The family of a 9-year-old file sharer in Finland was raided by police earlier this week. The seizure of equipment, including a Disney-branded laptop owned by the child, followed after the family's refusal to abide to Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC's demands, and has now led to the musical artist to speak out against the legal action.
Researchers are working on robotic members of the police force. The Discovery Lab of Florida International University is working with the US Navy Reserves on building telepresence robots, controlled by disabled police officers and members of the armed forces, that could be used to police the streets, according to CNET.
The New York Police Department and Microsoft have constructed a supercomputer to help fight crime. Costing between $30 and $40 million to create, the Domain Awareness System (DAS) uses a combination of CCTV, license plate readers, police reports, and live incident reports to track criminals and help protect the city from potential threats such as terrorist attacks.
Israeli Border Police allegedly destroyed a MacBook Pro owned by Lily Sussman, a student and US citizen who was recently interrogated while crossing from Egypt into Israel, according to her blog. The guards thoroughly searched Sussman's belongings while asking questions about people she knows, where she is traveling, her stance on the local conflicts, and her family, among other things.
Sandisk on Tuesday introduced the "WORM," or "Write Once Read Many" SD card for professional uses such as storing evidence in police investigations, court testimony, medical records and electronic voting. Sandisk claims original data written to WORM cards are "effectively locked" and there is "no physical way to alter or delete the files." If stored properly, the company claims, WORM SD cards have an archive live of up to 100 years.
More than 300 iPhones were stolen from an Apple store in the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem, New Hamshire. The culprits? Two employees: Joshua Garrand, 28, of Methuen, Mass., and Christopher Nashed, 22, of Sandown who have now been brought before the court on felony theft charges of stealing $132,468 worth of iPhones and selling them on the black market. The Eagle-Tribune reports that police wouldn't say whether the men were selling the phones online or how sophisticated their operation wasm but would say that investigators were first contacted by the store in early January. One Salem police sergeant spent three months on the case. One of the suspects, Nashed, is being held on $250,000 bail at the Rockingham County Jail. He is expected to appear today in Salem District Court for arraignment. Garrand, meanwhile is being held at Essex County Jail in Middlesex, Mass.
Academy recruits for the New York City Police Department will receive an iPod loaded with training material. Since many of the recruits use mass transit in their daily travels to school, officials decided it would be easier to provide materials in digital format, rather than requiring students to carry around masses of books on the crowded subway system. Reuters says that recruits will be able to see content from subjects like New York State Penal Law, warrants, ethics, and community policing. The announcement said that the information that will be stored on the iPods will not contain any security sensitive information, so that if the iPods are lost by students, the NYPDs operations will not be compromised.
