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Democracy in Action

Democracy in Action

Judge Rules Refusing to Decrypt Hard Drive is Covered by Fifth Amendment

by Eric Limer | 1:07 pm, February 24th

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “pleading the Fifth.” You know, that thing the defendants on crime shows do when they’re obviously guilty and they just don’t want to talk about it. Well that’s also a thing in real life, and it isn’t a de facto admission of guilt. For the unfamiliar and forgetful, the Fifth Amendment states that no person, “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” as well as a bunch of language about like, eminent domain and stuff. The point here being that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has just ruled that a defendant in a legal case who refuses to decrypt their hard drive for law enforcement is covered by the Fifth Amendment.

Read on...
Democracy in Action

Microsoft and Law Enforcement Raid Computers Responsible for Junk Email

by James Plafke | 11:32 am, March 18th

In an effort to prevent junk email from making us all create three separate email accounts (work, professional and personal, of course), Microsoft teamed up with law enforcement agents and raided various facilities that housed what were alleged to be “command-and-control” computers responsible for junk email. The computers in question, which belonged to the operators of the Rustock botnet, were found within hosting facilities located in Kansas City (Missouri), Scranton (that you’ve heard of because of The Office), Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle and Columbus.

The Rustock botnet operates by infecting computers running Microsoft Windows, then using said computers to send spam emails, and is capable of sending out 30 billion spam messages per day. Symantec claims the Rustock botnet is the largest source of spam in the world. Though Microsoft seized several computers and hard drives, the operators of the botnet are still unknown, but obtaining some of their equipment seems like a fairly good place to start searching for their identity and preventing us all from receiving ten emails a day about Cialis.

(via The Wall Street Journal)

Democracy in Action

Smithsonian Wants Your Help For New Video Game Exhibit

by Max Eddy | 4:24 pm, February 22nd

The Smithsonian Institution has announced that they will be opening a new exhibit called The Art of Video Games on March 16, 2012 at the American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.. The exhibit which fill feature games that were visually or technologically groundbreaking. And best of all, they’ve invited you, the people, to vote on what you’d like to see.

To vote, head over to the Art of Video Games website. There, you can login and choose 80 games from a slate of 240 chosen by an advisory group of gaming insiders and exhibit curator Chris Melissinos, whom you may have heard of from events like PAX or his Past Pixels project. (more…)

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