Posts by Keith T

Ad hoc malware police besiege net neutrality

3 points

1. Historically, before we had our various national formal "justice system", we had community justice, what we now disparage as "vigilante justice".

Community justice only goes away when a formal justice system replaces it.

2. People can say what you want about the consequences of operating system vulnerabilities being the fault of their makers.

However, cars and houses are less complex than these operating systems, and cars and houses are vulnerable to break-ins and vandalism. If it wasn't for police, our cars and houses we be as damaged as our computers.

3. You can say what you want at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, but you have to be there saying it. You can't anonymously send a sound system to speak it for you.

Freedom to commit crime?

Freedom of speech has never granted the right to scam and defraud others, or to spread libel or child pornography.

Freedom of speech grants the right to speak of your political, religious and scientific opinions.

Freelancers might be taxed as employees after High Court ruling

Similar issues in Canada

It is important to listen to advise from your accountant on what it takes to be an independent business:

1. Have more than one client in the long term. Do not have just one major end-client year after year after year. Do not restrict yourself to being represented by just one agency.

2. Set your own hours to the extent possible. You might be at the client's only during the client's office hours, but you set your own hours for marketing and training.

3. Provide your own training on marketing, programming tools, and systems software.

4. Pay for your own memberships in professional organizations.

5. Maintain some kind of home office.

6. Keep receipts for everything you pay for yourself that would be paid for by the company if you were an employee.

Seagate layoffs coming?

@AC

Every IT professional should learn early in their career it costs far more to replace a defective hard drive for an external customer or internal user than it does to provide a more reliable HDD in the first place. And providing HDDs that often need replacing makes a organization look bad, it costs goodwill.

Knowledgeable IT professionals, experienced administrators, and reputable PC makers consider reliability paramount in selecting hard drives. That is why the customer rebellion against the reduction in warranties from 3 to 5 years down to 1 to 3 years succeeded. Reliability is just far too important in HDD purchasing.

I agree that everything fails sooner or later. Professionals consider the "mean time to between failures" as the measurement to consider.

The real problem is employers who consider one IT person as good as another. Experience is valuable.

Doctors rally for right to call UK.gov quangonista a 'sh*t'

terrible abuse of power

A terrible example of abuse of power by those in power against those without power.

The totally disproportionate retribution against the junior doctor bring both government and the medical profession into disrepute.

Ballerinas and fish-gutters beat techies in UK immigration race

Govt priority makes sense according to other Reg articles

According to the Reg article here http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/09/09/it_spending_research/ there is going to be another glut of IT workers soon.

Govt currently understands law supply and demand on IT wages

When there is a genuine of IT workers, IT worker wages will go up, and people will train to become IT workers. Unlike professions such as medicine, law and engineering, it doesn't take 20 years of experience to gain expert skill in programming, analysis or LAN administration, 5 years is plenty.

While IT wages are depressed, informed intelligent people are going to seek other professions and trades.

No snapping: Photographers get collars felt

Starting to see the same in Canada

We are starting to see the same attitude by police in some cities in Canada:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/story/4216362p-4809372c.html

(snip)

In Winnipeg this week an amateur photographer alleged police confiscated his camera's memory card when they detained him.

Both incidents highlight the way police respond to being caught on tape in a new technological reality.

The B.C. lawyer who helped Paul Pritchard get back his video of a Polish man who died after being repeatedly Tasered by Vancouver Mounties said the Winnipeg photographer has the option of taking the Winnipeg Police Service to court.

Paul Pearson said police face added scrutiny today because of the proliferation of cameras.

"It's much more timely and common because virtually everyone now is walking around with cameras in their pockets, because of cellphones."

He also said police should be open to the added attention.

"The police hold a special position in our country. They have special powers, they carry weapons, they can take people into custody, they can do all kinds of things... If they're in the public, they should be open, and not resistant, to being recorded."

One expert said a rush towards "video democracy" has accelerated since the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles in 1991.

"It only partly works because police often have a certain amount of power in controlling the situation if there is video footage and film out there that might make them look bad," said Aaron Doyle, a Carleton University sociology and anthropology professor, who has written on how technology influences policing.

In the Winnipeg case, amateur photographer Paul St. Laurent, 38, maintains that after he photographed police interacting with car theft suspect they Tasered and arrested Tuesday afternoon in Elmwood, a police officer beckoned him over for questioning.

St. Laurent said four officers surrounded him, questioned him about biker and gang ties, and lectured him about how taking photos was for professional media only.

St. Laurent said after about five minutes of questioning, police handcuffed him, put him in the back of a cruiser, and confiscated his Manitoba Liquor Control Commission identification card, digital camera and portable phone after removing the phone's battery in front of him.

St. Laurent said the camera was returned to him missing a memory card.

The police have said, repeatedly, they took no property from St. Laurent.

Pearson said St. Laurent should launch legal action as a last resort.

"Sometimes it takes the cleansing powers of the courts to try to get through some of these conflicts."

A motion in Queen's Bench could sort out "very conflicting evidence" presented by witnesses, St. Laurent and police.. Pearson said.

"If Mr. St. Laurent wants to get on a witness stand, put his hand on a Bible, and say 'That officer took a memory card from me,' it's going to take somebody else to say the exact opposite to refute that. It would be very interesting to see what the various stories are."

After the incident, a police spokesman said St. Laurent had breached an area where officers were investigating and that the photographer was being obstructive. They said he was detained for his own safety.

Residents from three Keenleyside Street homes interviewed separately by the Free Press Thursday said St. Laurent was at least 30 feet from where the suspect had already been handcuffed by police.

"All (the officer) had to do was just give it back to me... It comes down to my word against his," St. Laurent said.

He said Thursday he wasn't sure he can afford a lawyer to represent him. "I don't know if it's worth spending thousands of dollars to get a $30 chip back."

St. Laurent said he has filed a complaint with the Winnipeg police professional standards unit.

He said if he was in the same situation again, he would not take the photos, because he now understands that officers are afraid photos taken by civilians could be used by gang members to identify them and hurt them.

Officers told St. Laurent he could have accidentally identified a young offender -- which is forbidden by law. The man being Tasered was 21, but that was not known at the time.

Pearson also said getting in the way of police work is "totally unacceptable" and people should provide copies of photos or videos if police request them.

"The difference comes ... where their desire goes from access to exclusive access and suppression."

In the Vancouver airport incident Pritchard was a bystander who lent his footage to RCMP to copy, and then had to launch a legal battle to get it back.

(snip)

drifting towards a police state

We are slowly drifting towards a police state here in Canada.

In recent years it has sounded like New Labour is rushing the UK towards a police state.

Anatomy of a malware scam

Custom themes?

Would a custom Windows theme make it easier for ordinary clients to detect this kind of thing?

Red rag, meet bull: The software resilience gamble

A former profession in deep trouble

The quickly decreasing status and slowly decreasing responsibilities of programmers is driving down the intellectual level of programming departments.

A lot of CIOs are salesmen. They sold themselves and got the job. But they mess-up their staffs because they don't know how to represent the IT technical side of things to upper management, they can't think on their feet concerning technical IT issues -- they don't have the expertise. It is similar with CIOs who are accountants. The executive committee is sitting around, and instead of IT expertise, they have an extra salesman or accountant.

In some companies this lack of expertise extends through middle management down to project leaders, project leaders promoted because they could not do the technical side of the work.

Finally, the intransigence of IT people, refusing to learn the business, refusing to bring forward their own ideas, refusing to take responsibility for technical decisions. We are the very definition of irresponsible.

Malicious gossip could cost you your job

Tell me again ...

Why did you re-elect Tony Blair so many times?

A taste of their own medicine?

Maybe judges and police need a taste of their own medicine?

Old ships' logs show temporary global warming in 1730s

"consistent language"?

"it wasn't normal for warships to carry thermometers at the time, so much of the analysis draws on winds and the "consistent language"?

What is that supposed to mean?

Anyone locate the journal article by Wheeler?

I've googled and I can't find the original article or the "The Holocene" journal. I'd really like to take a look at it.

All I've found are a bunch of blogs saying the article indicates our current global warming isn't man made, in spite of Wheeler saying something to the effect of "current global warming is a reality".

Built-in browser expiry proposed to fight botnet menace

Excellent Idea! Stops those who want fast insecure software

1. This is an excellent idea !

Tim (first post) is an example of a user wanting to use an old less secure version of software because it is faster.

Of course IE6 is faster ... it isn't doing making all the security checks that the more secure IE7 would do.

There are people who don't apply security updates to their OS and others who turn off their AV to make their systems go faster.

2. How about a big red screen warning popping up if you try to use your browser or download email when the AV is turned off, when the AV is not monitoring web traffic, or when the AV signatures are more than 24 hours old.

Transatlantic data sharing talks stumble over access to justice

USA should give human rights to all humans

The US government, and those who vote for it, should recognize that not all humans are American.

The US government and those who vote for it should give human rights to all humans, not merely US citizens and US residents.

The only differences should be that non-US citizens don't have a right to residency, to vote, or to access social services for free.

Paris, because they are all acting like Paris on this.

Comedy UK social network berates moaning users

Amateurs

Now you know why doctors, dentists and lawyers don't work for free.

Work done for free is over-valued by the provider and not valued at all by the recipient.

It starts off as a hobby, and becomes an unpaid job.

Anarchy Towers Ltd's best bets are to either:

1. Close the doors and get paying jobs, or

2. Take their work seriously, take their obligations to clients seriously, and find a way to get paid for it.

Acting like jack-asses just makes the IT whole profession look bad.

Paris, because even Paris takes her non-paying clients more seriously than these jerks.

UK clamps down on bus-spotting terror menace

I find people in police uniforms strange and threatening

I find people in police uniforms strange and threatening. Does that mean I can have them all taken in for questioning?

Anyone using London Transport could be arrested on reasonable grounds.

@Steven Jones

Posted Tuesday 24th June 2008 09:56 GMT

"The real question then becomes whether the arrest on suspicion is made on reasonable grounds. Given the wide-ranging nature of much of the anti-terrorism legislation, then there's a lot of discretion in the hands of the boys in blue, especially around anything that might be considered sensitive - which frankly might include any number of things in a city centre. Transport centres, buses, local government buildings - who knows."

One thing we do know is that all the London Transport Bombers were using London Transport, and none of them were carrying cameras, at the time of the explosions.

So with your argument, under current legislation, anyone using London Transport, and not in possession of a camera, could be arrested on reasonable grounds.

This is what happens when your anti-terror legislation is written to appease

George Bush.

The war on photographers - you're all al Qaeda suspects now

I suggest photographers set up a sting on police.

I suggest photographers set up a sting on police.

Have the bait photographer wearing an audio transmitter, and a team of other photographers recording the scene.

Post the results on the internet.

Worldwide, the press should run more stings on police. It seems the only video showing police misbehaviour is photography done by the general public.

But I suppose the ability to do their jobs, means crime journalists and photographers must curry favor with police.

EU Commission plots to end rip-off Britain online

The rest of the EU is in the EU and they paying 1/3 less for everything

You guys are being ripped-off by your nations merchants (my homeland's merchants) -- you have been paying a 33% tax for living in the UK for decades -- and you are complaining about EU officials and the EU pushing prices up?

The rest of the EU is in the EU -- and -- they paying 1/3 less for almost everything.

Paris because even Paris could see that, while EU bureaucracy messes up many things, it isn't responsible for the outrageous prices in the UK.

British Columbia stray foot tally hits six

very suspicious

You can read more about this here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080618.wfoot0618/BNStory/National/home

PayPal ambushes users with mystery Skype charges

Does Skype pay commissons to sales people?

Does Skype pay commissons to sales people to sell accounts?

Could it be that a criminal organization is faking sales to Skype?

US imposes 72 hour pre-reg for Visa waiver travellers

Would they prefer to continue fearing the world

It must be awful for Americans having to live in a pariah state, desperately frightened that so many peoples and nations around the world are "out to get them".

I'd feel sympathy for them, but they re-elected George Bush, they invade other countries for no sufficient cause, they bring neither the terrorists they sponsor nor their own war criminals to trial, and their signatures on international treaties are less than worthless.

I hope Obama is able to turn them around. The USA used to be a pretty good country. But are Americans prepared to pay the price, are they prepared to accept international law?

Or would they prefer to continue fearing the world?

@paul bell

Actually, if we and the Russians hadn't held Hitler for those 4 years before you reluctantly entered the war, you Yanks would all be speaking German now.

The country that sacrificed the most to fight Hitler was Russia, not the USA.

In proportion to its population and GDP, the USA was a meager contributor to the fight against Hitler in terms of fatalities, money and goods when compared with the UK, Canada, Australia, Russia, etc.

This said, we appreciate all soldiers, especially those who gave their lives or health, who saved the free world from Hitler, regardless of nationality.

Economist: girls actually better than boys at maths

sex is not a synonym for gender

Gender is for grammar and dead things, like the gender of a noun in German, or the gender of an electrical connector.

Sex is biological.

discrimination against men is so ubiquitous it is invisible to us

So are they going to look at how men are discriminated in with language, literature, and history courses?

Or do these "economists" feel men are innately inferior?

The discrimination in our culture against men is so ubiquitous, it is virtually invisible to members of our culture.

Naomi Campbell could face Heathrow charges

For $7,000 first class air fare she deserved better treatment

Did any of you read the article?

Naomi Campbell did something to justify the oxygen she breaths! She deserved far better treatment for her $7,000 first class air fare.

What sort of Tony-Blair-re-electing-country has laws against being an outraged customer in these circumstances anyway? You should be hanging your heads in collective shame!

BA was totally wrong to have her charged with the criminal offense of being a dis-satisified and outraged customer.

It is BA that should be in the prisoner's dock, for fraud and assault.

Brits have to learn to stop accepting crud treatment by businesses.

It is your own collective fault you pay 50% more than the rest of the world for everything from cars to DVDs to camping gear.

(Ex pat living in Canada.)

Phlashing attack thrashes embedded systems

electronic warfare tool for countries and terrorists

Although this would not be so useful for blackmailers, this would be a great electronic warfare tool for countries and both state and non-state sponsored terrorists.

Nigerian duped gullible NASA employee

the criminals who live here

And the sentence would have been a lot less than 18 months, if the crime had been committed by a criminal in the USA and he'd invaded 10,000 computers.

It is time we hardened our laws against the criminals who threaten us most, the criminals who live here.

(New) dirt-cheap bots attack Hotmail Captchas

the alternatives to captchas invade privacy and restrict freedom

@Bogwitch, not purchasing spamvertised products is not a perfect solution because of "joe jobs". Joe jobs are where a competitor sends shoddy spam on while impersonating a competitor, in order to damage the competitor's business. And then there is the tiny percentage of people who actually want what is being spamvertised. How do you get them to cooperate?

The only workable solutions at this time are the ones that privacy enthusiasts and computer hobbiests currently abhour:

1. ISPs and email services scan outgoing email for spam, suspending service to computers found spamming.

2. Restrictions in the number of email destinations and number of emails that can be specified in a 24 hour period.

3. Temporarily suspending service to computers that attempt to bypass 1 or 2.

4. Sending those who provide analysis and programming services to spamming companies, and those who rent or sell spamming services, to jail for longer and longer periods of time.

And really, only 4 will be effective. There will always be ways to disguise spam to get it to pass baysian filters, and restrictions in how much spam each PC can send will simply lead spammers into infecting more and more PCs.

Operating system irrelevant

I think we can agree that most spam comes from computers running popular operating systems.

In other words, Windows.

Spammers write bot and trojans for money. There simply isn't money to be made infecting the small number of computers running less popular operating systems with spamming software.

If another general purpose operating system came along that was cheaper and easier for home users, and it became dominant, then spammers would go to work on it, and soon most spam would come from it. (And we know these have vulnerabilities, since blackhats looking to break into high-value targets are able to break into Linux, Unix and Apple systems.)

So developing a new operating system that would be both easier (than Linux) and cheaper (than Apple's OS) for home users isn't a workable solution.

Jeff Yan and Ahmad Salah El Ahmad are on the wrong side of the battle

Shame on Jeff Yan and Ahmad Salah El Ahmad, of the School of Computing Science at Newcastle University for aiding those who send spam and abuse free services.

If they want to do something useful for society, they could come up with a better turing test.

Instead they did something simple, destroying the usefulness of someone else's work.

They did something simple and destructive.

This says something about the ethics of Newcastle University.

Creative climbs down over home brew Vista drivers

Creative should pay him for his work

Creative should pay Daniel K for his work.

In any event, thanks for the heads-up on this. I am looking at buying a Dell this week, and I was going to pay the extra for a Creative sound card. Obviously that would have been a big mistake on my part.

This has nothing to do with MS

@Nick, how do you explain that so many other companies were (eventually) able to come out with good Vista compatible drivers?

Do you think Creative has some kind of different contract with MS than the other companies?

MS wants to sell copies of Vista. MS stands to profit by the existence of good Vista-compatible drivers. MS has been pushing vendors to develop drivers. In a few cases (XP drivers for Aureal products after Creative bought Aureal) MS developed drivers where the vendor refused.

I think what we are dealing with is vendor laziness and vendor greed.

Greedy vendors who take a short-term view of their customer relationships (not all vendors) would rather sell us new products, than provide enhancements to products we already own.

It is short-sighted greedy hardware vendors who see no business reason to provide us with enhancements to products we have already bought.

Wikipedia-reading boffins jimmy keyless door to entire universe

Customers the big loosers here

Now microchip will be able to sell its customers equipment to replace what it has installed over the last 20 years.

Sounds profitable.

Only the customers loose.

Final beta of Firefox 3 available now

Does not sound at all stable

"750 changes since the previous beta"

Think Paris. That doesn't sound at all stable to me.

a. If 750 bugs were fixed in beta 5, that means there were at least 750 bugs in beta 4, and that there were at least 750 bugs that were undiscovered or unreported in beta 3. (If not bugs, then they introduced new features in the beta just before creating a release candidate, which I can't believe, but which would equally point to instability.)

b. How many other bugs remain unreported or undiscovered in beta 5?

c. How many new bugs did those 750 changes in beta 5 create?

At this rate, if this really is the last beta, we can expect at least 5 release candidates and official releases before Firefox 3 becomes stable enough for use on computers that people rely upon for work or school.

Mozilla CEO blasts Apple for putting security of the internet at risk

If OK for Apple then OK for Bonzi Buddy, Comet Cursor & 180 Solutions

It is very arguably malware behaviour, since the box is titled "update" and not "install". That is clearly fooling the human.

I don't think many other software makers would get away with this.

Whatever definition we have for malware, and trojan downloaders, it should be consistent. This is the basic principle of common law: one law for everyone.

So, if this behaviour is okay for Apple, then it is okay for 180 Solutions, Bonzi Buddy, Comet Cursor, Hotbar and Gator.

Heartless Apple form letter 'confuses' Jesus Phone disciples

That is how rejection letters read this side of the Atlantic

They didn't even take time to personalize the salutation with the recipient's name.

Still, this kind of reply should never stop anyone from re-applying, since it does not say the recipient is unqualified or excluded.

Do not wait for them to contact you, your application is probably in the circular file (garbage). Nothing personal, but in general good tech staff don't stay available long enough for it to be worthwhile to stockpile resumes.

If you hear of the program opening up again, re-apply.

With large companies in general, unless you've heard otherwise, not speaking about any company in particular, routinely re-applying once every 3 months is not too often. (If there really is no hiring occurring, your application will be filtered before it gets to anyone who will be offended by it.)

Good luck.

In the meantime, explore other opportunities.

A third of online shops undermine consumer rights

It is good to see somebody's government doing its job

Now if only we could get similar action on the west side of the Atlantic.

These re-stocking fees are just plain wrong, although they seem to be legal here.

Hacking attacks can turn off heart monitors

What protection is there against *accidental* re-programming or DoS?

Regarding the 30k price tag, it is a radio transceiver and a computer. Medtronic paid $30k for theirs. That doesn't mean someone could put something together for less.

In fact, my main worry would be someone accidentally re-programming or operating the IMD. What protection is there against that? Could it be done by a hacker with a laptop and an standard wireless NIC card? Would the wireless NIC card need to be modified? Could it be done with random noise from a faulty electric motor?

And how can we be assured nobody has ever died to their IMD being intentionally re-programmed? If the device was intentionally re-programmed, would the attacker revert the programming back once the victim had died? Would anyone even check the state of the program in the IMD?

Unpatched RealPlayer bug paves way for drive-by downloads

How shameful and unprofessional of Elazar Broad

How shameful and unprofessional of Elazar Broad to have posted a full disclosure of someone else's bug to anyone other than the vendor, CERT (or his countries version of CERT), and AV companies.

If blackhats knew about already knew about the vulnerability, then it wasn't his discovery.

If blackhats did not know about the vulnerability, then, in my opinion, fully disclosing it amounts to aiding and conspiring to facilitate the illegal entry to other people's computers.

If the facts in the article are accurate, I hope Elazar Broad is forced out of our field. Maybe he could be a personal injury lawyer, but then lawyers would dis-bar a colleague who facilitated an injury on a bystander just to publicize an unsafe condition.

EU investigates DOJ internet gambling tactics

Human rights for foreigners?

They are citizens of The United States of America.

You guys are a bunch of foreigners.

Why would you expect to be treated with respect?

Do you really think they believe in mutual respect for foreigners?

Make vendors liable for exploits

Liability -- The end of freeware

If vendors, authors and testers are made liable for the bugs in their software, contributors to freeware and people who make free contributions to open source will find themselves liable for lines of code and algorithms that they gave away for free, and for testing they did on charitable basis.

I'd expect non-employee authors, testers and project managers would be jointly and severally liable, meaning that basically all the authors, testers and project managers would be responsible for the final product. A user would be entitled to bankrupt each contributor to the product until sufficient funds were acquired to cover his loss due to the vulnerability. (Employees are generally protected from liability for work they do for their employer by the employer. The employer assumes responsibility and liability for their work, and arranges insurance for themselves.)

On a second note, to AJ, the infallibility of open source is just a myth the newbies and hobbiests spout. Lots of open source products have vulnerabilities.

El Reg decimates English language

Nukular -- since when is English a phonetic language ???

How can anyone get out of first grade in elementary school without learning that English is NOT a phonetic language?

Spelling and pronounciation are so loosely related, in English, as to be almost independant. Even Paris knows this!

Webster is the definitive guide to American English, and Webster's dictionary classes ÷ nü-kyl(r) as "a common varient of pronounciation that occurs in educated speech".

Quoting Webster's FAQ on this issue, http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/pronounce.htm :

((snip))

"Many people object to those pronunciations of February and nuclear on the basis that they do not conform to the spelling of the word. However, to say "the word is spelled (x), and therefore should be pronounced (y)" doesn't make any sense. Spelling is not a legitimate basis for determining pronunciation, for the following reasons:

"1. English spelling is highly irregular. For example, "move", "dove", and "cove" are spelled similarly but pronounced differently. Likewise, "to," "too," and "two" are spelled differently and pronounced the same.

"2. English spelling is frequently based on factors besides pronunciation. For example, the "c" represents three different sounds in "electrical", "electricity" and "electrician", but is spelled the same in all to show that the words are related.

"3. Most importantly, spoken language is primary, not written language. Indeed, only spoken language can be truly considered "language." Writing is a collection of symbols meant to represent spoken language. It is not language in and of itself. Many written languages (Spanish, Dutch, etc.), will regularly undergo orthographic reforms to reflect changes in the spoken language. This has never been done for English (the spelling of which has never been regularized in the first place), so what we use for written language is actually largely based on the spoken language of several centuries ago.

"All of the entries in our dictionary (including their pronunciations, meanings, etc.) are based on usage. We have an extensive collection of files which date back to the 19th century. Language is changing all of the time in all respects, and any dictionary which purports to be an accurate description of the language in question must be constantly updated to reflect these changes. All words were pronounced differently at some time in the past. There is simply no scholarly basis for preferring one pronunciation over another, and the term "correct" pronunciation doesn't mean anything objectively. To not list all pronunciation variants would be irresponsible and a failure of our mission to provide a serious, scholarly, record of the current American English language. ""

Most spam comes from just six botnets

don't allow the USA to exempt its citizens from international criminal law

Increase the penalties for unauthorized entry into a computer using international criminal law, create a law against financing unauthorized entry into a computer system, and create an international agency to help enforce the law. And then don't allow the USA to exempt its citizens from international criminal law, if they still want to be a part of the internet.

But it won't happen.

What will happen (sooner or later) is some large loss of life tragedy, and then the internet will be re-architected with permanent IP addresses and traceability features.

The internet is finananced by all those people and agencies with unpatched and otherwise insecure operating systems (which includes linux and mac os), and leaky applications. I suppose people who don't want to be exposed to these people's computers could create their own network.

Alleged Kiwi botnet mastermind in court

He'll be out in under a year

I'll wager he'll be out in under a year, IF he is convicted.

HMRC pays criminal for 'tax dodger' discs

sick and tired of the middle class having to subsidize the wealthy

I'm glad to see somebody's government doing what it can to crack down on wealthy tax cheats.

I'm sick and tired of the middle class having to subsidize the wealthy.

As for criminal laws being broken, the data was obtained in Lichtenstein, I doubt the UK has a data protection treaty with Lichtenstein, the data isn't copyright, it isn't patented (its data), so what criminal law? Maybe just a violation of regulations of some sort.