was released from the Lake County Jail on Tuesday. "They should be out looking for people who are breaking the law, not arresting someone wearing a T-shirt," LaPenta said.
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Topic: BP - on May 6, 2010 at 10:12:00 AM CEST
Oil spill T-shirt
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Topic: MUSIK - on May 6, 2010 at 10:03:00 AM CEST
Pink Floyd reunion thwarted by David Gilmour, claims Roger Waters
Bassist claims that Gilmour is 'not interested' in touring, leaving him to celebrate The Wall's 30th anniversary all by himself.
"David is completely uninterested," Waters told the Associated Press. "After [Pink Floyd's reunion at] Live 8, I could have probably gone for doing some more stuff, but he's not interested." Instead, Waters has been working "on and off" for the last year with Ian Hall, an English playwright best known for the screenplay (and, later, libretto) for Billy Elliot. "Lee's become a close friend of mine, and I'm touching wood but we think we've finally found a director [who] we want to work with, so that's another project that's in the pipeline. We're on the fourth or fifth version of the book."
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Topic: POLICE REPORT - on May 6, 2010 at 10:02:00 AM CEST
Jewellery gang's £2.5 million raid on De Beers and Tiffany's at Westfield Centre
A gang of 10 thieves wearing balaclavas escaped with up to £2.5 million worth of diamond jewellery in a sledgehammer raid on De Beers and Tiffany’s stores at the Westfield Centre in London.
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Topic: Gmail - on May 6, 2010 at 10:00:00 AM CEST
Major University Dumps Gmail Over Security Concerns
The University of California – Davis has stopped using Gmail for its 30,000-member staff and faculty body. The university was trying Gmail for faculty and staff with plans to roll out service to the entire campus. But school officials say this email system isn’t secure or private enough to meet their standards.
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Topic: EU - on May 5, 2010 at 2:39:00 PM CEST
Satellite photos catch Greek tax-evaders
The cheating is often quite bold. When tax authorities recently surveyed the returns of 150 doctors with offices in the trendy Athens neighborhood of Kolonaki, where Prada and Chanel stores can be found, more than half had claimed an income of less than $40,000. Thirty-four of them claimed less than $13,300, a figure that exempted them from paying any taxes at all.
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Topic: Glaubensfragen - on May 5, 2010 at 2:37:00 PM CEST
Italian police fine woman for wearing burqa in public
The growing European row over bans on Muslim veils spread to Italy yesterday after a Tunisian-born woman was fined for wearing a burqa, the first time such a penalty has been imposed in the country.
Amel Marmouri, 26, was stopped by carabinieri officers in a spot check outside a post office in Novara in northern Italy and given a 500 euro (£431) fine, payable within 90 days. She at first declined to lift her veil to be identified because the officers were male, but agreed when a municipal police patrol which included a woman officer was summoned.
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