Authorities Archive

  • Chinese Internet addicts escape, then are returned to, treatment center

    Chinese Internet addicts escape, then are returned to, treatment center

    Posted on June 9, 2010 | No Comments
    A daring escape plan ended with parental scolding. Three patients (or "inmates," if you prefer) at a Chinese Internet addiction center staged a coup of sorts, overpowering guards and fleeing the area. All went according to plan until they hopped in a taxi and were unable to pay. The driver became annoyed, called the authorities, drawing the adventure to a close.

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  • Senators push for tracking of pre-paid cellphones

    Senators push for tracking of pre-paid cellphones

    Posted on May 27, 2010 | No Comments
    New York Senator Chuck Schumer has already taken aim at texting while driving, and it looks like he's now set his sights on pre-paid cellphones, which he says can also be dangerous -- when in the wrong hands, at least. To that end, he and Republican co-sponsor John Cornyn of Texas have introduced legislation that would give authorities the ability to identify the owners of pre-paid cellphones, which they say is long overdue "because for years, terrorists, drug kingpins and gang members have stayed one step ahead of the law by using prepaid phones that are hard to trace." That new tracking ability would also consequently place some new requirements on cellphone carriers and people buying the phones -- specifically, anyone buying a pre-paid cellphone would be required to present identification before buying a phone, and cellphone carriers would have to keep that information on file for 18 months after the phone has been deactivated. Of course, the legislation still has a ways to go before it becomes law, but Schumer says it at least has a good chance of winning support from the Obama administration. Head on past the break for the complete press release.

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  • Man shoots AT&T employee, is killed by off-duty cop

    Man shoots AT&T employee, is killed by off-duty cop

    Posted on May 27, 2010 | No Comments
    A 79-year-old man from Utica, NY entered an AT&T store with a hit list of names and a 357 Magnum. He opened fired, hitting one employee, before an off-duty police officer who was shopping at the store pulled his own gun and shot the attacker dead. The shooter, Abraham Dicken, had held a grudge against the store's employees for months, even threatening them with a gun once before. His hit-list contained the names of six employees.

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  • Different Wi-Fi standards: Israel blocks iPad imports from the US

    Different Wi-Fi standards: Israel blocks iPad imports from the US

    Posted on April 14, 2010 | No Comments
    For some people, buying up iPads in the US in bulk and selling them in their home countries for $2,000 and more means serious business. But don't do that in Israel, at least for now. The country's Ministry of Communications has started banning all iPad imports yesterday because of the difference in Wi-Fi standards in the US and Israel.

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  • U.S. authorities identify Chinese hacker partly responsible for Google attacks

    U.S. authorities identify Chinese hacker partly responsible for Google attacks

    Posted on February 22, 2010 | No Comments
    The Chinese hacker saga continues, with some pretty huge news having emerged in the past few hours. U.S. authorities have identified, so they think, the sole person responsible for the underlying code used on attacks on Google and others. He's a "freelance security consultant" in his 30s, and he was able to take down almighty Google by exploiting a previously unknown hole in Internet Explorer. Being an Internet Explorer public relations guy must be pretty difficult.

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  • China shuts down pretty darn big hacking Web site

    China shuts down pretty darn big hacking Web site

    Posted on February 8, 2010 | No Comments
    Much has been written about China and "hackers" in recent weeks, probably because it contains two items that sound mysterious and scary: China and its rise, which unsettles people who believe the U.S. should run the planet, full stop, and "hacking." Oh, scary hackers! Anyhow, here's another story! A rather large Web site, one allegedly offering software for hacking, has been shut down. The site, Black Hawk Safety Net, was once located at 3800cc.com, but all you get now a bad request.

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  • Stupid teens still text and drive because they’re stupid

    Stupid teens still text and drive because they’re stupid

    Posted on December 11, 2009 | No Comments
    Despite the fact that you'd have to be a stupid idiot to still text and drive, plenty of teens in the U.S. still text and drive. “By the time [the police] pull you over, the chances are you are going to be done with your text anyway so they can't exactly prove that you were texting.” Good thinking there, sport.

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  • Good job, government: TSA manual leaked online, de-redacted very easily

    Good job, government: TSA manual leaked online, de-redacted very easily

    Posted on December 9, 2009 | No Comments
    Your friendly neighborhood CrunchGear writers have spent the past several minutes rifling through a de-redacted (un-redacted?) TSA handbook; Matt is going to print our hard copies and hand them out at his local farmer's market. It was leaked somehow, and can be found all over the place. (I first found it on Cryptome, which is the go-to place for anything security-related.) Naturally, the authorities are freaking out, so get it while you can.

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  • Panic: UK file-sharers may well be disconnected from ISPs starting in 2011

    Panic: UK file-sharers may well be disconnected from ISPs starting in 2011

    Posted on October 28, 2009 | No Comments
    The ban hammer is about to smash UK file-sharers. Legislation there is set to take effect in April that would, as a last resort, kick illegal file-sharers off the Internet. Very exciting~!

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  • Postal worker helps himself to $86,000 worth of Gamefly games

    Postal worker helps himself to $86,000 worth of Gamefly games

    Posted on October 16, 2009 | No Comments
    Whoops. Philadelphia-area Gamefly members who have been wondering why in the hell they never got their rented copies of Cooking Mama finally have some answers. The culprit, 34 year old Reginald Johnson of Germantown, PA, stole some 2,200 Gamefly games while working as a mail-processing clerk between April and September of 2008.

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  • Breaking: A six-year-old is trapped in a homemade helium balloon over Denver [UPDATE]

    Breaking: A six-year-old is trapped in a homemade helium balloon over Denver [UPDATE]

    Posted on October 15, 2009 | No Comments
    Father-son projects are quite the American tradition. Everything from pine-box derby racers, to bike repairs, to experimental aircraft it seems. Wait what? The Denver Channel reports that 12:35 pm MDT today, authorities were tracking a 6-year-old boy at about 8,000 feet over Fort Collins, Colorado. Apparently the boy and his father had been building a “flying [...]

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  • Phew: World of Warcraft on track for China return

    Phew: World of Warcraft on track for China return

    Posted on July 22, 2009 | No Comments
    This could well be the biggest news on Planet Earth today. World of Warcraft is coming back to China, nearly two months after having been knocked offline because of a content dispute. Fox News Alert!

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