Andrus Nomm, a former programmer from the defuct file sharing website Megaupload was arrested earlier this week before entering a guilty plea and being sentenced this same week. Nomm plead guilty to felony copyright infringement and was sentenced to one year and one day in jail. One of Megaupload's lawyers confirmed for the New Zealand Herald that Nomm was involved in a deal or agreed to come to the US. Among other charges Nomm is accused of watching at least one pirated TV Show. It, as always, remains important to note that his prison sentence is happening exactly because he came to the United States of his own volition and still finds himself having walked into the prison himself.
Category Archives: News
Bill Would Ban Federal Employees From Porn Breaks at Work
The Federal Times reports that if a new bill introduced by North Carolina Republican Representative Mark Meadows becomes law, the viewing of pornography on United States Government computers by its employees would be prohibited. It is unknown what effect this ban would have on the morale of United States Government employees seeing as in some of the more forlorn agencies it can take two to six hours of pornography viewing to make the workplace environment bearable.
Purported Silk Road 2.0 Dataset Up for Auction
Someone who describes their self as a having been "hired by Dread Pirate Roberts a/k/a Blake Benthall as lead programmer for Silk Road 2.0" is offering for sale a dataset which they allege contains numerous record relating to and source code for running the Silk Road in its second incarnation. The first portion of the sale is occurring on Darkleaks, an information market which is advertised as being trustless and provably fair. Continue reading
USD Fraud Collapses: Suitability of USD for Law Abiding Citizens In Commerce Questioned
LeapFrog Enterprises Inc, trading as LF on NYSE dropped to $2.35 a share earlier, down in a straight line from a $2.57 opening today, and from a $12 peak two years ago (a 80.41% loss). Continue reading
HSBC Clients Victims of Probable Social Engineering Attack
Private financial information on a number of customers of HBSC's Swiss operations have been leaked. The Guardian and the "International Consortium of Investigative Journalists" have latched on to the leaks in order to shame HSBC for providing financial services and to wealth shame HSBC customers for having money and desiring privacy at the same time. Continue reading
Jeb Bush Document Dump Identity Theft Risk
Former Florida Governor Jed Bush published unredacted names addresses, and phone numbers in his latest "transparency" related document dump as he considers running for the United States Presidency. The information includes names, addresses, and social security numbers sent in correspondence to the former Governor. Due to personal information substituting for signatures in the American legal system as discussed while considering the TurboTax fraud issue this information places the affected parties at risk for identity theft. The personal information is contained in six Microsoft Outlook files released in their entirety alongside an ebook of redacted correspondence from Bush's time as the governor of Florida.
DC Court of Appeal Upholds Redaction of Protocol to Shutdown Wireless Networks
Today in a case between the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the United States Department of Homeland Security the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia protected the Department's desire to prevent full disclosure of "Standard Operating Procedure 303" from the public record. SOP 303 is a protocol maintained by the Department of Homeland Security which is alleged to concern a plan for shutting down wireless networks during "critical emergencies." Continue reading
TurboTax Stops Filing State Tax Returns Due To Massive Fraud
United States tax preparation company TurboTax, a subsidiary of "financial software" developer Intuit, has discontinued its e-filing service for state tax returns due to concerns over massive fraud. Reportedly Utah was the first state to raise concerns to the company identifying 28 returns as fraudulent with a further 8,000 suspected fraudulent returns. Minnesota followed by refusing to accept state returns filed through Turbo Tax after users reported logging in and seeing TurboTax show their taxes already had already been filed for them. Alabama similarly flagged 16,000 returns as likely fraudulent and insists that their computer and network security practices are in no way connected to the existence of fraudulent returns. Continue reading
Indefinite Yahoo Gag Struck Down by Judge
Reuters reports that yesterday U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal ruled against a gag order issued against Yahoo, that would have potentially prevented them from ever revealing they had been subjected to a particular grand jury subpoena. The order in question rather than seeking to compel Yahoo's silence on the matter of the subpoena for a set period of time, subject to potential renewal, sought instead to compel Yahoo's silence until ordered otherwise by the court. Continue reading
Amazon Exits Crimea
TASS reports that American retailer Amazon.com is requesting Crimean residents delete their Amazon.com accounts by February 13th, or Amazon will deactivate their accounts by force. This move follows similar abandonment of Crimea by Google and PayPal.