Street Cuffs: L.A. Sees Big Jump In Bike Thefts
Some [LA] bike messengers last month took justice into their own hands when they caught two suspected thieves, teenage boys who attended a local Catholic high school. According to police, the messengers stripped down the teens to their boxer shorts before taking their cellphones, backpacks and clothes. “They meted out street justice. We don’t condone street justice. They never threatened them. But they made it clear: don’t mess with another person’s property,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Paul Vernon said. “This incident and the arrests are the tip of the iceberg when comes to people stealing bicycles.” Vernon said the two boys told police they were robbed by about 20 men on bicycles at 6th Street and Grand Avenue about 3 p.m. on Jan. 12. Investigators said they cannot prove the boys were stealing bikes and continue to look for the assailants.
(tags: cycling theft robbery bike-theft la crime vigilantes cycle-couriers)
ICO’s Tame Investigation Of Google Street View Data Slurping
“People will yet again be asking whether Google has been let off without the kind of full and rigorous investigation that you would expect after this kind of incident,” Nick Pickles, director of the Big Brother Watch, told TechWeekEurope. “Let’s not forget that information was collected without permission from thousands of people’s Wi-Fi networks, in a way that if an individual had done so they would have almost certainly have been prosecuted. It seems strange that ICO [the UK’s Data Protection regulatory agency] did not want to inspect the [datacenter] cages housing the data, while it is also troubling that Google’s assurances were taken at face value, despite this not being the first incident where consumers have seen their privacy violated by the company.”
(tags: privacy google ico regulation data-protection snooping wifi sniffing network-traffic street-view)
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‘My researches on the pickling matter had lead me to conclude that Mexico was, in fact, one of the few places where pickled potatoes were “a thing” and, in discussing same with Lily last month at her Mexican food stall in the Honest To Goodness market, I discovered that her soon-to-be-visiting Mexican mama was, in fact, a maker of such pickles. Not long afterward, I watched as Lily sat down with her mother, querying the ways of her pickled potatoes, translating and scribbling instructions for me as the details were recalled, not in an orderly series of steps, but in a series of asides and by-the-ways, by one for whom the practice of pickling potatoes was entirely second nature.’
Porn to be Blocked in the UK – “What’s new?” Say Pirate Bay Users | TorrentFreak
It seems likely that the ISPs will implement a system similar to the one currently being used by TalkTalk, as the prime minister will specifically single the ISP out for praise in his speech. TalkTalk’s HomeSafe is a system which filters out URLs based on a remote blocklist provided and maintained by…. well, no one quite knows. This is worrying since when things don’t go quite to plan there’s no one to complain to. As previously reported, when TalkTalk customers are asked whether they want to block file-sharing sites, TorrentFreak.com is rendered inaccessible. Despite our pleas and complaints that we are a news resource, the company said it would not remove us from their blocklist. We doubt we’re the only ones being silenced.
(tags: talktalk blocking uk isps torrentfreak politics filtering david-cameron porn overblocking)