Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Getting the newest games console has always been hard, and the Nintendo Wii is no exception with ‘Out of stock’ signs adorning many games hardware outlets.  In addition to unrelenting demand, would be buyers are facing constraints from an unlikely source.  If you can’t get a Nintendo product this year: blame Somalian pirates.

Not content stealing folks using Torrents, but sword in mouth, eye-patched, rum-swilling pirates.  Thought today’s crews cary RPGs and fast boats to seize your electronics as their booty.

Find out why the increase in pirating means no Wiis for many.

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A new service focused around the use of cell phones has been announced, it’s called “My Mobile Witness.“  Upon first seeing the name, I immediately felt like I wanted to bash it for being some sort of invasion of privacy-enabling service.  Turns out that isn’t the case.  My Mobile Witness is actually what it calls “a personal security device.“  It actually sounds a bit useful if not hard to anticipate when to use it.

The service works by the user taking a picture of the area they are in, a license plate, a suspicious person, or something similar.  The picture (or text message) is uploaded to a server that is apparently only viewable by police.  The situations the press release describe would prove the service to be useful: taking a picture of a street sign in an unfamiliar area, taking a picture of a marker on an unfamiliar hiking path during a storm, among others.  The information, if used for a crime, can apparently be used in court as well.

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Law enforcement officials in the UK have shut down an underground website that specialized in helping cybercriminals commit their crimes.  The site, called DarkMarket, was kept secret and access was granted by invitation only.  Its forum allowed cyberthieves to buy and sell stolen banking details and credit card numbers obtained via phishing scams and website hacks.  It also served as a learning tool, providing information on how to commit various online crimes.

The bust is the result of an undercover operation by the FBI. 60 arrests have been made (11 of them in the UK) as a result.  Authorities said the site had over 2,000 members.  These criminals made huge profits from the stolen credit and banking info.  Authorities said one man could have made over 10 million pounds (roughly $17 million US) with the info he bought.

“The people involved in this kind of activity have a certain arrogance—they think they are untouchable,“ said Sharon Lemon, SOCA(the UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency)‘s Deputy Director of E-Crime. “The message today is that no one should feel confident that these forums are a secure place to operate.“

It’s very likely that after a period of lying low, the site will rise again in another form.  However thanks to operations like this one, the criminals that use it will be constantly looking over their shoulders, knowing that it may only be a matter of time before the authorities come knocking again.

Read[Reuters]

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Sections: Computers, Security, Web, Websites

While Justin.tv seems to be pretty neat, personally I find watching most of those channels just about as boring as could be. However, this latest incident just goes to show that if you watch something, or in this case point a camera at something long enough, you will at least catch something useful or worthwhile.

Justin.tv user Chowda633 recently went into the hospital to have some ear surgery and low and behold he returned to find a few things missing from his apartment. Well, it turns out it was a good thing that he was a Justin.tv user, because whether he just forgot to turn his camera off, or possibly he was keeping it on just in case. He was able to catch the footage of the robbery, which happened to be found by another Justin.tv user. Now with footage in hand, he was able to further help the police. Lets just hope that he gets his stolen items back undamaged.

Read [Justin.tv Blog] Via [CrunchGear]

• My Mobile Witness has a terrible name, but means well
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• Your Wii is being held hostage

Sections: Video, Web, Online Music/Video

Most criminals are stupid, but those who video themselves doing the crime and then post it on YouTube are in a whole new league. But to be fair it makes the lives of the police a lot easier as you already have video evidence of not only the person, but the crime committed. So surely moves to punish people for putting these videos on the internet are misguided (as they would then be less likely to put the videos on the internet and therefore making themselves harder to catch).

Anyway, it would appear one Judge has recognized this and come up with a different kind of punishment: where the offender must post an apology for their crime on the internet. Obviously this is not the only punishment that they will receive, but it does go some way as to making the offender look like a fool and to ensure that they lose any ‘respect’ they got for committing and posting the crime in the first place. An innovative punishment, and one that would probably work.

Via [Techdirt]

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Sections: Tech News, Web, Websites

If there’s anything I’ve learned about Apple, in all these years of reading, and just recently, writing about them, it’s that you don’t mess with them. Ever. That’s a lesson a lot of would-be Apple product burglars would do good in learning, lest they want to be the ones pictured and talked about in this article here. The two men you see here are the burglars that we reported about previously, responsible for stealing flat-screen TVs, computer games, iPods, DVDs, a box of liquor and even a set of car rims from an apartment shared by three roommates. The one on top is Edmon Shahikian, while the one on the bottom is Ian Frias. They were apprehended shortly after the owner of one of their stolen wares, a Mac laptop, used the Back To My Mac feature to photograph them and show their photos to the police. I wonder when anyone will be able to do that with their Windows lappies.

Read [NY Times]

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An Apple Store employee whose apartment she was sharing with two roommates was recently victimized by burglars, however they had a happy ending thanks to the help of her stolen Mac’s screen sharing feature and built-in webcam.

After the house was burglarized by thieves, the Apple Store employee received a call from a friend asking if she was online, since it appears that she is online on her friend’s computer. The victim immediately logged on to the Internet and used the Back-to-My-Mac program and found out that her Mac was indeed connected to the Internet. Not wasting any time, the victim quickly activated her Mac’s built-in webcam and the screen sharing feature in order to take a snapshot of the thief who was currently using her notebook. The victim’s friend recognized the man in the picture as someone who had been at her apartment during the recent get together.

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Recently during a Washington think tank, The Urban Institute discussed the phenomenon that as the number of iPods sold has increased, so has the rate of violent crime. The discussion seems to focus on iPods of course, but electronics in general are also mentioned. Some arguments for a connection between iPods and violent crime are that iPods are very coveted, iPod owners are easy to spot and are not always alert to their surroundings, which makes it’s harder for the thieves to get caught. Also, the Urban Institute points out that robberies by young people have increased more than for adults.  But there are arguments against a connection as well, for example there was also an increase in crime before the introduction of iPods. So the only thing you can really say is that, just like you learned in school, “Correlation does not imply causation.“

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