184793706
submission
belmolis writes:
A Nova Scotia man was falsely convicted of child pornography and spent 18 months in prison because Wisconsin police mistyped his Kik userid, which led them to his IP address. Nova Scotia police found nothing incriminating on his devices and no other evidence; he was convicted solely on the basis of the connection between the mistyped userid and his IP address.
171759742
submission
belmolis writes:
Canadian prisons allow prisoners to buy devices such as personal computers and gaming consoles but severely restrict the technology, nominally on security grounds. Modern gaming consoles are forbidden on the grounds that they can connect to the internet, so the typical purchase is a Playstation 1. No version of Microsoft Windows more recent than Windows 98 is allowed. No device that can play MP3 files is allowed. The regulations forbid operating systems other than Microsoft DOS or Windows and any software capable of creating a program, such as a compiler as are "database programs capable of altering or manipulating SQL databases". Although learning job skills is encouraged, programming is evidently not considered appropriate. The relationship of most of these restrictions to security is obscure.
171307926
submission
belmolis writes:
The United Network for Organ Sharing, which coordinates organ transplants in the United States, is threatening to revoke the access of Buckeye Transplant Services, a major organ-screening company, to its database. UNOS claims that Buckeye extracts and resells information that it is not entitled to, in competition with UNOS. Experts differ on how bad the consequences would be: some say that people will die. It is unclear why UNOS could not simply restrict data access at its end.
19188182
submission
belmolis writes:
Algeria is reported to be shutting down ISPs and deleting Facebook accounts in an effort to prevent anti-government protests from escalating as they did in Egypt. Is it likely that they are deleting FB accounts? Unless Facebook is cooperating, this would either require hacking FB to obtain administrator privileges or cracking the password of each account they wish to delete.
