A Minnesota man (not me) has demanded to see the source code for the breathalyzer that landed him in the clink.
Whether or not Dale Lee Underdahl would know what to do with the source code once it’s in his clammy hands is uncertain but “if a company proves unwilling to turn over the code, the case is often thrown out…”
If you’re a geek thinking of moving to Michigan, I suggest you keep looking. A Michigan man was recently fined $400 and ordered to perform 40 hours of community service. Damn, he must have assaulted a police officer or something, right? Actually, the dude was just using a cafe’s Wi-Fi connection to check his e-mail and surf the web. A nosy police chief confronted the gentleman about it and eventually booked him on fraudulent computer access.
Michigan’s computer access law apparently states that using a Wi-Fi connection without authorization is a felony. Yeah. You could spend up to five years in jail and be fined $10k for using a Wi-Fi connection that doesn’t have WEP or WPA on it. I guess the police in the town of Sparta are a bunch of straight up jerks. God forbid they spend time, ya know, fighting real crime.
Wi-Fi Poaching Draws Fine [PC World]
Clocky, it’s still a pretty unique way of waking up.
All the standard alarm clock features like snooze, etc are there and the LCD is big and easy to read, albeit stuck in 1983. You can pick up a Sleep Squad Alarm Clock for only $27 plus the cost of a 4-pack of AA batteries.
Be afraid of the Sleep Squad [Ubergizmo]
Sure you can pin the blame on your unsecured router when the RIAA or MPAA comes knocking at your door, but when it’s the FBI and you’re accused of having tons of child pornography, don’t think you’re getting out of this one so easily. A guy in Texas had his home raided and the police found lots of child porn on his computer. When confronted, he blamed his router’s open WiFi connection for the kiddie porn, which everyone knew was BS. Turns out the guy had been looking at the stuff for years and was sending law enforcement on a wild goose chase trying to find out who was distributing child porn on the net.
But the kicker? They found a CD full of it in his home. Cased closed. The sicko appealed but luckily was denied an overturned ruling and is now serving close to five years in prison. So next time the police raid your home for animal porn/illegal MP3s/cockfighting, don’t blame it on the unsecured WiFi router. It’s just not gonna work.
Police blotter: Open Wi-Fi blamed in child porn case [News.com]
This is a bit of an odd situation. Normally I’d be all against the cops arresting someone for posting some bills on walls. No big deal, see it every block in NYC, right? Well the difference here is that this guy who was putting up posters worked for Microsoft and was throwing up Zune posters all over town. After a while, the Austin Po Po got fed up with his DRM-laden hi-jinx and arrested him for vandalism of public property, which will probably just result in Edelman paying off an ass-ton of fines for him.
Though he probably should do some jail-time for hanging up Zune posters…
Zuned! Austin P.D. Hauls Off Microsoft Street Spammers at SXSW [Los Anjealous]
