According to USAFCENT Public Affairs:

The aircraft was flying a combat mission when positive control of the MQ-9 was lost. When the aircraft remained on a course that would depart Afghanistan's airspace, a US Air Force manned aircraft took proactive measures to down the Reaper in a remote area of northern Afghanistan.

So basically a jet with a human driver hunted down the robot-driven jet and killed it.

The Register's Lewis Page comments:

It wasn't clear from the US military announcement whether the erratic death-bot had turned on its masters and was planning an attack on critical US logistics bases located north of the Afghan border, or whether it had sickened of reaping hapless fleshies like corn and was hoping merely to escape. Alternatively the machine assassin may merely have succumbed to boredom or - just possibly - a mundane, non-anthropomorphic technical fault of some kind.

I'm voting for "sickened of reaping hapless fleshies."

via The Register

The US is negotiating with the pirates who took the freighter Maersk Alabama. Though crew retook the ship, their captain is still being held in a lifeboat by pirates while the ship itself is being escorted by crew from the US destroyer Bainbridge to safer waters. Over the past five years, hundreds of ships have been attacked by pirates off the coast of East Africa, as you can see using the International Chamber of Commerce's live piracy map (a snapshot from today's map is below). France has even gotten into intense firefights with some of them, sparking UN debate.

Sea-going piracy is back, and is likely to grow into the foreseeable future as government controls in countries like Somalia weaken. Late last year, the BBC reported that pirates are working with radical Islamic groups in East Africa, helping them smuggle weapons and training them in maritime battle techniques. You could say piracy is a symptom of unstable governments and a growing population of people who are stateless. In the absence of national identity, it makes sense to claim a pirate identity, which has elements of tribalism and a kind of rogue internationalism.

Interestingly, sea piracy as we know it got its start with another rogue state - England. During the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth enlisted the aid of "privateers," a term that referred to state-authorized pirates. In return for safe harbor on British shores, these privateers would give the Queen a cut of their booty (often stolen from British rival Spain), and pledge to plunder only ships belonging to England's enemies. Francis Drake was one such privateer/pirate, as was Walter Ralegh.

Other pirates, like the infamous Irish pirate queen Gráinne Mhaol (pictured here meeting with Elizabeth), fought against Elizabeth. Gráinne Mhaol used her booty to fund local Irish rebellions against the crown.

My point is that pirates have a long and rich history of springing up at times when nations are unstable. They are the anarchic military wing of upstart states. It's quite possible that the rise in piracy we're seeing in East African waters may (ironically) be the bleeding edge of a coming stability for the region. After all, pirates brought England the stability it required to become a world power. The allegiances of Somalian pirates and their counterparts from other regions may someday decide the fate of nations.

Top image via Sergent Dupont Sebastien / ECPAD / Reuters. Photo of fleeing Somalian pirates via Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason R. Zalasky / U.S. Navy.

First, the question is what exactly was the crime committed? A person or group of people got an early version of the movie Wolverine - pre-effects, and according to FOX pre-final edits. (Harry Knowles at Ain't It Cool News spoke to a producer on the film who confirmed that the leaked version was several months old.) Then our thieves put a digital file of it up online, where it promptly got circulated out into the public BitTorrent sites.

We also know that the leak was almost certainly an inside job, coming from somebody working at Fox or one of their partners. Industry insiders say it's the only big budget film that's ever been leaked this early online.

So what's the punishment for a crime like this?

According to the US Criminal Code, a person like our thief:

Shall be imprisoned not more than 3 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution of 10 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of $2,500 or more.

So far nobody has been brought up on charges, though Fox columnist Roger Friedman may have been fired for reviewing the leaked version. Still no official word on whether he's been fired, or just reprimanded severely.

Though Fox officials said initially that it would be easy to catch the people behind the heist, no arrests so far. Reports have come in that a recent raid on a Dallas data center may have been related to the FBI's investigation of the Wolverine leak. (UPDATE: The FBI has revealed the raid was not related to the Wolverine case.)

What's likely to happen when our culprit is caught? If the 2003 case involving a leaked rough copy of the Hulk movie is any guide, our lawbreaker could get jail time. The Ang Lee Hulk movie was leaked to file-sharing networks in 2003 about two weeks before the movie hit screens. Advance press was incredibly bad, and studio exes claimed that the leak hurt their box office returns. Eventually Feds tracked the leak down to New Jersey man Kerry Gonzalez, who pled guilty to felony charges of copyright infringement. He was ultimately sentenced to 6 months home confinement, 3 years probation, and about $7 thousand in fines.

I'm guessing that our Wolverine thieves may not get such lenient treatment, partly because so many more people are using file-sharing networks these days. In 2003, releasing Hulk online meant hitting a small audience, but in 2009 it means hitting most of the world. Audiences across the globe are now spoiled for the film. I think Fox (rightfully) believes that audiences who download the Wolverine movie might choose not to go see it in theaters because the extremely rough print seems so flawed. So money will be lost.

But an interesting counterpoint to this scenario was the leak of Fiona Apple's unfinished album Extraordinary Machine in 2005. The singer's record company had mothballed the 2003 album because it wasn't considered commercially viable, but when a few songs from it leaked onto the internet it became a cult sensation - finally making it onto mainstream radio. It also received a huge groundswell of support, and eventual commercial release, though many critics pointed out that the studio was ultimately correct that the album could not achieve the same commercial success her previous albums had. (Indeed the album sold fewer copies than her previous albums by several hundreds of thousands.)

Regardless of whether the Wolverine leak will lead to the resounding failure of the film ala the Hulk scenario, or will ironically buoy the film's fanbase ala the Fiona Apple one, there is no denying that the crime committed here is one of the gravest in the sections of the criminal code devoted to copyright infringement. The only way for the crime to become more serious would be if the thieves had tried to sell the movie or if it were not the first time they had committed such a crime.

As we wait for the Feds and MPAA to track down the person or people behind this heist, there's no doubt that we're looking at one of the biggest Hollywood crimes of the decade.

Most of these crimes seem to have taken place on auction sites where either buyers or sellers got ripped off. According to AP:

The Internet Crime Complaint Center [a division of the FBI] said in its annual report released Monday that it received more than 275,000 complaints last year, up from about 207,000 the year before . . . About one in three complaints were for nonpayment or non-delivery. The other most common complaints were for auction fraud or credit and debit card fraud.

Here's the interesting demographic moment: Men are victims of 'net crime far more than women. According to the ICCC, "Men reported losing $1.69 for every dollar that women lost." Of course this may just be reporting bias. Perhaps women are less eager to step forward and report internet crime.

via AP

After reviewing every scientific study published about children's activity online, as well as consulting with experts from social networks and legislators, the group wrote up their conclusions and published them free online.

Perhaps the most surprising discovery, at least for people expecting the group to uncover horror stories about child molesters and porn trauma, was that children's most upsetting experiences online were usually instigated by other children. The group found that the most bullying and sexual come-ons to young people were extensions of their real-life social networks - kids they knew from school or the neighborhood were treating each other online the same way they've treated each other offline in generations past.

The report concludes that there is no such thing as online safety - only safety. Rules that parents teach kids about not getting into cars with strangers in real life apply online as well. The researchers found that, for example, there was a similar pattern between teens who respond to sexual solicitations from strangers online and teens who respond to similar solicitations on street corners. The troubles these teens face exist in their home lives, say the researchers, and have nothing to do with the kind of media they are using.

The researchers also found that web filtering programs - often dubbed "censorware" - seemed to be an ineffective way of preventing children from seeing upsetting content online.

Check out the report, or read the excellent summary on Ars Technica. Definitely worth a read.

SOURCES:

Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies [Harvard's original Berkman Center report]

Biggest online threat to kids is other kids [via Ars Technica]

Essex police arrested a man on Thursday on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon after he had been spotted carrying a longbow, and a search of his apartment freaked officers out enough that they evacuated 100 nearby homes and called in bomb disposal experts to deal with what were classed as "unexplained items." Sadly, said items had a very simple explanation, as a police spokesman was later forced to admit:

Bomb disposal officers attended and carried out an assessment. No items of danger were found in the premises. Initial concerns were raised by the crude adaptions of many household items into science fiction style equipment.

I love the way that that statement is phrased; there's an implication that, if the adaptations of household items into "science fiction style equipment" hadn't been quite as crude, then everything would've been fine. Who knew that the Essex police were such mod connoisseurs?

(Meanwhile, British steampunk enthusiasts are now hiding their retro-styled reinventions of common househole items under their brass beds for fear of being visited by the long arm of the law themselves.)

Steampunk clock from Amahl_Shukup.

Bomb scare flat contained harmless 'science fiction-style' household items [Telegraph.co.uk]

Lewis Casey, an 18-year-old in Saskatchewan, had built a small chemistry lab in his family's garage near the university where he studies. Then two weeks ago, police arrived at his home with a search warrant and based on a quick survey of his lab determined that it was a meth lab. They pulled Casey out of the shower to interrogate him, and then arrested him.

A few days later, police admitted that Casey's chemistry lab wasn't a meth lab - but they kept him in jail, claiming that he had some of the materials necessary to produce explosives. Friends and neighbors wrote dozens of letters to the court, testifying that Casey was innocent and merely a student who is really enthusiastic about chemistry.

On December 24, Casey was finally released into his parents' custody, pending a trial to determine whether he was building what police called "improvised explosive devices." Yesterday Casey's lawyer told local journalists:

My client is a very intelligent young man . . . he's very keen in chemistry, a very curious young person and very capable, very knowledgeable in the area and he was always curious with regard to chemistry, chemical compounds, chemical reactions, that kind of thing. So from my client's point of view, it's completely innocent insofar as he had no intention of creating any explosives or explosive devices. As people probably know, anything in your house can constitute or be used in chemical or explosive devices, including sugar and cleaning compounds, Mr. Clean, bleach, detergents, all those sorts of things.

It's unclear what made police raid Casey's house. They claim that they got a tip from a woman who sold Casey fertilizer and was concerned about it. Certain kinds of fertilizer are used in the production of crystal meth.

The case is reminiscent of the Steve Kurtz case in 2004. Kurtz is a New York artist who uses biotech equipment in his work, and police arrested him on suspicion of terrorism after discovering his home chemistry lab.

Casey is now living at home, but he is no longer allowed to engage in chemistry experiments except under supervision in school labs. He is also required to inform the chemistry department of the charges against him. His trial continues on January 26.

This is a stark example of how scientific curiosity is still regarded with suspicion - even in an era where home labs are becoming more and more common. Good luck to Casey - let's hope his next home lab is even bigger and cooler than the one he recently lost.

Here's your hard drive. Stick that in your evidence case, authoritarian scum! In late September, Jason Rollette figured out the best way to preserve your Fourth Amendment right to privacy when the data police come knocking was to use the pyrotechnic mixture of aluminum powder and metal oxide known as thermite. Keep this in mind when the Terminators are coming too. Rollette writes:

Our goal was to completely destroy the drive while it was still in the computer case. The theoretical application is to destroy the disk at a moments notice so it won’t fall into the wrong hands. After testing multiple methods, placing about 1 pound of thermite in a clay flower pot and lighting from the drain hole in the bottom yielded the best results. This could easily be placed in the 5.25″ bays above the drive.

Good to know! Also, it just gives me a nice, visceral thrill to watch hard drives burn and explode after a long day slaving over a not-hot-enough keyboard.

How to: Thermite Hard Drive Destruction [via Hackaday]