Via Huffington Post, a man in Tampa who parked outside a house and mooched off the homeowner's wi-fi network has been arrested and charged.

Sounds, ridiculous, right? The police say no, and they have a point.

The technology has made life easier for high-tech criminals because it provides near anonymity. Each online connection generates an Internet Protocol Address, a unique set of numbers that can be traced back to a house or business. That's still the case with Wi-Fi but if a criminal taps into a network, his actions would lead to the owner of that network. By the time authorities show up to investigate, the hacker would be gone.

"Anything they do traces back to your house and chances are we're going to knock on your door," Breeden said.

So if the perp outside is logging on to child p0rn and downloading it, you'll be getting a visit from the feds. How will you convince them it wasn't you? Maybe by letting them search your hard drive to show no p0rn on it. Seems too steep a price, if you ask me.

Make sure your wi-fi is secure. It's more than your finances that need protecting. Your privacy and liberty rights may also be at stake.

Update, 11/30/07: Kalpoe brothers ordered released again.

****

Update: More Here, this thread is ending.

Bump and Update: 7/4/05 1:55 pm. The Judge has ordered the release of the Kalpoe brothers, Deepak and Satish. Joran van der Sloot will be detained for up to another 60 days.

A judge has ordered the release of two of the three suspects being held in the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba, court officials said Monday.

Through their mothers, the three say this is what happened:

The Kalpoes' mother has said one of her sons admitted lying to protect Van Der Sloot and said he and his brother took the Dutch youth and Holloway to a beach and dropped them off.

Anita Van Der Sloot also has said her son changed his story and admitted being alone with Holloway on the beach, saying he then left her because she wanted to stay there.

After 20 days of deliberation, the jury has found Richard Scrushy not guilty of all 36 fraud counts against him.

Richard Scrushy, the former chief executive of HealthSouth Corp., was acquitted of directing a $2.7 billion accounting fraud that nearly bankrupted the company he built into the largest U.S. operator of rehabilitation hospitals.

....The verdict was a resounding defeat for federal prosecutors in Birmingham, Alabama, who had the cooperation of 15 HealthSouth executives who pleaded guilty to participating in the fraud. Five former finance chiefs testified against Scrushy, who was accused of inflating profit from 1996 to 2002 and propping up HealthSouth shares to enrich himself.

A Mississippi Judge today sentenced Edgar Killen to 60 years in prison on the manslaughter convictions for three civil rights workers - 20 years on each count, to be served consecutively. It was the maximum sentence possible. He is 80 years old.

Vernon Jordan, over at Huffington Post, has this to say about the Edgar Killen manslaughter conviction today:

...it demonstrates that the South in general and Mississippi in particular are no longer places where racists can get a free pass for their atrocities. What happened today was a kind of justice very different from historic Southern and Mississippi injustice. While it cannot restore Michael Schwerner, James Earl Chaney, and Andrew Goodman to the lives so viciously taken from them in their youth, it has redeemed to an extent the honor of the region, the political courage of its leaders, and the integrity of its justice system. It also proves again what I learned at my mother's knee, that "the Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform."

by TChris

The 6-6 jury split that TalkLeft described yesterday didn't last long, as the jury returned a guilty verdict today against former KKK member Edgar Ray Killen. The jury convicted Killen of manslaughter for his role in the 1964 deaths of three civil rights workers. It settled on the lesser charge after acquitting him of murder.

Apparently, it doesn't just take a village to dismantle an LA street gang, it takes 900 state and federal agents. LA Police Chief Bill Bratton held a press conference at 5:00 a.m. (PT) today to announce the results of Operation Silent Night, in which 900 law enforcement agents arrested 19 of the 43 members (so far) of the Vineland Boyz gang in Los Angeles and surrounding communities. The gang is believed by police to be responsible for two murders of police officers, one in 1988 and 2003.

LAPD Chief William Bratton called the gang a "modern-day Mafia." The Vineland Boyz gang is a criminal organization, "involved in drug trafficking, murders, attempted murders and extortion," Bratton said.
Bratton said Tuesday's operation was the culmination of an 18-month investigation.

CNN TV reports that the jury in the Killen murder trial of civil rights workers is deadlocked, six-six. They have only deliberated three hours. But the judge is going to make them deliberate tomorrow. Background here .

The Judge in the Adelphia Cable fraud case handed 80 year old company founder John Rigas an effective life sentence today - 15 years. The prosecution had asked for 215 years. His son is being sentenced now.

How's this for mercy?

U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Sand said at Monday's hearing that John Rigas' sentence could be altered after two years, but only if the Bureau of Prisons determines Rigas' life expectancy to be less than 3 months.

Update: Rigas suffers from bladder cancer. I have to say, I'm glad he didn't cower at his sentencing. He knew what was coming and said,

``If I did anything wrong, I apologize,'' said Rigas, speaking in a faint voice before the judge passed sentence. ``It's in your hands, and in God's hands. In my heart and conscience, I'll go to my grave really and truly believing that I did nothing but to improve conditions for my employees.''

Rigas's son Timothy Rigas has just been sentenced to 20 years.
America. Prison Nation.

It is now estimated that hackers have gained access to 40 million Master Card and other credit card accounts - and that Card Systems may have been negligent.

MasterCard said CardSystems had not been using industry safeguards at its Tucson processing center, suggesting to analysts that the numbers had not been encrypted for protection. CardSystems did not return calls seeking comment.

"There's no excuse for this," said Avivah Litan, a Gartner Inc. expert on the security of financial data. "This takes the cake."

As to what you can do: Ask for a new card.

After 11 days of deliberations, Former Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski was convicted today at his retrial on fraud charges:

Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and a second executive were convicted Friday of looting their company of more than $600 million to fund extravagant lifestyles featuring expensive jewelry, an opulent Manhattan apartment and a gaudy Mediterranean birthday party.

Update: Forbes has this analysis, and asks whether a crime really was committed?

Post-Verdict
Thursday, June 16

Here are the handwritten questions the jury asked during deliberations in the Michael Jackson trial. (pdf)

The Judge unsealed them today.