Boing Boing » crime

FBI digging for Hoffa

David Pescovitz — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:53:31 +0000

It's time again to play Digging for Hoffa! Today, the FBI will dig in a field north of Detroit based on a tip from alleged mobster Tony Zerilli. Apparently, Zerilli claims Jimmy Hoffa was buried in a shallow grave about 20 miles north of where he was last spotted 38 years ago. (via CNN)

Man in jail for putting E.T. in freezer

David Pescovitz — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:24:54 +0000

A farmer in eastern China killed an extraterrestrial and put it on ice. After he posted photos online, police reportedly showed up and determined that the ET is fake. According to the New Zealand's 3 News, "He was locked up for five days for fabricating lies and disrupting normal social order." Or to keep him quiet about The Truth! "Man jailed for out-of-this-world lies"

Carl Hiaasen's Bad Monkey

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:33:03 +0000

Rejoice! For Carl Hiaasen, author of the funniest crime novels in the business, bar none, has a new book out! Bad Monkey has just arrived on shelves and it is every bit as hilarious as you could hope -- I spent the weekend reading choice bits aloud to whomever I could grab, and giggling noisily to myself when no one was around. This is vintage Hiaasen, which is to say it is absurdist, gross, human, sexy, weird, and as Floridian as a styrofoam snowman despoiling the Everglades.

Summarizing Hiaasen's many plot-threads and twisty-turns is a mug's game, but here's his publisher's synopsis:

Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first—this being Hiaasen country—Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey, who with hilarious aplomb earns his place among Carl Hiaasen’s greatest characters.

Which captures some of the spirit of the story, but what's missing is the fantastic satisfaction of reading a new Hiaasen, wherein the most baroque and evil villains and foils each get some form of karmic retribution that is both wildly unlikely and, in hindsight, inevitable. Hiaasen's a master of the revenge fantasy who makes the rest of us look like amateurs. And despite this -- or perhaps because of it -- he still writes some of the best, most likable antiheroes in the business, and Andrew Yancy is no exception. Lucky us, there's a new Hiaasen! Now, to begin the long, agonizing wait for the next one!

Bad Monkey

Previous Hiassen reviews:

* Star Island

* Basket Case

* Nature Girl

Men in Toronto Mayor Rob Ford photo arrested in gang sweep

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:50:01 +0000

Toronto police carried out a series of dramatic raids on alleged gang-members across the city in Friday. They raided 15 Windsor Rd, a run-down and notorious bungalow that is also noteworthy for providing the backdrop against which Toronto Mayor Rob "Laughable Bumblefuck" Ford was photographed, arms around three men -- two of whom were arrested in the sweep, the third of whom was murdered in an apparent drug-related slaying. The photo of Ford was provided by the now-unlocatable gentlemen who offered to sell the Toronto Star and Gawker a video of the mayor allegedly smoking crack.

The mayor reportedly told his staff that he knew where the video was, and gave an address in a high rise in the suburb of Etobicoke (that unit was also raided in the sweeps), but insisted to the press that the video didn't exist at all. Many have speculated that the mayor or his representatives arranged to have the video deleted. However, given that at least one computer was seized in the raids, it's possible that the may yet surface.

In the meantime, we're left with the mayor palling around with men whom the police consider to be members of organised crime; a Globe and Mail investigation that accused the mayor's brother, Councillor Doug Ford, of having served as one of Toronto's top drug dealers in the 1980s, and a mayor who refuses to directly address important questions about his conduct:

Kassim, 20, was arrested in the raids Thursday and has been charged with trafficking in weapons and drugs (cocaine and marijuana) for the benefit of a criminal organization. He also faces charges of conspiracy to commit unauthorized possession of a firearm, breach of house arrest, and theft under $5,000.
His longtime friend, Muhammad Khattak, also flanking the mayor in the photo, was charged with participating in cocaine trafficking for the benefit of a criminal organization and trafficking in marijuana.
Police officers carried evidence bags, including what appeared to be a Toshiba laptop, out of the 19-year-old’s home on Mercury Rd. Thursday.
Khattak was wounded in the same March shooting that killed the third man in the photo, Anthony Smith.

Dixon Road raids help complete infamous Rob Ford photo

UPDATED: NSA admits it listens in on US phone calls and reads US emails without a warrant

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:38:55 +0000

It's a pity that so many senators skipped the NSA's classified briefing on its secret spying program, because if they'd attended, they'd have heard something shocking: the NSA can and does access the content of emails and phone calls of Americans on US soil without a warrant. It's an important insight into the President's secret interpretation of FISA, one of America's most notorious spying laws.

Update: Rep. Nadler has denied that this is what he meant: “I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans’ phone calls without a specific warrant.”

However, he does not deny that the NSA can access the contents of the call, not ruling out the possibility of the NSA using contractors, or speech-to-text, or some other indirect method, to accomplish "listening in" by other means.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that."
If the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.
Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA's formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically, it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.
Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.

The NSA is supposed to only spy on us dirty foreigners. As sketchy as it is to divide the world into the spied-upon and the un-spied-upon, it is nevertheless the law, and should be comforting to those the latter category. This revelation confirms that the Obama administration has doubled down on GW Bush's project of lawless, authoritarian surveillance, treating the Constitution and Congress's laws as mere formalities. So much for "the most transparent administration in history."

NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants [Declan McCullagh/Cnet]

Scary NYC neighborhood, 1888

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:23:38 +0000

Here's a photo from Jacob Riis's 1890 classic "How the Other Half Lives," "an early publication... documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s." It shows "Bandit’s Roost, at 59½ Mulberry Street (Mulberry Bend), was the most crime-ridden, dangerous part of all New York City."

Those guys are clearly total bad-asses.

How the Other Half Lives is in the public domain; you can download the full book, listen to a free audio edition at Librivox, and choose from among several editions in print.

Bandit’s Roost (1888) (via Kadrey)

Accused bank robber wants NSA phone records for his defense

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:37:05 +0000

Defense lawyers for Terrance Brown, a south Florida man facing bank robbery charges, have asked for NSA mobile phone surveillance records to be supplied in order to support his claim that he was not in the vicinity of the bank at the time it was robbed. He's referring to the leaked court order revealing that the NSA requires American phone companies to turn over the complete records of all their calls, including the location data about the callers.

The prosecution had told defense attorneys that they were unable to obtain Brown's cellphone records from the period before September 2010 because his carrier, MetroPCS, had not held on to them.
Not so fast, Brown's attorney Marshall Dore Louis argued in court documents filed in Fort Lauderdale days after the National Security Agency surveillance program was revealed last week...
...Louis argued in court Wednesday that the government should be forced to turn over phone location records for two cellphones Brown may have used because it could prove he was not present for one of the attempted bank robberies, on July 26 on Federal Highway in Lighthouse Point.
"The president of the United States has recognized this program has been ongoing since 2006 … to gather the phone numbers [and related information] of everybody including my client in 2010," Louis said.

Bank robbery suspect wants NSA phone records for his defense [Paula McMahon/Sun Sentinel]

Crazy naked man attacks BART passengers, performs gymnastics

Dean Putney — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:25:42 +0000

Video Link

On May 10th, a completely naked man entered the 16th street BART station in San Francisco and began attacking people, spitting, urinating and doing gymnastics moves on railings and turnstiles. BART police eventually shut down the station to arrest the man.

Yesterday, this NSFW video of the incident hit YouTube. Be warned that it's no joke: it's a naked man attacking vulnerable passers-by in public.

Prosthetics maker does a roaring trade in replacement pinkies for ex-yakuza

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:09:01 +0000

Shintaro Hayashi, a Tokyo prosthetics maker, spent most of this life making medical prostheses for people who'd lost breasts, limbs, etc, but now does a booming trade in fake pinkie fingers for ex-yakuza gangsters who don't want to broadcast their criminal past (yakuza members who screw up have their pinkies lopped off in retaliation).

The doctor molds silicone prosthetic pinkies, made to seamlessly mask the amputation, making for a smoother transition to the outside world. Priced at nearly $3,000 each, the fingers are carefully painted, to match the exact skin color of the client. Former yakuza members, who make up 5 percent of Hayashi's business, often keep several sets of fingers for different seasons – the light skinned version for winter, and a tanned look for summer.
Hayashi sums up his clientele in three categories: Those who are dragged into his office by girlfriends worried about their reputations, ex-members who are eager to move up the corporate ladder but worried about the repercussions of their past being exposed, longtime yakuza who have no intention of getting out, but need to cover up for a child's wedding or grandchild's sporting event.
"Many people keep a fist, to prevent detection," he said. "But there comes a point where you can't hide your fingers any longer. Some people have one joint severed, others have worse," he said.

Prosthetic Fingers Help Reform Japan's Feared Yakuza Gangsters [Akiko Fujita/ABC]

Scary Russian business-man insists he isn't scary: "you are in no possible danger of being murdered if you come to Moscow!"

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 18:55:55 +0000

Brian Krebs reports on the Russian arrest of Pavel Vrublevsky, owner of the ChronoPay service (about whom Krebs has written an upcoming book) for witness intimidation. Vrublevsky is on trial for hiring hackers to attack a ChronoPay competitor called Assist, and he admitted that he phoned a witness in the trial and offered that person money; the witness said "he felt pressured and threatened by the offer."

Where this gets good is where Krebs recounts his own conversation with Vrublevsky, when the Russian businessman offered Krebs money as well:

“My proposition to you is to come to Moscow, and if you don’t have money….I realize journalists are not such wealthy people in America, we’re happy to pay for it,” Vrublevsky said in a phone conversation on May 8, 2010.
When I politely declined his invitation, Vrublevsky laughed and said I was wrong to feel like I was being bribed or intimidated.
“It’s quite funny that you think somehow when you fly to meet me in Moscow or ChronoPay offices that you are in any possible danger from me for being murdered,” Vrublevsky said. “Come to Moscow and see for yourself. Take your notebook, come to my office. Sit in front of me and look around. Because you’re getting information, which, to be honest, is not factual.”

As you can see, Vrublevsky is a master of putting people at their ease with his warm and cuddly demeanor, as is evidenced by his official Facebook profile photo, above.

Vrublevsky Arrested for Witness Intimidation

Free-to-share movie on gangs in Birmingham: "One Mile Away"

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 14:17:24 +0000

Jamie King from VODO (a film company that raises money through crowdfunding and releases the results over BitTorrent with CC licenses) sez, "BritDoc and VODO have come together for this Free-To-Share release of a crucial film on the attempts by two warring gangs in inner-city Birmingham (UK) -- the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew -- to bring peace to their neighbourhoods. One Mile Away is compelling, ground-breaking viewing, showing how the determination of ordinary people can transform entrenched social problem. We're sharing under a CC license in the hope that as many people as possible will help get its important message out there!"

One Mile Away (Thanks, Jamie!)

Rob Ford crack-smoking video is "gone"

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:00:22 +0000

Gawker's John Cook has finally gotten in touch with the guy who offered to sell him a video of Toronto Mayor Rob "Laughable Bumblefuck" Ford smoking crack. Bad news: the guy says the video is "gone":

But I have heard independently from others familiar with the goings-on in Toronto that leaders in its Somali community have determined who the owner is and brought intense pressure to bear on him and his family. Toronto's "Little Mogadishu" neighborhood is located in the ward Rob Ford represented when he was a city councillor; though he is a conservative and a racist buffoon, I am told he has long-standing connections to Somali power brokers there.
Which brings us to this past Friday, when the intermediary called to tell me that he had finally heard from the owner. And his message was: "It's gone. Leave me alone." It was, the intermediary told me, a short conversation.
"It's gone" could mean many things. It might mean that the video has been destroyed. It might mean that it has been handed over to Ford or his allies. It might mean that he intends to sell or give it to a Canadian media outlet. It might mean that the Toronto Police Department has seized it and plans to use it as evidence in a criminal investigation. It might mean that it has been transferred to the custody of Somali community leaders for safekeeping. It might be a lie. The intermediary doesn't know. Neither do I.

The Rob Ford Crack Video Might Be "Gone"

Pirate Bay outs porno copyright trolls: they're the ones pirating their own files

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 19:15:40 +0000

Yesterday, I wrote about an expert witness's report on Prenda Law (previously), the notorious porno copyright trolls (they send you letters accusing you of downloading porn and demand money on pain of being sued and forever having your name linked with embarrassing pornography). The witness said that he believed that Prenda -- and its principal, John Steele -- had been responsible for seeding and sharing the files they accused others of pirating.

After hearing about this, the administrators for The Pirate Bay dug through their logs and published a damning selection of log entries showing that many of the files that Steele and his firm accused others of pirating were uploaded by Steele himself, or someone with access to his home PC.

The Pirate Bay logs not only link Prenda to the sharing of their own files on BitTorrent, but also tie them directly to the Sharkmp4 user and the uploads of the actual torrent files.
The IP-address 75.72.88.156 was previously used by someone with access to John Steele’s GoDaddy account and was also used by Sharkmp4 to upload various torrents. Several of the other IP-addresses in the log resolve to the Mullvad VPN and are associated with Prenda-related comments on the previously mentioned anti-copyright troll blogs.
The logs provided by The Pirate Bay can be seen as the missing link in the evidence chain, undoubtedly linking Sharkmp4 to Prenda and John Steele. Needless to say, considering the stack of evidence above it’s not outrageous to conclude that the honeypot theory is viable.
While this is certainly not the first time that a copyright troll has been accused of operating a honeypot, the evidence compiled against Prenda and Steel is some of the most damning we’ve seen thus far.

The Pirate Bay Helps to Expose Copyright Troll Honeypot [Ernesto/TorrentFreak]

How ransomware creeps cash out their payments

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 16:00:39 +0000

Brian Krebs offers an in-depth look at a "cashout" service used by ransomware crooks to get money from their victims. Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts your personal files and demands that you pay a ransom for the key to decrypt them; the crooks who run the attacks demand that their victims buy prepaid MoneyPak cards and send the numbers for them by way of payment. But converting MoneyPaks to cash is tricky -- one laundry, which pipes the money through a horse/dog-track betting service -- charges a 60% premium.

* The ransomware victims who agree to purchase MoneyPak vouchers to regain control over their PCs.
* The guys operating the botnets that are pushing ransomware, locking up victim PCs, and extracting MoneyPak voucher codes from victims.
* The guy(s) running this cashout service.
* The “cashiers” or “cashers” on the back end who are taking the Moneypak codes submitted to the cashing service, linking those codes to fraudulently-obtained prepaid debit cards, and then withdrawing the funds via ATMs and wiring the proceeds back to the cashing service, minus their commission. The cashing service then credits a percentage of the MoneyPak voucher code values to the ransomware peddler’s account.
How much does the cashout service charge for all this work? More than half of the value of the MoneyPaks, it would seem. When a user logs in to the criminal service, he is greeted with the following message:
“Dear clients, due to decrease of infection rate on exploits we are forced to lift the price. The price is now 0.6. And also, I explained the rules for returns many times, we return only cheques which return on my side if you cash them out after then we lock the account! There are many clients who don’t return anything, and I will work only with these people now. I warn you.”

Cashout Service for Ransomware Scammers

Bomber enraged by spelling error can't blow up sign because his bomb instructions were riddled with typos

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 31 May 2013 23:38:09 +0000

A 50-year-old man was upset that the sign in front of the Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission read "Oregon Teacher Standards an Practices Commission" (the D had fallen off the sign or been worn away), so he resolved to explode it with a pressure-cooker bomb. But the bomb didn't work, an outcome the man blamed on the spelling errors and typos in the bomb-making instructions he'd downloaded from the Internet. So he took his bomb into the Oregon Teacher Standards an Practices Commission and gave them a piece of his mind, vis-a-vis bombs, standards, and education. And practices.

"He walked quite confidently into our office as though he had a mission," she said, "and I think that was what alarmed me right off the bat." (Because no one who wants to be a teacher comes in with a good attitude? My guess is that the pressure cooker with wires sticking out of it might have also played a role in her alarm.) The man explained that he was upset with their misspelled sign and had just tried to blow it up for that reason. Didn't work, and you know what else?
After discussing his failed attempt to detonate his bomb, the man complained that the instructions he downloaded to make the bomb also had misspellings. [According to the director, he] implied that [she] and her employees should be concerned about the level of education children receive, given that his [bomb-making] instructions were rife with errors.
I think that only follows, though, if these were official State of Oregon bomb-making instructions that he'd gotten hold of. Then it would be fair to worry that our children are not getting the kind of training in literacy and improvised explosive devices that they will need to be successful in today's competitive economy. But if these were just any old bomb-making instructions, then the state's not to blame. You always have to be careful with what you find on the internet.

Man Tries to Blow Up Misspelled Sign, Criticizes Misspelled Bomb Instructions [Lowering the Bar]

Drunken sex causes car wreck

David Pescovitz — Wed, 29 May 2013 16:01:11 +0000

Luis Briones, 25, blew through a red light in Albuquerque and crashed, resulting in his female passenger being ejected from the car. Briones was allegedly drunk. Oh, apparently he was also having sex with the woman at the time of the crash. She was naked. From KRQE:

According to the criminal complaint, Briones tried to drive away, leaving the woman behind.
A witness was able to grab his keys.
Police found Briones with one shoe and his shorts on inside out.

"Naked woman thrown from car after crash"

Toronto cops hospitalize hotel guest who recorded them arresting another guest

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 28 May 2013 23:00:58 +0000

A man staying at Toronto's Sheraton Centre Hotel used his Blackberry to video-record police who were arresting another guest. The police objected and several of them piled onto him, beating him savagely while screaming "Stop resisting! Stop resisting!" They broke two of his ribs. The whole thing was captured on the man's phone and on hotel CCTV. He's suing.

After being notified this month of the arrest and injuries by Andrus’s lawyer Barry Swadron, the province’s Special Investigations Unit is also now looking into the arrest. The unit probes police incidents that result in serious injury or death.
With smartphones everywhere, police should be getting used to the fact that citizens are going to record police operations, says Swadron.
“On the one hand, the police are frequently seeking images from surveillance cameras and personal recording devices in an effort to uncover illegal activities,” Swadron said in an emailed statement to the Star. “On the other hand, the police do not seem to look kindly when someone is recording the conduct of police officers.
St. Catharines resident Karl Andrus is arrested on Aug. 29, 2012, by Toronto police while filming arrests of fellow Sheraton Centre Hotel guests. Andrus, 35, is suing police, alleging his rights were breached. Andrus begins filming at the 1:10 mark.
In an interview with the Star, Andrus, a 35-year-old dispatcher for an IT company with no criminal record, said he had been out for a couple of drinks at a bar across the street from the hotel late on the night of Aug. 29, 2012.

Exclusive: Toronto police arrest man, take phone after attempt to film takedown at Sheraton [Jim Rankin/Toronto Star]

Guy on hood of moving pickup begs passing drivers to call the police

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 28 May 2013 19:22:36 +0000

Have you seen a video floating around showing a guy on the hood of a moving pickup truck, begging people to call the police? When I saw it, I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on, but thankfully, some context is now in hand: it's all down to Baton Rouge's notorious "sign guy," a hoarder who confiscates roadside signs put up by local businessmen and fills his backyard with them:

BATON ROUGE, La. - A man pleaded for help after jumping on the hood of a moving truck on Coursey Blvd. after his sign was picked up, according to Baton Rouge Police Cpl. Tommy Stubbs.
Stubbs says the man was on Coursey selling shrimp when another man driving a pickup truck pulled over and picked up his sign.
When the man in the truck went to pull off with the sign, the man selling the shrimp jumped on the hood of the pickup.

Man pleads for help on hood of truck in Baton Rouge [Troy Gaulden/WBRZ] (Thanks, Spocko)

How a Mexican drug-lord dines out

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:04:40 +0000

When Joaquín Guzmán Loera, leader of Mexico's notorious Sinaloa Cartel, wants to dine out, he engages some rather extreme security measures:

In 2005 on a Saturday evening, Guzmán reportedly strolled into a restaurant in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, with several of his bodyguards. After he took his seat, his henchmen locked the doors of the restaurant, collected the cell phones of approximately 30 diners and instructed them to not be alarmed.[26] The gangsters then ate their meal and left – paying for everyone else in the restaurant.[27]
Culiacán appearance
Later that year, Guzmán was reportedly seen in Culiacán, Sinaloa, repeating the same exploit at a restaurant.[28] According to a witness, in November 2005 Guzmán entered the restaurant in Culiacán with 15 of his bodyguards, all of them carrying AK-47s.[29] The restaurant was known as "Las Palmas", a lime-green eatery with an ersatz tile roof on a busy street.[30] A man in the restaurant told those present the following:
"Gentlemen, please. Give me a moment of your time. A man is going to come in, the boss. We will ask you to remain in your seats; the doors will be closed and nobody is allowed to leave. You will also not be allowed to use your cellulars. Do not worry; if you do everything that is asked of you, nothing will happen. Continue eating and don't ask for your check. The boss will pay. Thank you."[29]

Joaquín Guzmán Loera (via Reddit)

Globe and Mail: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's family are, variously, a drug kingpin, a gangster, and affiliated with the KKK

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 25 May 2013 16:22:14 +0000

The Globe and Mail, a respected national Canadian newspaper, has run an absolutely sensational and jaw-dropping investigative story chronicling the shady lives of the immediate family of Toronto Mayor Rob "Laughable Bumblefuck" Ford, including his brother, City Councillor Doug Ford.

The Globe piece details how Doug Ford was allegedly one of the top drug traffickers in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, supplying the lower-level dealers in the region and running with a notorious gang, many of whose members ended up junkies and were arrested for habit-feeding property crimes.

The piece also discusses Randy Ford, who was also allegedly in the drug trade, and who was arrested for his part in a kidnapping, allegedly over a drug deal.

Ford's sister, Kathy Ford, is alleged to have ties to the Canadian chapter of the KKK, and to have been involved in spectacular, drug-related violent incidents.

Finally, the Ford brothers' close advisor, David Price (heretofore known as Rob Ford's former coach), is described a Doug Ford's former drug-dealing partner.

Rob Ford has been in the news since last week's revelation that both the Toronto Star and Gawker claimed to have been shown a video in which the mayor of Canada's largest city smokes crack cocaine, passes racist remarks about the kids on the football team he used to coach (he's been fired from that job) and calls Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau (son of Pierre Trudeau), "a fag."

Ford has been refusing to speak to the press or answer questions -- apart from a few cursory denials -- ever since, and I think this prompted the Globe to go digging in his past to see if there was anything in his history or family that suggested he might be involved in hard drugs. I'm guessing Ford wishes now that he'd just had a press conference.

Update:: I stand corrected: the Globe has been working on this story for 18 months.

In recent years, the Ford family home has become known for the annual barbecue, attended by hundreds of neighbours and a Who’s Who of Conservative luminaries – including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. But in the 1980s, the finished basement at 15 Weston Wood Rd. was one of the many places Doug Ford did business, the sources said.
“Justin” recalled descending to the basement on one occasion to buy hash from Mr. Ford, and on numerous other occasions watching as it was sold.
He said he couldn’t recall exactly how much hash he purchased that day, but that it was enough to require a triple-beam balance scale – the kind used in most high-school science classes. Normally, street-level dealers in that era relied on Pesola scales, the compact tubes often used by fishermen to weigh their catch. “If you went over [a quarter-pound], you had to go up to the three beamers – because you could get up to a few pounds on it,” he explained.
As a dealer, Doug Ford was not highly visible. Another source, “Tom,” who also supplied street-level dealers and has a long criminal record, said his girlfriend at the time would complain, whenever he was arrested, that he needed to be more calculating “like Doug.” Mr. Ford’s approach, sources said, was to supply a select group that in turn distributed smaller amounts across Etobicoke.

Globe investigation: The Ford family’s history with drug dealing [Greg McArthur and Shannon Kari/Globe and Mail]

(Thanks, Charlie!)

Kickstarting a detailed plan to rob five banks simultaneously

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 25 May 2013 15:50:11 +0000

Artist Ilona Gaynor produced a piece called "Under Black Carpets" that took the form of detailed plans for robbing five banks near LA's One Wilshire building, simultaneously. Gaynor worked with the LAPD and the FBI to produce a collection of fictional forensic evidence from these robberies, which were then exhibited. Now, Gaynor's trying to raise £20,000 to take the exhibit to tour the show. £30 gets you a cool-looking book, and £40 gets you the book and a tee.

WAIT, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO ROB THESE BANKS?
No. This is strictly a design / art project.
The exhibition of the work will be presented to the audience as a police investigation, detailing the remaining evidential material after the event has taken place, something that could be argued or challenged as material (evidence) in a court of law. The work itself will take form as sculptures, architectural models, technical drawings, films and photography. It will open as a solo exhibition (Special Project) at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale opening from Sep 12th - Dec 15th 2013.

Under Black Carpets, kickstart a bank heist. (via Beyond the Beyond)

Manson disciple tapes analyzed

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:58:31 +0000

Tapes of conversations between a Charles Manson acolyte and his lawyer have been handed to LAPD and may solve old murders: "A federal judge in Texas ruled in March that Charles 'Tex' Watson waived his right to attorney-client privilege when he allowed his lawyer to sell the eight cassette tapes." [AP]

Forging £1 coins is apparently profitable

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:36:22 +0000

Three men have been convicted of forging £1 coins. The London Police Detective Inspector even got all quippy about the sentencing ("These three men are organised criminals who were intent on undermining the UK monetary system. There is nothing fake about the reality they must now face of life behind bars." -- yes, yes, very clever DI South) but what fascinates me about the story is that it can somehow be profitable to forge £1 coins.

I got passed a fake pound shortly after I first moved to the UK, almost ten years go; it was a foil-wrapped plastic slug. Not realizing it was fake, I tried to buy something with it at a corner shop and the cashier pressed it edge-on on his counter and the foil split open, revealing the green plastic disc inside.

From the sound of this article, these fakes were solid metal, which, I think, would make them more expensive than the fake I got. When you add the costs of the materials, the wages for the manufacturing process, warehousing, the discount for counterfeit cash, etc, it's hard to believe that this was worth anyone's while.

On the other hand, it's probably easier to go on counterfeiting when you're passing very small denominations as most people (me included) won't bother going to the cops over a mere pound; and it's much harder to remember where a given pound coin came from than a £20 note.

The court heard Fisher, of Rags Lane in Goffs Oak, Hertfordshire, Sullivan, of Bancroft Chase in Hornchurch, east London, and Abbott were arrested during an undercover police operation in Essex last May.
Police found a storage container with 1.6 million metal discs inside and fake coins equivalent to £20,000.
Fake coins equivalent to a further £30,000 were found in a nearby car.

Three men jailed over 'largest' fake £1 coin plot [BBC]

(Image: Yet another forged pound coin, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from pahudson's photostream)

Accused identity thief nailed by food-porn Instagram photo

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:45:43 +0000

Troy Maye was wanted for a string of identity thefts, but the IRS couldn't positively identify him. But after he passed a thumb-drive of stolen data to an IRS informant, investigators were able to pull his name off the drive's metadata. They used that to find his Instagram profile, and found a food-porn photo he'd taken at the Morton's steakhouse where he'd dined with the informant. Busted.

"IRS Agent Louis Babino then headed to Google and located Maye’s Instagram page, which contained a profile photo of Maye. When shown the profile photo, the CW confirmed that Maye (seen at right) was the man with whom he dined at Morton’s."
Well, sure, Agent Babino, but how can you be really sure this was your guy?
"A further review of Maye’s Instagram page, Babino noted, revealed “a photo of a steak and macaroni and cheese meal containing the caption ‘Morton’s.’” The image--uploaded on January 7 at 11:24 PM--“appears to coincide” with the CW’s meeting at Morton’s, added Babino."
Yup, this guy food-porned his way into being arrested. The Instagram photo is reportedly being entered into evidence in the case, so one hopes the juicy steak and the creamy mac and cheese was really, really worth all the trouble Maye is now in. Once again, if you're a criminal, online narcicism is probably something you'd be best to avoid.

Criminal Nabbed By His Own Food Porn [Timothy Geigner/TechDirt], [Gabrielle Bluestone/Gawker]

Woman smacks cop so she can go to jail and quit smoking

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 17 May 2013 02:43:58 +0000

Sacramento's Etta Lopez apparently waited outside the Sacramento County Jail for a cop to emerge and then slapped him, so that she could be thrown into jail. She wanted to go to jail because she believed it would help her give up smoking.

According to deputies, Lopez knew she'd immediately be arrested, and slapped a cop to kick a habit. Lopez allegedly admitted she sat in front of the county jail for hours intent on assaulting an officer to get arrested and be put in jail, where she would be forced to stop smoking cigarettes.
"There's easier ways to stop smoking besides hitting a cop," Roger Spearman, a neighbour, said. The neighbour Lopez says she does smoke a lot, and they used to smoke together. "I have not heard of something like that before," Kimberly Bankston-Lee with the anti-smoking group Breathe California said. "If it led somebody to doing something like that to quit, that lets us know in the community that we have a real problem."

Woman accused of slapping police officer so she could be jailed and forced to stop smoking [Arbroath]

(via Dan Hon)

Denial-of-Service attacker tells Brian Krebs he's working for the FBI

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:23:33 +0000

Last week, I blogged Brian Krebs's amazing piece on AsylumBooter, a cheesy denial-of-service-for-hire site apparently run by a 17-year-old Chicago-area honor-roll student named Chandler Downs, whose PayPal account was flush with more than $30,000 paid by people who'd launched more than 10,000 online attacks.

Now, Krebs has uncovered an even weirder booter story: Ragebooter is another DoS company, but this one is run by a guy who claims to be working part time for the FBI, and who says that the FBI has its own login to his site, and review all the IP addresses and other traffic data it logs.

Ragebooter.net’s registration records are hidden behind WHOIS privacy protection services. But according to a historic WHOIS lookup at domaintools.com, that veil of secrecy briefly fell away when the site was moved behind Cloudflare.com, a content distribution network that also protects sites against DDoS attacks like the ones Ragebooter and its ilk help to create (as I noted in Monday’s story, some of the biggest targets of booter services are in fact other booter services). For a brief period in Oct. 2012, the WHOIS records showed that ragebooter.net was registered by a Justin Poland in Memphis...
... “I also work for the FBI on Tuesdays at 1pm in memphis, tn,” Poland wrote. “They allow me to continue this business and have full access. The FBI also use the site so that they can moniter [sic] the activitys [sic] of online users.. They even added a nice IP logger that logs the users IP when they login.”
When I asked Poland to provide more information that I might use to verify his claims that he was working for the FBI, the conversation turned combative, and he informed me that I wasn’t allowed to use any of the information he’d already shared with me. I replied that I hadn’t and wouldn’t agree that any of our discussion was to be off the record, and he in turn promised to sue me if I ran this story. That was more or less the end of that conversation.

Poland gave Krebs the working personal number of an FBI agent identified as "Agent Lies," who put him onto the FBI's press contact, who stonewalled. Meanwhile, Ragebooter leaks a lot of info and there's some reason to believe that the FBI really does have its own back door.

Ragebooter: ‘Legit’ DDoS Service, or Fed Backdoor?

Breathtaking ATM hack nets $45M in hours

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:00:18 +0000

The US District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York has indicted eight residents of Yonkers for allegedly participating in a global ATM heist that involved removing the withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards, cloning them, and then getting confederates all over the world to hit ATMs at the same time and clean them out. The DA says that the scam netted $45M worldwide; $400K in NYC alone. One of the indicted defendants was murdered in the Dominican Republic last month.

The first heist, which occurred on December 22 and targeted debit cards issued by the UAE bank, dispatched carders in about 20 countries that rapidly withdrew funds in more than 4,500 ATM transactions. In New York City alone, prosecutors said, the defendants and their co-conspirators withdrew almost $400,000 in some 750 fraudulent transactions from more than 140 different ATM locations. It took just two hours and 25 minutes for the New York cell to complete, prosecutors said. A second operation commenced on February 19 withdrew about $40 million in 36,000 transactions worldwide. In just 10 hours, the New York group allegedly withdrew about $2.4 million in almost 3,000 ATM transactions.
The operation exploited weaknesses in the way banks and payment processors handle prepaid debit cards, which usually are loaded with a finite amount of funds. These cards are often used by employers in place of paychecks and by charitable organizations to distribute disaster assistance. Once the accounts were hacked and the limits removed from accounts, cards were cloned and sent to cell groups throughout the world to make fraudulent withdrawals. Additional details of the operation are available in a press release outlining the charges.

A similar heist in 2011 got $13M in one night.

How hackers allegedly stole “unlimited” amounts of cash from banks in just hours [Ars Technica/Dan Goodin]

Porno copyright troll to Georgia judge: "Ignore California judge! They have gay marriage!"

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:00:27 +0000

When US Federal Judge Otis Wright ruled against Prenda Law (a gang that used sloppy accusations of illegal downloads of pornographic movies to extort millions from people who didn't want the embarrassment of being publicly sued), he ordered Prenda's lawyers to give copies of his ruling to judges in all the other places where they were suing their victims. Judge Wright's ruling called Prenda a "fraud" and said its lawyers engaged in "moral turpitude."

One of Prenda's most colorful lawyers is Jacques Nazaire. He's asked a judge in Georgia to ignore the Judge Wright's order, because Judge Wright is a California judge, and California has gay marriage.

It doesn't stop there. It notes that California courts have different immigration rules and (randomly) that NY has different gun rights. Basically, it throws out every hot button issue that stereotypical conservatives might disagree with stereotypical liberals on.
Of course, all of that is meaningless. While it's true that Judge Wright's ruling is in no way a precedential ruling for the Georgia court, it's still a ruling about federal law, not any specific state law. And the ruling itself is about flat out misconduct (including potential racketeering and tax evasion claims) by the plaintiff in this case, because of actions in a nearly identical case. That's not about California having a "mandate" over Georgia. It's about very relevant additional information that the court should know about.
Nazaire then goes on to list out a ridiculous parade of horribles that he claims would happen if the Georgia court "followed the aforesaid California Order" including that law firms wouldn't be able to use boilerplate text any more. This makes absolutely no sense at all. First of all, the inclusion of Judge Wright's order is not about having the Georgia court "follow" the order, but adding additional important information about the parties in this particular case. Separately, the idea that adding a California ruling into the docket suddenly means lawyers wouldn't be able to cut and paste any more... just doesn't make any sense at all.

Prenda Lawyer Says Judge Wright's Order Is Inapplicable In Georgia Because California Recognizes Gay Marriage [Mike Masnick/TechDirt]

Wild west (anti)heroes in a rare (and maybe not real) group photo

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:40:15 +0000

This may be a photo of Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Jesse James, and Charlie Bowdre, taken in Las Vegas (NM) in 1879:

"There is that story that these two met in Las Vegas at the Old Adobe Hotel on July 26, 1879, and during a card game Jesse asked Billy to join his gang..........Henry Hoyt and Migeul Otero say so in their books, and that they witnessed it..............But Jesse James did stay at the Old Adobe Hotel from July 26 through July 29 in the summer of 1879, according to an announcement in the Las Vegas Optic printed weeks later. The owner of the Old Adobe Hotel, W. Scott Moore, was from Clay County, Missouri, Jesse's home turf, and was a childhood friend of his. Hoyt recalled Jesse's missing finger and his alias, Mr. Howard. And Jesse was on the run, so New Mexico is possible."

Billy the Kid and Jesse James (via Kottke)

The drug war's perverse incentives

Rob Beschizza — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:24:45 +0000

How come the police kick down the doors of medica marijuana users, but ignore reports of men keeping girls on leashes? [Kristen Gwynnne at AlterNet]