FLDS raid appears to have backfired - Los Angeles Times

As polygamist families from the Yearning for Zion Ranch await the return of their children, officials in Texas face the fallout after trying to crack down.

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Free Open Source Counterparts of Windows Software

I will be giving information on my personal favorites (which would generally mean BETTER) open source replacements. There are however other choices as well, so drop a line or two if our choices differ!

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If you got this email 11 years ago, Researchers want to know

Researchers at Cornell University want you to check your 1997 emails. They've been tracking an email chain letter about US National Public Radio that was first sent sometime that year, by asking volunteers to send them old copies of the message.they're also tracing an email petition about the most recent Iraq war,first sent in 2003

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BitTorrent Tracker Insider Infiltrates Anti-Piracy Lobby

Anti-piracy oufits have gained access to private BitTorrent trackers before, but the opposite has never happened, until now. Over the past few weeks, Unnar Geir, spokesperson of “The Viking Bay”, successfully infiltrated the Icelandic equivalent of the MPAA (SMÁÍS), and gathered some valuable information that the tracker can use in its defense.

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New MP3 Revolutionizes Way You Listen to Music

A new file format that offers separate volume controls for each musical instrument, such as guitar, drum, base and voice, is being considered as a new Internet standard.The new .MT9 file format, which a commercial title of “Music 2.0″, was selected as a candidate for consideration at a regular meeting of Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG).

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Proposed Treaty Turns Internet Into a Virtual Police State

Leaked documents are one of the banes of modern western politics. They reveal exercises and actions being proposed that are generally objectionable to the public. Such a leak occurred with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which seeks to turn the internet into a virtual police state.

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Texas officials plan to ask court block ruling in sect case

SAN ANGELO%2C Texas %28AP%29 - Texas child welfare authorities are planning to appeal a ruling that found they had no right to seize more than 440 children from a polygamist sect%27s ranch.

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Top 10 Firefox 3 Features

The newest version of our favorite open source web browser, Mozilla Firefox 3, offers dozens of new features and fixes, but only a handful will make the most dramatic difference in your everyday browsing. It's time to spotlight the biggest improvements that will make "Gran Paradiso" the browser to beat.

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Appeals Court Rules Against Texas in Polygamy Case

A Texas state court of appeals ruled Thursday that the state had no right to seize more than 400 children from a polygamist ranch in Eldorado.

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Militarized Police Celebrate Killing Americans

A former US Army tank driver asserts that two figures depicted on the side of an APC SWAT tank that was recently used to protect cops from the deadly threat of women and children during the raid of a West Texas polygamist retreat actually represents the amount of people killed by police.

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Polygamist ‘girls’ surprise investigators

As the first round of individual hearings for mothers from the Yearning For Zion ranch continue in San Angelo, perhaps the most interesting fact to emerge is that many women from the polygamist sect look much younger than their actual age.

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Texas CPS returns to sect ranch; rebuffed at gate

ELDORADO, Texas — Child Protective Services workers returned to the west Texas ranch of a polygamist sect Wednesday in search of children they believe might have arrived since more than 460 others were seized in a raid last month.

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Firefox 3 On Track To Be Speediest Browser

Now that Mozilla's locked down Firefox 3's final feature set with Friday's push of release candidate 1, it's official: while Firefox 3 boasts some great new features like a smart address bar and better bookmarks manager

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Far-Flung Placement of Children in Texas Raid Is Criticized

Hearings have exposed the clanking machinery of the Texas child welfare apparatus, which has spent millions of dollars to handle an enormous case.

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Rum and Monkey: The Election Test

Which Presidential Candidate Are You?
Rung from Rum and Monkey's very own liberty bell.

Firefox 3 RC1 Now Available

I was actually expecting to still see beta 5 when I went to the developers page, but was happily surprised.

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MySpace Suicide Case Leads To Tougher Laws

After the troubling suicide committed by a Missouri teenager due to an Internet related incident, state lawmakers voted and gave final approval yesterday to a bill which will deal with cyber-harassment.

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Top 10 Social Networking Annoyances

It's great to keep in touch with your friends and colleagues, but does the price have to be spam, zombie bites, and friend invitations from people you've never heard of?

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Taking Your Laptop into the US? Be Sure to Hide Your Data

Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. So how do you protect yourself? By hiding your data.

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Watch Out! They Will Be Watching What You Do On The Web

Charter Communications, the fourth-largest cable system in the United States, has started telling its high-speed Internet customers that it is going to keep track of every site they visit on the Web.

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NBC-Vista copy-protection snafu reminds us why DRM stinks

A number of Windows Vista Media Center users noticed this week that a copy-protection flag from NBC was preventing them from recording a couple of shows shows. Although the incident appears to be an isolated accident, it serves as a reminder that content owners want to use DRM to control every aspect of our media consumption.

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The future of the Firefox address bar

I had an interesting discussion today about Firefox with Mozilla's Mike Schroepfer and Mike Beltzner. One of the things we drilled into a bit was the address bar in Firefox 3

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Dad jailed after daughter fails to get diploma

Man is sentenced to 6 months in jail for failing to encourage his 19-year-old daughter to get her GED. Man: 0, Nanny State: 1

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Big Content fighting campus P2P by lobbying for state laws

The entertainment industry has so far failed to convince Washington to impose P2P technology mandates on higher education, so it's taking the fight directly to the states. Colleges and universities are fighting back.

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Driver kills dog, sues owner

Asshole.

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Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

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Preserving Old Movies, At 40 Degrees

While Scarlett O'Hara stayed cool at home, Dorothy Gale took a year out to go skipping down a digital yellow brick road in a Hollywood film lab.

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IFPI Advises Kids to Use LimeWire and Kazaa

Together with the charity Childnet, IFPI recently launched a campaign to educate kids, teachers and parents about the dangers of filesharing. Ironically, the legal alternatives they suggest direct the kids to LimeWire, Kazaa and sites that sell hardcore adult movies.

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One of the most blood-boiling cases of police abuse.

No-knock raid, shot 5 times, no drugs found, pulled out of intensive care for long questioning, charged for assault, put in jail, refused painkillers and antibiotics, wounds became infected, had a bail of $250,000. In order to pay the bail, he sold his car. And had to walk 2 miles on crutches to a court hearing with an infected leg.

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House overwhelmingly passes controversial PRO-IP Act

The House of Representatives has passed the Pro-IP Act, which aims to impose stricter penalties for copyright infringement. It would also create a new copyright czar in the executive branch.

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Hackers Bombarded Epilepsy Forum With Images to Hurt Users

Computer attacks typically don't inflict physical pain on their victims. But hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation's Web site with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images. The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images.

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Three States Subjected To Martial Law Sweeps

Federal law enforcement agencies co-opted sheriffs offices as well state and local police forces in three states last weekend for a vast round up operation that one sheriffs deputy has described as martial law training.

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Locking down laptops from the TSA

Thanks to the wisdom of Homeland Security and the TSA, travellers may now be asked to allow screeners access to your laptops when you fly. While this is pretty shitty for obvious reasons, CNET is offering some advice on how to stop the pigs from finding all your homemade tentacle anime.

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6 Excellent Firefox Extensions Made To Save You Time

If you are a die-hard Firefox user then I am sure you are always on the look-out for tips and tweaks to get more out of Firefox in less time and hence be more productive.

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The Identity Button - Firefox 3's New Security UI

Deb Richardson from Mozilla has written up her latest introduction to Firefox 3's upcoming new features, this time describing the "Site Identity" button. Is this the death of the padlock?

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Government wiretaps—the ones we know about—up 20% for 2007

Data released this week on 2007 wiretaps shows that nearly all intercepts are for "portable devices" and 80 percent of all taps target drug criminals. Secret FISA warrants are also up, and no one knows what's happening with warrantless surveillance at the NSA.

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Employee confession opens up suit against GeekSquad

As a high-profile lawsuit against Best Buy's Geek Squad technical support service gets ready for court, a new employee confession has come through detailing one of the company's more questionable policies.

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The Internet as a Walled Garden?

Now it seems the only question is whether the government will be able to turn the net into a controllable, monitorable and trackable pre-internet AOL-type service or whether the chaotic net will live on as just another frontier for the military-industrial complex to start an arm's race and rake in billions of government dollars.

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MPAA Silently Drops Case Against BitTorrent Site

In 2005, DVDr-core was the first BitTorrent site that was targeted by the MPAA outside the US. A classic story: Man runs site, man gets sued over site, nothing more is ever heard. Whilst in most cases, this means that the defendant bowed to pressure, paid an out of court settlement, and promised not to do it again, that is not the case here.

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Bill would penalize companies for aiding Internet censorship

The Global Online Freedom Act aims to hold US-based companies liable for aiding Internet censorship in countries such as China, and for turning over personally-identifiable information except for "legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes." The catch: the president has the discretion to waive the law's requirements in the name of national securit

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Are gadgets killing the internet?

Tethered appliances' are stifling the innovation that led to the rise of the world wide web, argues academic and author Jonathan Zittrain

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