Wires Crossed #90 – June 29

Taunting On Facebook Leads To Capture
Here’s a bit of advice when you’re on the run from authorities – don’t bait them. They’re bound to get angry – and get even. This is what James Tindell found out when he decided to not only disobey his probation conditions, but to have a crack at the sentencing judge on his Facebook page, too. He also put updates on the board, not realising that probation officer Todd Roberts was reading them, too. Through information garnered from the posts, Roberts managed to track the felon down and have him arrested. Maybe a nominee for Dumbest Criminal Of The Year?

Scammer Sentenced To Minimum Of Four Years
CyberShack has run a large number of stories over the years about some of the latest online scams – whether it be emails from Nigeria, or some phishing site trying to get your hard-earned money. For once it’s nice to report that one such scammer has been given jail time along with his accomplices.  Shaheed Bilal decided to make up some counterfeit credit cards and use them to buy Apple devices from Apple stores. However, he, along with his girlfriend and three brothers, have been arrested convicted in New York over the fraud and will spending time inside. Good result all round.

Porridge For UK's CIA Hackers
And as if to reinforce the first story, here’s another out of the UK, whereby two alleged members of hacking group, LulzSec, have appeared in court accused of hacking many websites including the CIA, US Airforce and Sun newspaper. In the case of the Sun hack they put up a story saying that owner, Rupert Murdoch, had died, and then hit Twitter and tweeted for the authorities to “Arrest Us. We dare you.” Well, authorities did just that arrested Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis. Both plead guilty to some of the allegations and face jail time, but have denied other charges, which are still pending.

Nikon Must Allow Show To Go On
It’s not often you’ll find camera manufacturer Nikon on the pages of Wires Crossed, but this story was too interesting to pass up. Earlier this year the company agreed to host an exhibition of Comfort Women photographs at a showroom in Tokyo. Comfort Women were Korean ladies who were virtual sex slaves to Japanese soldiers during World War II. While Japan has officially apologised already for the trauma it caused, some conservative factions in Japanese society refuse to believe it happened. After much protestation, Nikon pulled the plug on the occasion, only for a court to order them to carry on with the event. As you would expect, there was much protesting and gnashing of teeth by those that wanted it cancelled, but it went ahead anyway.