By Kelly Faircloth 5/03 11:57am

Employee Don'ts

Letting it ride is highly recommended.

Dear Angry Sysadmins, Please Do Not Take It Out on Your Company’s Computers

For the last time: Frustration with your workplace does not justify a campaign of retaliatory vandalism. You are not the IT Count of Monte Cristo.

Today ComputerWorld spins the sorry tale of Long Islander Michael Meneses. The FBI alleges that he quit in a huff after being passed over for a promotion and, rather than simply sending out a few resumes, began remotely sabotaging his former employer to the tune of $90,000 in damages.

Prosecutors claim:  Read More

By Jessica Roy 8:25am

Linkages

(Photo: Facebook)

Booting Up: People Love Their Chat Heads

Facebook Home has already passed 500,000 installations on Google Play a week after launch, which just goes to show people love to throw away their friends. [The Next Web]

A cadre of Silicon Valley companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, are quietly trying to kill a privacy bill in California that would give residents the right to know how tech companies are using their personal information. [insideBayArea]

Japan wants to stymie access to TOR by asking ISPs to flat out block it. [Wired]

Comedy Central is planning to host a comedy festival on Twitter because this is what the future is like now. [New York Times]

How technology helped the FBI track down the Boston Marathon bombers. [Washington Post]

It’s baaaaaaaack. [Valleywag]

By Jordan Valinsky and Jessica Roy 4/17 9:53am

iCrimeBusters

(Photo: Imgur)

Reddit Puts on Its Amateur Detective Fedora to Find the Culprit Behind the Boston Bombings

Just in case Reddit’s sense of self-importance wasn’t inflated enough, the online community has taken to playing FBI dress-up, creating a subreddit called /r/findbostonbombers that’s “dedicated to helping find the bomber(s)” behind Monday’s tragedy. Since it started late last night, the subreddit has already become a repository for out-there conspiracy theories and Imgur-hosted “photo dumps” that scrupulously analyze every “clue” bored Redditors can find. (Look, this guy’s going through a bag!)

Read More

By Jessica Roy 3/06 7:36am

Linkages

Do not steal form her. (Photo: Necole Betchie)

Booting Up: The $233,000 Beyonce Torrent Lawsuit

Well look who’s scroogling screwing people now. The European Union has fined Microsoft $731 million for violating its promise to offer consumers a choice of web browser. Probably because when given a choice, no one will pick Internet Explorer. [Reuters]

Facebook plans to announce better ways to filter News Feed content at tomorrow’s big press event, including being able to view just Instagram photos. Photos will also appear larger for posts and, of course, ads. [TechCrunch]

What happens when you share Beyonce files on BitTorrent? Sony smacks you with a $233,000 damages lawsuit. That’s what you get for stealing from Queen Bey, we suppose. [TorrentFreak]

The FBI is secretly spying on some Google users, though because of national security, Google can only give an estimate of how many accounts have been tapped. [Wired]

JFK employees reportedly saw a drone aircraft flying around yesterday, and now the FBI wants your help tracking it. [Motherboard]

By Kelly Faircloth 1/07 10:06am

Schemes

"Shit, it's the cops!" (Cashcats.biz)

‘Nobody Will Find Out’ Is a Thing Corporate Criminals Actually Email Each Other

Surprise, surprise: When corporate criminals exchange communiqués over email, guess what sorts of phrases they’re actually dumb enough to use? Try “cover up” and “nobody will find out,” according to the Financial Times.

Well, maybe no one would find out if you’d stop using a method of communication that lives forever on your employers’ servers! Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 11/26/12 1:06pm

Insidery

Like this but minus all the aliens and sewer monsters.

Maybe Don’t Tweet About Your Insider Trading Because the FBI Is Watching

If you work at a hedge fund and perhaps do a bit of light insider trading to fund your daughter’s equestrian extracurriculars, you might want to be careful about what you’re posting on Facebook and Twitter these days. There are FBI agents charged with highlighting any evidence of wrongdoing you might let slip.

Poor bastards, they probably joined up thinking they’d get to be some combination of Fox Mulder and Seeley Booth. Read More

By Steve Huff 10/05/12 3:42pm

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

Barrett Brown (video still)

Anonymous Associate Barrett Brown Indicted on Federal Charges

Writer and journalist Barrett Brown has been charged by the U.S. attorney with conspiracy to reveal private information about a government employee, Internet threats and retaliation against a federal investigator.

Mr. Brown, who has sometimes been referred to as a spokesman for Anonymous, was arrested on September 12 at his Dallas-area home after he posted a series of bizarre and rambling videos on YouTube titled, “Why I’m Going to Destroy FBI Agent Robert Smith.”

In one of the videos Mr. Brown, whose mood appeared to change from relaxed to enraged from one moment to the next, made direct threats against Agent Smith and implied he would investigate the agent’s children.

Brown was taken in by Dallas Pd & turned over to the Feds the next day.

Back in mid-September The Daily Dot published the full video of the TinyChat session during which Barrett Brown was arrested by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, as well as a link to the Pastebin transcript of the event. He was picked up by the FBI the next day: Read More