Usually the only wall that you could accuse Zynga, the makers of Farmville, of mucking up is a Facebook wall, a decidedly virtual piece of architecture. But the San Francisco City Attorney’s office has accused Zynga of committing “documented acts of sidewalk vandalism” by gluing fake $25,000 bills to sidewalks all over the city.

The dollar bills, in case you hadn’t guessed it by now, direct the finder to the Mafia Wars website.

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Warner Brothers, the media behemoth that owns the rights to the Harry Potter movie franchise, is reportedly in the midst of fighting a legal battle against a Swiss company for copyright infringement. What did these neutral, chocolate-loving, particle-accelerating people do to earn their ire? Why, they simply created a line of condoms which prominently feature a cartoon likeness of Harry Potter.

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The recap: this February, parents of children in the Lower Merion, Pennsylvania high schools brought suit against the district, claiming that their children had been issued laptops with enabled webcameras without their knowledge, and that the school district had used those cameras to take thousands of pictures without student or parent consent or awareness.

The update: federal prosecutors have announced that they will not be pressing criminal charges against the school district, saying that no evidence of criminal intent was found.

Back in October, Blizzard Entertainment filed a lawsuit against Alyson Reeves and her company Scapegaming, for violating the end user license agreement of World of Warcraft by setting up a private server for her own profit. On Thursday, the California Central District Court ruled in favor of the game maker and ordered Scapegaming to pay back “$3,053,339 of inappropriate profits, $63,600 of attorney’s fees, and $85,478,600 of statutory damages.”

What, you ask, is a private server, how do you make a profit off of it, and why is it against the EULA? Allow me to explain.

The New York Times reports on a phenomenon that is becoming more and more common as the average age of Facebook users rises: those times when an algorithm prompts you to reach out and connect with someone who is no longer alive.

Facebook says it has been grappling with how to handle the ghosts in its machine but acknowledges that it has not found a good solution.

“It’s a very sensitive topic,” said Meredith Chin, a company spokeswoman, “and, of course, seeing deceased friends pop up can be painful.” Given the site’s size, “and people passing away every day, we’re never going to be perfect at catching it,” she added.

This phenomenon is not limited to baby boomers and older. Reading the article became quite eerie when I suddenly remembered that I also have a deceased Facebook friend. Facebook does have a method of dealing with profiles of those who have died, though it needs improving.

Easy Sequels to Horror Flicks (Spinoff)

Michigan Town Regulates Fortune Telling (Freep)

5 Bad-Ass Pokémon (GameRant)

Weird Lawsuit of the Day (Bleeding Cool)

Star Wars + Warhammer = Win (Toycutter)

This Is A Laser-Sighted Pea Shooter (The Sun)

Lutetia: Beautiful Asteroid (BBC News)

(image via Reddit.)

Yesterday evening, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved a bill that would allow the president to “shut down private sector or government networks” in the event of a cyber attack that threatened lives or other “major damage.”

From The Hill:

“It’s been frustrating to read some of the misrepresentations of our bill in the cybersphere,” [Susan Collins, Republican Rep from Maine and co-sponsor of the bill] said, arguing the new bill actually circumscribes the president’s existing authority and puts controls on its use. “I believe the substitute amendment we’re offering strengthens those protections even more.”

Maybe that is because the objection is not against allowing the President to shut off the internet in certain circumstances, but allowing the President to shut off the internet at all.

From Daily Yomiuri Online comes the story of a couple of hackers who didn’t feel that regular run-of-the-mill identity theft was really enough. After slipping a trojan into an adult computer game, and then putting it up on file sharing websites, the two men found themselves with the personal information of a whole bunch of people who play sex games.

What to do, what to do… How about: solicit money in exchange for not leaking that the person plays sex games to the internet?

Well when you put it that way…

We already knew that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating whether Apple “unfairly dominates” the sale of digital music; contacting officials in the music industry as well as online music vendors. Now the New York Post‘s sources say that the probe is a bit broader than originally thought.

According to several sources, the Justice Dept. has contacted a handful of the country’s biggest media and technology companies to get their views on Apple, which, after years of casting itself as the tiny outsider, has become an 800-pound gorilla calling the shots in several arenas.

It’s the sort of story that surprises you for actually going the way it should: the German legislature considered banning the sale and development of violent videogames, a petition against the law garnered 73,000 signatures, and…

Then the legislature listened, deciding instead to focus on greater public education about Germany’s content rating system for games.

Way to go Germany. Maybe we can stop making games about we kicked your ass now? Nah, I didn’t think so either.