Fascinating story of a 16-year-old blind phone phreaker. One afternoon, not long after Proulx was swatted, Weigman came home to find his mother talking to what sounded like a middle-aged male. The man introduced himself as Special Agent Allyn Lynd of the FBI's cyber squad in Dallas, which investigates hacking and other computer crimes. A West Point grad, Lynd had...

A recent report has concluded that the London's surveillance cameras have solved one crime per thousand cameras per year. David Davis MP, the former shadow home secretary, said: "It should provoke a long overdue rethink on where the crime prevention budget is being spent." He added: "CCTV leads to massive expense and minimum effectiveness. "It creates a huge intrusion on...

I like to think this isn't a typo....

Weird: The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to figure out who is sending laptop computers to state governors across the U.S., including West Virginia Governor Joe Mahchin and Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal. Some state officials are worried that they may contain malicious software....

More security stories from the natural world: During chase scenes, movie protagonists often make their getaway by releasing some sort of decoy to cover their escape or distract their pursuer. But this tactic isn't reserved for action heroes—some deep-sea animals also evade their predators by releasing decoys—glowing ones. Karen Osborn from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography has discovered seven new...

Not beer, just the glasses: The Home Office has commissioned a new design, in an attempt to stop glasses being used as weapons. Official figures show 5,500 people are attacked with glasses and bottles every year in England and Wales. The British Beer and Pub Association said it did not want the new plastic glasses to be made compulsory. I...

Someone has been charged with stealing 130 million credit card numbers. Yes, it's a lot, but that's the sort of quantities credit card numbers come in. They come by the millions, in large database files. Even if you only want ten, you have to steal millions. I'm sure every one of us has a credit card in our wallet whose...

Interesting video demonstrating how a policeman can manipulate the results of a Breathalyzer....

The sorts of crimes we've been seeing perpetrated against individuals are starting to be perpetrated against small businesses: In July, a school district near Pittsburgh sued to recover $700,000 taken from it. In May, a Texas company was robbed of $1.2 million. An electronics testing firm in Baton Rouge, La., said it was bilked of nearly $100,000. In many cases,...

As part of their training, federal agents engage in mock exercises in public places. Sometimes, innocent civilians get involved. Every day, as Washingtonians go about their overt lives, the FBI, CIA, Capitol Police, Secret Service and U.S. Marshals Service stage covert dramas in and around the capital where they train. Officials say the scenarios help agents and officers integrate the...

It turns out that flipping a coin has all sorts of non-randomness: Here are the broad strokes of their research: If the coin is tossed and caught, it has about a 51% chance of landing on the same face it was launched. (If it starts out as heads, there's a 51% chance it will end as heads). If the coin...

The math doesn't look good: "When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection." An outbreak of zombies infecting humans is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead. While aggressive quarantine may eradicate the infection, this is unlikely to happen in practice. A cure would only result in some humans surviving the...

Neat: Palaeontologists have drawn with ink extracted from a preserved fossilised squid uncovered during a dig in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. The fossil, thought to be 150 million years old, was found when a rock was cracked open, revealing the one-inch-long black ink sac. The calcified ink was ground with a solution of ammonia to turn it into ink. Another article....

From the humor website Cracked: "The 5 Most Embarrassing Failures in the History of Terrorism." Yes, it's funny. But remember that these are the terrorist masterminds that politicians invoke to keep us scared. My 2007 essay, "Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot," is also relevant. But less funny....

Marc Weber Tobias again: The new Assa Solo was recently introduced in Europe and we believe is the latest Cliq design. We were provided with samples and were able to show a reporter for Wired’s Threat Level how to completely circumvent the electronic credentials in less than thirty seconds, which she easily accomplished. This is the latest and most current...

Interesting: Scientists looking for better ways to detect lies have found a promising one: increasing suspects' "cognitive load." For a host of reasons, their theory goes, lying is more mentally taxing than telling the truth. Per­forming an extra task while lying or telling the truth should therefore affect the liars more. To test this idea, deception researchers led by psychologist...

"Terroristic threats"? A pickup truck driver is accused of trying to run over a bicyclist and then coming after him brandishing an ax after a road-rage incident in Burnsville last weekend. The driver, Mitchel J. Pieper, 32, of Burnsville, was charged in Dakota County District Court on Tuesday with making terroristic threats, a felony, in connection with the altercation Saturday....

This isn't good: The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person. [...] The planting...

Let's all be afraid: But it adds: "Robots that effectively mimic human appearance and movements may be used as human proxies." It raised the prospects of terrorists using robots to plant and detonate bombs or even replacing human suicide bombers. A Home Office spokeswoman said: "This strategy looks at how technology might develop in future. "Clearly it is important that...

Flash has the equivalent of cookies, and they're hard to delete: Unlike traditional browser cookies, Flash cookies are relatively unknown to web users, and they are not controlled through the cookie privacy controls in a browser. That means even if a user thinks they have cleared their computer of tracking objects, they most likely have not. What’s even sneakier? Several...