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Former Yahoo engineer hacked 6,000 accounts in search of sexual content
A former Yahoo engineer pleaded guilty to hacking into roughly 6,000 accounts in search of sexual photos and videos. According to court documents, Reyes Daniel Ruiz, 34, used his employee access to Yahoo's internal network to crack users' passwords. He then downloaded explicit photos and videos to a personal hard drive, which he stored at home.
Volkswagen’s head of compliance pleads guilty in emissions scandal
Last September, Volkswagen's James Robert Lang pled guilty in federal court on charges of conspiring to defraud US regulatory agencies and consumers. The veteran Volkswagon AG engineer admitted to his part in creating software for the EA 189 engine that would essentially cheat on emissions tests. The car company itself agreed to pay $4.3 billion to settle federal criminal and civil charges over the emissions-cheating technology this past January. Now yet another executive has entered a guilty plea. Oliver Schmidt faces up to seven years in prison and a fine of $40,000 to $400,000 for his part in conspiring to mislead US regulators. His sentencing is set for December 6th.
Another Silk Road spy pleaded guilty to laundering bitcoins
$820,000. That's how much former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges pilfered in bitcoin during his time investigating the online black market, Silk Road. Bridges pleaded guilty to money laundering and obstruction of justice recently and the Department of Justice says that it was analyzing the "block chain and data" from Silk Road's servers that lead the breadcrumb trail of ill-gotten gains back to him. Bridges funneled his 20,000 bitcoins, at that time worth $350,000, through a series of "complex transactions" with a stop at Mt. Gox before transferring them into US dollars in early 2013. It isn't nearly as flagrant as his colleague Carl Force's transgressions (a movie deal? Seriously?), but the amount of money Bridges tried stealing was an awful lot higher.
The Daily Grind: Do you feel guilty for not playing an MMO?
As a fan of much of the MMO field, I often feel torn, stretched, and downright guilty that I'm not playing more than I am. The allure of a familiar berth is often much more preferable than trying out a new game and having to fuss around with learning all of these unknown systems. Then there's the guilt that comes when I'm going through a low point with one of my staples. When I'm not "feeling it," I don't log on much and then I realize that it's been weeks since I've really played. Then a tear trickles down my cheeks as I wonder if the game and my guild feels abandoned from my stellar presence. It's horrible, I tells ya. So do you ever feel guilty for not playing an MMO? Is this a completely weird emotion for me to have? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Former GameStop VP pleads guilty to embezzling almost $2 million
Frank Christopher Olivera, former GameStop VP of corporate communications and public affairs plead guilty Thursday to one count of mail fraud for embezzling $1,965,900 from the company.According to the federal indictment, Olivera sent payments from July 2009 through April 2011 to Cloud Communications LLC. The Nevada company was fictitious, was "created and controlled by Olivera," and was used to funnel the transferred funds into Olivera's personal account."The company does not comment on matters pending in court, however, we will say that Mr. Olivera was terminated last year and GameStop has fully and completely cooperated with the government's investigation," a representative for GameStop informed Joystiq.According to the Dallas Observer, up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine are the maximum penalties for the mail fraud charge Olivera plead guilty to.
Former Olympus executives plead guilty in accounting fraud trial
Three executives from troubled imaging giant Olympus have pleaded guilty to artificially boosting the company's true value in 2007 and 2008 by concealing losses in financial statements. Former chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, ex-auditor Hideo Yamada and former VP Hisashi Mori were charged with fraud in the scandal, which was brought to light last year by ex-CEO Michael Woodford. He was fired by the Olympus board for blowing the whistle, but reportedly received a large settlement for his troubles. The company has since confessed to cooking the books as far back as the '90s to hide investment losses, and revealed in 2011 that it had a billion dollars less in value than previously stated. That, along with the poor performance of its camera division, has forced Olympus to seek a partner or raise capital to survive.
AU Optronics found guilty of US price fixing, appeal already in the works
AU Optronics has had its name bandied about in the courtroom before, most recently in a 2009 group suit where it was targeted for LCD price fixing. 'Course, LCD price fixing has been quite a popular pastime for a smattering of outfits, but it looks like AUO will be seeing the wrong end of the decision process here in the States. A US court found the Taiwanese company guilty in a case that could see it hit with a fine totaling as much as $1 billion. Yeah, with a b. As it goes, the outfit was charged as part of an alleged price-fixing group that operated between 1999 and 2006, but it was the only Asian LCD maker in that lot to plead not guilty. This here ruling comes after LG agreed to pay a $400 million fine in 2008, while Samsung talked itself into an early deal to sidestep prosecution. A pair of AUO execs were also found guilty, but its former CEO L.J. Chen (who is still hanging around in the top brass) was not. We're told that the company plans to appeal -- a process that could last as long as a year -- but that hasn't kept its stock price from sinking in the interim. First comes sliding LCD margins, and now the looming thought of a $1 billion slap on the wrist; suddenly, your woes don't seem so bad, huh?
Former ARRI exec pleads guilty to hacking into rival CEO's e-mail account, faces jail time
There's some Oscar-worthy drama brewing in California, where ARRI executive Michael Bravin has pleaded guilty to hacking into a high-level e-mail account at rival camera maker Band Pro Film and Digital. In a plea agreement filed yesterday with a US District Court, Bravin admitted to intentionally accessing a corporate e-mail account belonging to Amnon Band -- Band Pro's President and CEO. More details after the break, including a potential connection to RED's Jim Jannard.
Second accused AT&T iPad hacker in plea talks
Last month, Daniel Spitler pleaded guilty to hacking account information from AT&T 3G iPads and faces up to 10 years in prison. His alleged partner in crime, Andrew Auernheimer, is now reportedly negotiating a plea deal as well. Auernheimer's case is currently on hold during these negotiations. Spitler and Auernheimer are responsible for writing an iPad 3G Account Slurper tool that parsed the SIM card numbers of AT&T iPad 3G owners and used them to retrieve email addresses from the carrier's website. They pair and their associated hacking group reportedly grabbed over 100,000 email records and brazenly flaunted their theft before being caught. The theft was particularly stinging as many of those records belonged to government officials and military personal.
Google ordered to pay $5 million in Linux patent infringement suit (updated)
An East Texas jury recently awarded a relatively small computer firm patent troll a pretty hefty settlement (in you and me dollars) in a patent infringement suit that named Google, Yahoo, Amazon, AOL, and Myspace as defendants. The jury awarded Bedrock Computer Technologies LLC $5 million for a patent concerning the Linux kernel found in the software behind Google's servers. The patent in question is described as a "method and apparatus for information storage and retrieval using a hashing technique with external chaining and on-the-fly removal of expired data." It appears Google is the first of the defendants to face a judgement, but we have a feeling this decision might have set a precedent. Of course, no infringement suit would be complete without a healthy helping of appeals -- and considering the decision came from a district court, we can almost guarantee this case is no exception. You didn't expect the big guys to stay down for the count, did you? Update: As it turns out, the plaintiff in question here, Bedrock Computer Technologies, is actually owned by David Garrod, a lawyer and patent reform activist. Ars Technica profiled Garrod following the initial suit, pointing to the clear contradiction between his trolling and reform efforts. What's more, Bedrock sued Google and the rest of the defendants in June 2009. Just six months later, Bedrock was back in the courtroom, but this time it was on the receiving end. Red Hat, the company supplying the OS behind Google's search engine services, was suing Bedrock for patent invalidity.
Former Apple employee admits he sold confidential info, cost the company in excess of $2 million
Paul Devine, the man who last August collected a pretty lengthy list of charges against his name from the FBI and IRS -- which collectively amounted to an accusation of "screwing Apple" -- has now admitted his guilt. Specifically, Devine has fessed up to wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, in which he engaged while exchanging confidential information about upcoming Apple products for cold hard cash from interested parts suppliers. He's now having to forfeit $2.28 million in money and property that resulted from his nefarious exploits, with sentencing scheduled for June 6th. Devine's lawyer is quoted as saying he's a "good man who made a mistake, and now he's trying to make amends." Indeed, the mistake of getting caught and the amends of trying not to go to prison. Jump past the break for a full statement on the matter from the US Department of Justice.
Dell finally fined $4 million in NY fraud case
Remember back in May 2008 when Dell was found guilty of "engaging in deceptive business practices related to financing promotions for its computers and technical support?" Yeah, those were the days, and now just 15 and a half months after the verdict, the computer maker is now paying up to the tune of $4 million -- not as paltry as its $30,000 Taiwan fine, but still less than one percent of its quarterly profits. We know, it's the thought the counts.
The Pirate Bay founders sentenced to prison, website soldiers on
In what's being described as a landmark verdict, four men responsible for assisting throngs of dubious internet users to download all sorts of copyrighted material are being ushered off to prison cells for twelve whole months. The Stockholm district court in Sweden found the defendants guilty not of hosting materially illegally, but of "providing a website with sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and a tracker linked to the website [that helped users commit copyright violations]." As expected, the foursome seems unaffected by the ruling, with Peter Sunde (shown) tweeting that "it used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release." After jail, the crew will be forced by pay 30 million kronor ($3.56 million) to a number of entertainment companies, which is far less than those firms were hoping for. Curiously, we're told that the verdict didn't include an order to shut down The Pirate Bay website, and you can pretty much bank on an appeal being filed in record time.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Guilty Gear waggles into the US, leaving glitches in Japan
Aksys Games, publishers of Hoshigami Remix on the DS, have announced that they're localizing Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, the fifth revision of the third entry in Arc System Works' totally metal 2D fighting series. The new version includes 2 new characters, A.B.A. and Holy Order Sol. Aksys claims that A.B.A. has "never been seen outside of Japan," a claim that is only true if nobody bought Guilty Gear Isuka. In addition, Siliconera found a post on Aksys's official forums stating that they'll be fixing the bugs that were prevalent in the Japanese PS2 release. We consider "not being broken" a significant gameplay feature.Finally, in a decisive victory for Internet linguists everywhere, the official press release advertises, in addition to Gamecube controller and Classic Controller play, "Waggle controls exclusive to the Wii!" It's, like, an official term now.
Gundam 0079 revealed, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core announced
We have yet to get the first Gundam game in the US, and Bandai Namco is already moving on to another one. Whereas SD Gundam SCAD Hammers used the pudgy lil' SD Gundam characters, this one is based on Gundam 0079, which is serious business. We've got a scan featuring the first images from the game after the break.Also announced, but not yet shown, was a Wii version of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core-- this is apparently 2D Fighter Announcement Week. We're a little scared to see how a precise 2d fighting game will use the Wiimote, and we're hoping that we can skirt the issue with configurable Classic Controller functionality. At least until Hori gets around to releasing a wireless joystick.
Long-term UK cancer study about to kick off, cellphones in peril again
While we aren't claiming any prophetic abilities, it wasn't exactly hard to assume that just over a month after a thorough Danish study cleared cellphones of any wrongdoings associated with cancers and tumors, we've got a so-called expert lobbying for £3 million ($5.92 million) in funding to prove otherwise. Professor Lawrie Challis, who is in the final stages of negotiation with the Department of Health and the mobile phone industry for the aforementioned dough, seems to think that there's still a "hint of something" that could develop in long-term, heavy mobile users "after 10 years of use." Granted, he has literally books of research disproving this "hint," but as he references cases like asbestos and Hiroshima, he suggests that a study must be done now in order to prevent anything even more dramatic from cropping up in a decade or so. Reportedly, "over 200,000 volunteers, including long-term users, are to be monitored for at least five years to plot mobile phone use against any serious diseases they develop, including cancer, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's diseases." So it seems the circus begins again, and in the meantime, let's just all cross our re-paranoid fingers in hopes that nothing goes awry (and that a counter-test shoots it down) while this study unfolds.[Via Textually]
Samsung executive fixed pricing for chips in Apple computers
A Samsung executive will pay a quarter-million dollar fine and serve almost a year in prison after pleading guilty to memory chip price fixing. He violated the Sherman Antitrust Act when Samsung colluded with other companies to fix DRAM chip prices. Four other memory makers have been charged as well. The memory sales in question date back almost five years and were used in Apple, HP and Gateway computers.
DS releases for the week of April 24
This week's titles include the long-awaited Lost Magic, a game that's equal parts role-playing and real-time strategy. Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers has a lot of doubt surrounding it from those wondering if the frenetic action of its console cousins can be accurately transported to the dual-screened brilliance of the DS. As for Top Gun, well...is anyone excited for this game? Guilty Gear: Dust Strikers Lost Magic Top Gun As always, availability subject to manufacturer delivery.
