Looks like the poor guys over at The Pirate Bay can’t seem to catch a break. While I honestly can see why they didn’t win the case, I am a little surprised that they ruled the judge wasn’t unbiased.

The judge in the Pirate Bay case, Tomas Norström, was not biased. That’s the decision of the Swedish High Court of Justice, which investigated accusations made by the four defendants in the high-profile file-sharing case.

The accusations were based on Norström’s membership in organizations such as the Swedish Copyright Association, which counts among its members lawyers who represented the plaintiffs during The Pirate Bay trial.

The court ascertained that such memberships do demonstrate a commitment to intellectual property issues, which could be considered by some to be in the interest of the plaintiffs. But it also pointed out that rights-holders’ rights are protected by the Constitution, and so cannot be considered a conflict of interest if a judge endorses the principles behind copyright laws.

The court did say it would have been appropriate for the judge to disclose these memberships, which could have led to an investigation of potential conflicts of interest at an earlier stage in the process.

But as a whole, none of these circumstances are enough for sending the case back to the district court, according to the High Court, which now will look at the main appeal of the verdict.

On April 17, the four defendants were found guilty of having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file-sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site and were sentenced to one year in jail.

They were also ordered to pay a total of 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.8 million) in damages to copyright holders, among them a number of American media giants.

(Via CNET)

If your going to steal a movie, why not steal 33 of them? And why a crappy DVD when you could get a Blue-ray? I can understand what Lisa was going through, well except she doesn’t even look like the type that would own a Blue-ray player. Here is the news article, from my wonderful state of Oklahoma. . .

Police arrested a woman at a Target store in Oklahoma City after an employee said he saw her stuff nearly $1,000 worth of Blu-ray discs in her pants.

Lisa Roshelle Myles, 40, remained at the Oklahoma County jail this morning in lieu of $4,000 bail, jail records show. Police arrested her June 2 on complaints of grand larceny, assault and battery, trespassing and three Oklahoma County warrants.

An employee at the Target store, 8315 N Rockwell Ave., called police about 8:35 a.m. June 2 after employees detained a woman they said had stolen Blu-ray discs, which are similar to DVDs, according to a police report. The employee said the woman, whom the report identifies as Myles, had previously been arrested for stealing from that and another Target store.

Employees told police they saw a woman stuffing the discs in her pants and attempt to leave the store without paying, and she bit and clawed at them when they confronted her, the report states. A search revealed Myles had 33 discs in her pants worth more than $970, police said.

(Via NewsOK)

The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service were forced to shut down parts of their computer networks after a mystery virus struck the law-enforcement agencies Thursday, according to an Associated Press report.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed that it had disconnected from Justice Department computers as a precaution after being hit with the virus, while an FBI spokesperson would only say that it was experiencing similar issues, according to the report.

“We too are evaluating a network issue on our external, unclassified network that’s affecting several government agencies,” FBI spokesman Mike Kortan told the AP.

The virus’ type and origin are unknown, but spokespeople for both agencies said agencies’ access to the Internet and e-mail was shut down while the issue was evaluated.

Government regulations require agencies to report any security issues to US-Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), but a call to CERT late Thursday for comment was not immediately returned.

Like I have said, it only takes one outward facing machine to get in. I am sure their are tons of viruses and botnets out there going undetected. You just have to play the waiting game, update them, and make the traffic blend in…

(Via CNET)

We have had a good run, but I don’t just see making a lifetime commitment to you. It is scary and sad to leave someone you have been with for a long time. Fear of being alone, will you really ever find a replacement? But it is a decision that came after another TiVo in the house died.

There are tons of articles covering the legal, and illegal, ways of transitioning from broadcast television to broadband television. Once I found the world of Vuze and Boxee the only thing that concerned me is my four year old son. How to replace hours of cartoon network and Disney shows.

Most of the reason of the switch has to do with convenience. This is the world I live in, I want things to work together, easily and quickly. When I am on the road I want to be able to watch my shows on my iPhone. When I am at home i want to be able to watch my shows on my TV. Honestly Vuze I have found to be the best fit. Not only can I subscribe to the RSS feed of my show so that it is automatically downloaded, but it will convert it and put it on my PS3 or my iPhone. Giving me the mobility I need.

But how to keep my son from loosing his shows? It was actually an easier task than I originally thought it would be. Boxee is a great media platform for the Mac that you can run on the Apple TVs. With it’s interface with Hulu I was set. Thankfully my son is obsessed with classic cartoons such as The Pink Panther, and those are shows that are in abundance on Hulu.

Needles to say the extra $75 a month I save is nice, but don’t think it doesn’t have it’s drawbacks. Such as a lot of live events that you can’t find streamed on the Internet. I don’t watch the news, so that wasn’t a problem normally, but what about in extreme weather.

All and all, so far it has worked out well. Even with wife not being very tech savvy, she is happy with the free HD content found online, most without commercials. It is all about ease of use, and most of that thankfully comes from Vuze.

UPDATE: I just found a piece from The Washington Post over this same thing almost.

In keeping with todays movie poster theme, we are going to talk about the crock of global warming. Anyone that actually knows me, knows that I think global warming is a sham. Finally someone in a congressional meeting tells the truth.

Why did you help write the 2001 IPCC report and the 2003 AGU statement on climate change if you disagreed with their fundamental conclusions?

With the 2001 IPCC report, the material in there over which I had control was satisfactory to me. I wouldn’t say I agreed with other parts. As far as the AGU, I thought that was a fine statement because it did not put forth a magnitude of the warming. We just said that human effects have a warming influence, and that’s certainly true. There was nothing about disaster or catastrophe. In fact, I was very upset about the latest AGU statement [in 2007]. It was about alarmist as you can get.

When you testified before Ways and Means, did you have any sense that committee members on either side were open to having their minds changed? Or are views set in stone at this point?

Generally people believe what they want to believe, so their minds will not change. However, as the issue is exposed in terms of economics and cost benefit – in my view, it’s all cost and no benefit – I think some of the people will take one step backward and say, Let me investigate the science a little more closely.

In laymen’s terms, what’s wrong with the surface temperature readings that are widely used to make the case for global warming?

First is the placement of the temperature stations. They’re placed in convenient locations that might be in a parking lot or near a house and thus get extra heating from these human structures. Over time, there’s been the development of areas into farms or buildings or parking lots. Also, a number of these weather stations have become electronic, and many of them were moved to a place where there is electricity, which is usually right outside a building. As a result, there’s a natural warming tendency, especially in the nighttime temperatures, that has been misinterpreted as greenhouse warming.

Are there any negative consequences to this localized warming?

It’s a small impact, but there is an indication that major thunderstorms are more likely to form downwind of major cities like St. Louis and Atlanta. The extra heating of the city causes the air to rise with a little more punch.

Have you been able to confirm your satellite temperature readings by other means?

Weather balloons. We take satellite shots at the same place where the balloon is released so we’re looking at the same column of air. Our satellite data compares exceptionally well to the balloon data.

During your House Ways and Means testimony, you showed a chart juxtaposing predictions made by NASA’s Jim Hansen in 1988 for future temperature increases against the actual recorded temperature increases over the past 20 years. Not only were the actual increases much lower, but they were lower than what Hansen expected if there were drastic cuts in CO2 emissions – which of course there haven’t been. [Hansen is a noted scientist who was featured prominently in Al Gore's global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."] Hansen was at that hearing. Did he say anything to you afterwards?

We really don’t communicate. We serve on a committee for NASA together, but it only deals with specific satellite issues. At the Ways and Means hearing, he was sitting two people down from me, but he did not want to engage any of the evidence I presented. And that seems to be the preferred tactic of many in the alarmist camp. Rather than bring up these issues, they simply ignore them.

I know you think there’s been something of a hysteria in the media about melting glaciers. Could you explain?

Ice melts. Glaciers are always calving. This is what ice does. If ice did not melt, we’d have an ice-covered planet. The fact is that the ice cover is growing in the southern hemisphere even as the ice cover is more or less shrinking in the northern hemisphere. As you and I are talking today, global sea ice coverage is about 400,000 square kilometers above the long-term average – which means that the surplus in the Antarctic is greater than the deficit in the Arctic.

What about the better-safe-than-sorry argument? Even if there’s a chance Gore and Hansen are wrong, shouldn’t we still take action in order to protect ourselves from catastrophe, just in case they’re right?

The problem is that the solutions being offered don’t provide any detectable relief from this so-called catastrophe. Congress is now discussing an 80% reduction in U.S. greenhouse emissions by 2050. That’s basically the equivalent of building 1,000 new nuclear power plants all operating by 2020. Now I’m all in favor of nuclear energy, but that would affect the global temperature by only seven-hundredths of a degree by 2050 and fifteen hundredths by 2100. We wouldn’t even notice it.

This is all part of a Fortune interview that sheds some light on some interesting points.

(Via CNN)

I have been hesitant to post about this. It is a great idea, but I am not sure if it is real since I can’t find anything an their website, and the blog doesn’t show it. I will just let Dizzy Thinks sum it up for you.

Well I have to admit that this is genius. The guys from the Pirate Bay have a a 30million SEK fine which they say they won’t pay. However they have come up with a plan where all their users can join in which works like this.

Everyone sends a small amount of money in an electronic transfer to the law firm that represnted the music industry. Suggested amount is 1 SEK (equivalent to 0.13 USD. Apparently the law firm’s bank account is only allowed 1000 electronic transactions before it starts to cost them, the account holder money.

The charge per transfer at this point is, wait for it… 2 SEK. Thus after the first 1000 SEK, if people send just 1 SEK it will cost the law firm more than the money they receive to process.

Welcome to the Distributed Denial of Dollars attack (DDo$)

True or not this is one of the smartest things I have heard all day. I am sure they would somehow get it reversed, but for the small amount it would take to try it, I am all for it. Where do I send the money?

(Via Dizzy Thinks.)

I love to swear. I find it fun, and anyone that has been around my when hyper can attest that it gets pretty bad. Not to mention, “where in the Bible does it say you can’t swear?” (I love Daniel Tosh) So it is no surprise that the funniest joke to me from the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner was from Obama.

Rahm joke: “Mother’s Day is a tough holiday for him. He’s not used to having to say the word day after ‘mother. (Pause) “That’s true,” he laughs. He laughs heartily at that.

Then of course we get Justin Timberlake on SNL doing a sequel to his “Dick in a Box,” with “Mother Lover.”

(Via Gawker and NBC)

Do you remember the story about how someone “accidently” leaked the plans of the new Marine One. Need a refresher? Here you go.

What seemed to be such a big deal shrunk just a little bit when Obama axed the program to try to save money. But Don’t worry, in an effort to get a few more votes, Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.) is trying to save it. Gawker has the coverage:

Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.) vowed to force the White House to accept delivery of a new presidential helicopter Obama says he doesn’t need and doesn’t want. The helicopter program, which cost $835 million this year, supports 800 jobs in Hinchey’s district. “I do think there’s a good chance we can save it,” he said.

Trying to balance the budget at this point has became a seemingly impossible task. But trying to keep your ass from getting shot down, then having members of your own party push forward with it . . . I would be concerned. Hell, after all, you could use a quarter of the money you saved and give those people a VERY nice severance package.

(Via Gawker)

We all know that malicious activity comes in many flavors. From the mostly simple DDOS, to DNS records, to a combo web hack. I have to give the guys that took down the Virginia PMP some credit, they are either really smart or really dumb. Here is what the Virginia PMP staff found on their website this morning:

ATTENTION VIRGINIA

I have your shit! In *my* possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh

For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password.

(Mirror of the full page)

Goes on to tell how to get a hold of them and all that good stuff. I know how I would do it, but I have the benefit of hoping on a plane when I want. Never underestimate the difference geographical location changes make. The best botnet in the world only protects you so much. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The reason I find so much interest in this is because I feel it is the future growth of the hacking industry. Be it good or bad, people are greedy, and it doesn’t matter the industry. We have seen that with the home market, the financial market, and let’s not even bring Enron and likes into this. So how do you make money hacking?

You steal, manipulate, and sell informatian. Getting the data can be the easy part. Brokering an illegal trade can be the biggest challenge you will face. The problem is for this company, or organization, the easiest way is not to pay. You mail your customers a form letter with a line like, “Your personal information MAY have been comprimised.” Give them a number to call, and offer them free 6 months of credit monitoring. So how do you get them to pay in my opinion?

Media attention has really put hacking into the forefront. With the leaked plans of the JSF, Marine 1, then the power grid, there is a lot to talk about. I would think the most helpful thing to do, for the hackers at least, is to get some public out cry. Drive a media blitz. If you don’t drive the media to this, and have potential patients demand the PMP to pay it out to protect their data, then you will never get a payout.

What are your ideas? How do you manage to launder millions without getting caught?

When asked about legalizing pot, Arnold replied, “Don’t be a girlie man, I’ll be back, to pump you up, hasta la vista, baby.” True story.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that California should study other nations’ experiences in legalizing and taxing marijuana, although he is not supporting the idea.

(Via NBC Los Angeles.)