hacker hijacks xbox, sends swat to home

from kprc: It looked like the scene out of a video game; and indeed an Xbox was behind a SWAT team invading a suburban Florida home. The SWAT invasion turned out to be a hoax, but police aren’t laughing. The family at the butt of the joke, on the other hand, can't tell their tale without a bit of a smile. "I come out of my room and they've got their guns pointed at me and stuff," said Hunter Gelinas. "I open my door and I had the whole SWAT team down in the front door. I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm going to die.'"

It turned out that a hacker had gotten access to Hunter's Xbox and put in a call to police. His mother, Daleann Gelinas, said that the hacker used "a handicapped line, saying that Hunter had been stabbed and the parents and other people being held hostage at the house." Neighbors watched in awe as police poured down their street. "They all had their guns up like they were ready in case anyone was going to fire on them," said neighbor Sam Murphy. "When I heard it was a hoax, it kind of made more sense because I figured with this neighborhood, nothing ever really happens here."

Officers took electronics and the hacked Xbox in a search for the Canadian hacker who has yet to be identified. Experts said that the hoax reveals frightening flaws in online security. "There is nothing there to stop them. Once they gain accessibility to the machine, they can do whatever they want as long as they have the capability and knowledge to do it," said computer expert Neil Wexell. Wexell said that the easiest way to prevent hackers from gaining access is to keep gaming systems offline when not in use.

5/5 defcon: re-entry & removal

video: Spacecraft re-entry over Wash. & Oregon on may3?*

Department of Justice:
FBI Too Focused On Child Porn*
Feds Demand Firefox Remove Add-On That Redirects Seized Domains*
Mozilla Refuses to Block Extension for dhs - As Government's ICE Effort Continues to Look Silly*
flashback: 'mafiaa fire': firefox add-on to reverse US govt domain censorship
Gabrielle Giffords leaves Florida after shuttle Endeavor delay*

giffords remains in florida, hopeful for monday launch

nasa to know sunday whether shuttle can fly monday...
from azstarnet: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords remains in Florida, as NASA officials target Monday afternoon for the launch of the space mission her husband is commanding. The spacecraft Endeavour had been expected to lift off Friday afternoon. The mission, led by Capt. Mark Kelly, was scuttled slightly more than three hours before takeoff because of technical issues. Giffords traveled to Florida last Wednesday on a first-ever break from her Houston rehabilitation hospital. She’s recovering from a serious brain injury suffered Jan. 8, when she was shot through the head in an assassination attempt that killed six people and injured 12 others.

florida judge rules post on ratemycop.com is protected speech

from threat level: A federal judge has struck down a Florida law prohibiting the publication of a police officer’s name, phone number or address, calling the statute an unconstitutional restraint on speech. The decision leaves Arizona, Colorado and Washington state with similar laws on the books. Florida authorities said Wednesday they were mulling whether to appeal. Robert Brayshaw, a 35-year-old apartment manager, brought the challenge to Florida’s law after he was briefly jail in 2008 for posting personally identifying information of a Tallahassee police officer on RateMyCop.com — a 2-year-old website that lets users rate and comment on the uniformed police officers in their community. RateMyCop uses public records requests to gather the names and, in some cases, badge numbers of thousands of uniformed cops at police departments around the country, and allows users to post comments about police they’ve interacted with. The site’s launch in 2008 drew cries of outrage from police, who complained that they’d be put at risk if their names were on the internet.

defcon 4/22: takedowns, lockups & predictive analytics

google exposes government takedown requests*
google: US demanded user info 3,500 times in 6 months*
google hackers stole source code of global password system*
second banker accused of stealing high-frequency trading code*
mcafee antivirus program locks up pc's worldwide*
crime prediction software is here & it's a very bad idea*
precrime in florida: ibm's predictive analytics*
online game shoppers duped into selling souls*
microsoft's chinese labor scandal:
there's more trouble ahead for the rest of high tech*
cultivated play: farmville*
9 yr-old blamed for US school system hack*
1/3 of US teens with phones 'text 100 times a day'*
wikileaks claims facebook deleted its page, 30,000 fans*
draft of secretive intl copyright treaty leaked -
confirms fears on net freedom*
reverse-engineering artist busts biometric control grid*
'second life' players sue over illegal seizure of virtual property*
video: richard clarke says private firms should spy on net*
clarke says public aversion to regulation prevents govt from defending cyberspace*
facebook steps up lobbying, deepens ties with intel agencies, ftc*