Wires Crossed #72 – February 23

Man Jailed For Facebook Hack
A computer science student from Britain has been put behind bars for eight months for hacking into Facebook. At the time, it caused a bit of consternation amongst the social networking site that somebody was trying to take them down. While it appears Glenn Mangham’s motives were a little less nefarious, he was still sent to the slammer. What we find interesting is that shoplifters and petty thieves usually get a slap on the wrist, but this guy – with no criminal record – gets eight months. We think it is a bit harsh, especially when looking into his background.

Tweeting Crime In Kenya
A police chief in rural Kenya is using his Twitter account to fight crime, and it appears to be working a treat. Administrative chief Francis Kariuki frequently tweets about the latest crimes and problems in the village of Lanet Umoja and often gets instant responses to not only historical crimes, but those that are being committed.  What is interesting is that he only has 300 followers because most of the people in the outlying areas can’t afford smartphones. He believes it is word of mouth from those that do follow him that is leading to his successes in the solving and preventing of crimes.

Back To The Future With Google
Google is pretty happy with itself after lobbying the Nevada state government in the United States to put a framework in place to allow for driverless cars. Google has been pushing for such legislation for some time as it believes these types of cars are the way of the future. Using hybrids such as the Prius, the company says driverless cars will save on fuel consumption and increase safety due to uniform speeds. Of course we do have ‘cars’ that already save on fuel consumption and have uniform speeds – they’re called trains. And let’s not forget, Google also fail to mention – or at least spruik – what kind of features this technology will need. It will need sophisticated mapping for a start. Gee, we wonder, what company could provide such a service? Hhhmmm…

Fake Pokemon Make It Through Apple Scrutiny
Nintendo says that a couple of Pokemon games that appear on the Apple app store are not official applications and are therefore a ‘scam’. Not too sure if ‘scam’ is the right word, but money not well spent seems the more apt description. Forget that they have not been sanctioned by the gaming giant, feedback suggests they suck bigtime so why would anyone want to buy them anyway? More importantly, what happened to Apple’s stringent vetting of apps?

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