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Businesses

PayPal Withholding Indie Game Dev's €600,000 Account 775

Posted by Soulskill from the money-for-nothin' dept.
epee1221 writes "Markus Persson, a.k.a. Notch, the developer of Minecraft, posted on his development blog today that PayPal limited his account with unspecified cause on August 25th. Since then, payments for the alpha version of Minecraft have continued accumulating while Notch has been unable to withdraw them, and the account now contains over €600,000. PayPal recently told him it may take up to two more weeks for things to get sorted out and that if they conclude that there is funny business involved, they will keep the money." This unfortunate news followed an announcement a few days ago that he and a friend would be starting a studio of their own to continue development on Minecraft and start working on a new project.
United States

Submission + - Wikileaks releases full US military arms list (wikileaks.org)

Submitted by James Hardine
James Hardine writes: The New York Sun and others are reporting that government transparency Web site wikileaks.org has released secret military documents detailing the complete equipment register for all units managed by the American Army in Afghanistan together with a 300 page analysis made with a lot of computer assisted reporting tricks. The confidential records list most of the equipment held in Afghanistan by American and coalition forces, and possibly even the CIA. As well as the expected arms, the list includes hundreds of robots, iris scanners, a huge rage of National Security Agency internet equipment and even a two types of chemical weapon. According to the site's staff, the authenticity of the material has been confirmed by military sources.
Privacy

Submission + - UCLA Probe Finds Taser Incident Out Of Policy (ucla.edu)

Submitted by Bandor Mia
Bandor Mia writes: Last November, it was reported that UCLA cops Tasered a student, who forgot to bring his ID, at the UCLA library. While an internal probe by UCLAPD cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, an outside probe by Police Assessment Resource Center has found that the police actions on Mostafa Tabatabainejad were indeed out of UCLA policy. The probe was conducted at the behest of acting UCLA Chancellor Norman Abrams.

From the report:
"In light of UCLAPD's general use of force policy and its specific policies on pain compliance techniques, Officer 2's three applications of the Taser, taken together, were out of policy. Officer 2 did not take advantage of other options and opportunities reasonably available to de-escalate the situation without the use of the Taser. Reasonable campus police officers, upon assessing the circumstances, likely would have embraced different choices and options that appear likely to have been more consistent both with UCLAPD policy and general best law enforcement practices."
The Courts

Courts Reject Tech Corporation Bans on Class Action Suits 102

Posted by Zonk from the that's-going-to-get-ugly-fast dept.
Frosty Piss writes "Class action waivers included in cell phone companies' contracts with customers are invalid in Washington State because they violate the state's Consumer Protection Act, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Five plaintiffs accused Cingular of overcharging customers between $1 and $40 per month in roaming and hidden charges. Cingular had an arbitration clause that required individual arbitration and prohibited class action litigation or class action arbitration. From the article: 'In another class action-related ruling issued Thursday, the high court unanimously ruled in favor of a couple that filed a class action suit against America Online, Inc., claiming the Internet provider created and charged them for secondary membership accounts that they didn't want.'"
Privacy

Submission + - Is Your Inkjet Printer Spying on You? 1

Submitted by ulysses38
ulysses38 writes: Seeing Yellow is a site that the good folks at the MIT Media Lab put up to inform consumers that printer manufacturers are embedding personal information in output from inkjet printers. Nope, I am not kidding.

From the site "When you print on a color laser printer, it's likely that you are also printing a pattern of invisible yellow dots. These marks exist to allow the printer companies and governments to track and identify you — presumably as a way to combat money counterfeiting. When one person asked his printer manufacturer about turning off the tracking dots, Secret Service agents showed up at his door several days later."
Businesses

Submission + - CEO used pseudonym to post on stock bboard (wsj.com)

Submitted by jpallas
jpallas writes: The Wall Street Journal reports that court filings by the FTC about Whole Foods' plan to acquire Wild Oats reveal an unusual detail: The CEO of Whole Foods regularly posted to a Yahoo! stock bulletin board under a pseudonym. His alter ego was feisty, to say the least, and regularly disparaged the company that he later decided to acquire. A former SEC chairman called the behavior "bizarre and ill-advised, even if it isn't illegal." This certainly raises questions about online rights to free speech and anonymity, especially when the line between free speech and regulated speech depends on who is speaking as much as what they are saying.
Privacy

Submission + - Stop your printer from sping on you! (seeingyellow.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Via Boingboing:
When you print on a color laser printer, it's likely that you are also printing a pattern of invisible yellow dots. These marks exist to allow the printer companies and governments to track and identify you — presumably as a way to combat money counterfeiting. When one person asked his printer manufacturer about turning off the tracking dots, Secret Service agents showed up at his door several days later.

Upset? You should be!

Let's stand up to silent tracking and government bullying and send a strong message to printer manufacturers. Our privacy and our control over our own technology is far too important to give up over trumped up fears of photocopied money.

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