Prison
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Prison Architect 2 is a 3D sequel to a beloved indie game, and it's arriving March 26
Prison Architect 2 is a sequel to the cult hit from 2015 and brings the franchise to 3D, while retaining much of the simulation goodness from the original. It releases on March 26 for PC via Steam, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.
Man who unlocked 1.9 million AT&T phones sentenced to 12 years in prison
The scheme cost the company $201.5 million, according to the Department of Justice.
Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee is going back to jail for bribery
Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee has been sentenced to 2.5 years of prison over bribery charges, wrapping up a court battle that started four years ago.
Prison video visitation system exposed calls between inmates and lawyers
A security lapse exposed thousands of prison video visitation calls, including those between inmates and their lawyers.
Scientist who edited babies' genes sentenced to three years in prison
Last year, a Stanford-trained scientist stunned the world by revealing that he had created the first genetically-edited babies using the CRISPR/Cas9 tool.
Google helped create a jail data map to shape reform policy (updated)
Most people in the US agree that the country needs to reform its criminal justice system. In 2017, for instance, a poll conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union found that 71 percent of Americans said it was important for the country to reduce its prison population. Of course, the question of how to tackle the issue is where there's little consensus.
Silk Road 2 founder sentenced five years after the site was shut down
It's been nearly five years since the feds shut down Silk Road 2. But its founder is only now being sentenced to prison. According to Motherboard, Thomas White, also known as Dread Pirate Roberts 2 (DPR2) plead guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering and making indecent images of children. Now he faces five years and four months in prison.
Spain halts plans to use electric shock treatment on violent inmates
Spain is putting on hold a scientific investigation that involved zapping prisoners' brains with electricity to curb violent urges. A pilot study saw the technique -- known as transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS -- carried out on 41 violent male prisoners, 15 of them serving murder sentences.
Hong Kong is testing high-tech monitoring systems for 'smart' prisons
Prisons in Hong Kong are testing a variety of high-tech services that will allow correctional facilities to better track inmates, according to the South China Morning Post. The city's Commissioner of Correctional Services, Danny Woo Ying-min, claimed the new services will be used to monitor for abnormal behavior among the incarcerated, prevent self-harm, and operate the prisons more efficiently.
US prisons are reportedly creating 'voice print' databases
Prisons across the United States are reportedly building biometric databases that include voice recordings of incarcerated people, according to The Intercept. The report cites contracting documents for the state of New York's prison system, as well as statements from officials in Texas, Florida, Arkansas and Arizona confirming that prisons are actively using voice recognition technology that can extract and digitize voices to create unique and identifiable biometric signatures known as voice prints.
Senator Wyden wants to jail execs who don't protect consumer data
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) released a draft the Consumer Data Protection Act, which would create new protections for consumer information and strict punishments for those found to be abusing user data. The proposed bill would send senior executives to jail for 10 to 20 years if they fail to follow the guidelines for data use.
Creator of doomed Fyre Festival gets six-year prison sentence
Billy McFarland, the founder of the disastrous Fyre Festival from 2017, has been sentenced to six years in a federal prison, The New York Times reports. The 26-year-old was found guilty of defrauding investors, an act he admitted to earlier this year. McFarland told prosecutors then that Fyre Media got $26 million from lenders by lying and forging documents, for what was then billed as "the cultural experience of the decade." As we know now, though, Fyre Festival ended up being the completely opposite of that, leaving attendees stranded at airports and eating sad cheese sandwiches instead of the five-star meals McFarland and his group promised them.
Idaho inmates hacked prison tablets and stole $225,000
Inmates in five Idaho prisons exploited a vulnerability on their JPay tablets to steal almost $225,000 worth of credits, according to officials. The Idaho Department of Correction said 364 prisoners boosted their JPay account balances, according to The Associated Press. The department unearthed the issue earlier this month, and noted taxpayer dollars were not affected.
Amazon return policy abusers sentenced to nearly six years in prison
Three individuals have just received lengthy prison sentences for their involvement in a scam that defrauded Amazon out of $1.2 million. Erin and Leah Finan, a couple living in Indiana, pleaded guilty last year to running the scheme. For two years, the Finans ordered over 2,700 electronic items from Amazon including GoPro digital cameras, Xboxes, smartwatches, tablets and laptops and then reported them as damaged. Once Amazon replaced the products, they would sell them to a third person -- Danijel Glumac -- who then sold them to a buyer in New York. In all, the Finans are said to have made around $750,000 running the scam while Glumac made approximately $500,000.
Recommended Reading: 'Lore' makes the leap from podcast to TV
'Lore' Proves Podcasts Can Inspire Disturbingly Effective TV Bryan Bishop, The Verge A year after Amazon greenlit the television adaption of the popular podcast, Lore debuted this week. The Verge reviews the series as it makes the jump from audio to visual, exploring whether or not the storytelling medium can be the basis for good television. Meanwhile, we're still waiting on that Serial TV show.
VW engineer sentenced to 40 months in prison for emissions cheating
Former Volkswagen engineer James Liang is taking the fall for his employers sins. Liang has been sentenced to 40 months in federal prison, and has been ordered to pay a $200,000 fine for his part in the German automaker's deception about diesel emissions. That fine is 10 times the amount prosecutors were seeking, according to Reuters. While his defense argued for house arrest considering he'd only "blindly executed" his marching orders out of "misguided loyalty."
The FCC can’t limit excessive inmate phone call rates
The FCC of 2015 pushed for limits to "excessive and egregious" rates for prison-based telephone calls. This was a progressive move to limit the ability states and private prisons to make money off of prisoners, who have no choice in choosing how much a phone call costs. When the new Trump administration took over, however, the FCC stopped defending its policy on caps. In what seems to be the final blow, an appeals court has ruled that the FCC cannot, in fact, cap rates for prisoner phone calls within states.
Small island prison first to install anti-drone 'forcefield'
Prisons have a drone problem, in that they're being used to fly drugs and other contraband over walls and into the hands of inmates. Dealing with these airborne mules is tricky because you either need to hope they crash or catch their operators in the act, but one prison is taking a more proactive approach to stopping undesirable deliveries. Alongside other security upgrades, the small, 139-capacity Les Nicolles Prison in Guernsey, Channel Islands, is said to be the first in the world to receive an anti-drone fence. It's not a physical barrier, but an invisible wall that jams pilot signals and stops drones from passing beyond its threshold.
Inmates used smartphones to swap child porn in prison
Prosecutors have charged a group of inmates at a federal prison in New Jersey for downloading child porn from the dark web to their smuggled phones, according to NBC News. They even stored videos and photos that show kids, including babies and toddlers, being sexually abused in a cloud account they all shared. While the prosecutors announced charging five people to the public -- and all five were imprisoned for child pornography -- one of them secretly collaborated with the investigation.
UK forms 'specialist squad' to tackle prison drug drones
Training carrier pigeons to fly contraband beyond prison walls is undeniably canny, but these days all you need is an inexpensive drone to do the same job. While perhaps not as reliable, remote-controlled mules carrying drugs and phones into prisons are now a persistent problem for law enforcement. So much so that today the UK government has announced a new "specialist squad of prison and police officers" has been assembled to investigate the flying smugglers.
