Play stupid games, win stupid prizes: UK man gets 3 years for torching 4G phone mast over 5G fears
Michael Whitty, a 47-year-old from Knowsley, set fire to the base station of the mast on April 5 of this year, after becoming convinced that 5G was directly linked to the COVID-19 epidemic, the court heard.
Unfortunately, Whitty’s research didn’t extend as far as checking what type of mast he was torching. A Vodafone representative told The Reg that the targeted mast was, in fact, serving bog-standard 4G.
US govt: Huawei is a national security risk and a menace, except, you know, when we need it for 5G standards work
The US Commerce Department has confirmed it will publish a rule change to its crackdown on Huawei that will allow US companies to work with the Chinese equipment maker on 5G standards. And artificial intelligence. And autonomous vehicles.
The rule has already been approved, and is due to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, according to Reuters. It comes despite a crackdown on Huawei last year that cited national security concerns, and which made it difficult for the Middle Kingdom giant to sell its network infrastructure gear within America, work with US companies, and use American-invented technology.
“… Hatch agreed to help authorities net people higher up on the fentanyl supply change [sic] in exchange for a more lenient sentence of up to four years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.”
This may get even more interesting: If said “people” have friends outside who didn’t know before where Hatch worked… they do now.
The Oregonian is compiling a list of public officials whose shitty behavior during BLM protests is catching up with them, including the mayor of Phoenix (OR) who drove through a crowd of protesters:
Also, remember how we had people join the BBS to defend Jeremy Christian, the guy who was convicted of murder and hate crimes on the Portland MAX train? Well, his sentencing hearing was supposed to be today, but he chose to interrupt it by yelling racist threats at one of the witnesses, including a death threat.
So, yeah, that’s why racism apologists aren’t too welcome around here.
ETA: And Christian was sentenced to “true life” in prison with no parole.
I’m not a fan of extreme prison sentences or our American prison-industrial complex, but that fits.
Beyond recruiting hackers at conference, the indictment accuses Assange of conspiring with the leader of LulzSec, a hacking group, and asking to be provided with documents and databases. Prosecutors say Assange also published on WikiLeaks emails from a data breach of an American intelligence community consulting company by a hacker affiliated with LulzSec and “Anonymous,” another hacking group.
Section 230 authors despair of Trump, Barr, Biden, US Congress’ aggressive ignorance of critical tech law
The most debated and criticized piece of law in the United States at the moment is Section 230 of Communications Decency Act (CDA), which makes it all that much more frustrating that nobody seems to understand it.
Two men that do, because they wrote it, and appeared on a livestream on Wednesday, below, in an effort to inject some understanding into the debate. Chris Cox is a former chairman of the SEC, Reagan administration staffer, and Republican House Representative for Orange County in California for 17 years. And Ron Wyden is a Democratic Senator for Oregon.
Ransomware crims to sell off ‘scandalous’ files swiped from Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj, Puff Daddy’s legal eagles
Ransomware criminals claiming to have siphoned confidential docs on Nicki Minaj, Mariah Carey, and Lebron James from an American law firm are threatening to auction off the info.
California Attorney General asks judge to force Lyft and Uber to classify drivers as employees – or else
California’s Attorney General and the City Attorneys from Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco have asked a judge to force ride-hailing services Lyft and Uber to classify their drivers as employees.
Lyft and Uber, which remain very unprofitable, have been defining their drivers as independent contractors (ICs). Doing so costs such companies about 30 per cent less than classifying staff as employees because then they’re not responsible for expenses like insurance, vacation, and certain taxes and legal obligations if they just employ ICs.
US govt: Julian Assange tried to recruit hacker to steal hush-hush dirt and we should know – the hacker was an informant
Prosecutors in the US have upgraded their case against Julian Assange with a second superseding indictment claiming he sought out the services of a notorious hacker who, unbeknownst to the WikiLeaks boss, was secretly working with the Feds.
The Department of Justice this week added yet more material to its indictment against Assange, which accuses him of 18 counts of espionage and hacking. The latest filing does not add any charges, though it includes evidence of Assange asking hackers to steal sensitive and scandalous dirt from government systems for WikiLeaks to disseminate. This could blow a hole in Jules’ I’m-a-journalist-not-a-spy defense.
Hey, Boeing. Don’t celebrate your first post-grounding 737 Max test flight too hard. You just lost another big contract
A Boeing 737 Max has flown for the first time since the fleet was grounded globally after two total-loss crashes – on the same day a European airline cancelled its order for almost 100 examples of the controversial aircraft and sued its US manufacturer over the debacle.
