Slashdot Mirror

"I had the displeasure of being awoken at midnight to the sounds of civil-defense/air-raid sirens," writes very-long-time Slashdot reader SigIO, blaming "some schmuck with a twisted sense of humor." The Dallas News reports: Rocky Vaz, director of Dallas' Office of Emergency Management, said that all 156 of the city's sirens were activated more than a dozen times... Dallas officials blame computer hacking for setting off emergency sirens throughout the city early Saturday... It took until about 1:20 a.m. to silence them for good because the emergency system had to be deactivated. The system remained shut down Saturday while crews safeguarded it from another hack.

The city has figured out how the emergency system was compromised and is working to prevent it from happening again, he said... The city said the system should be restored Sunday or Monday.
City officials reported 4,400 calls to their 9-1-1 emergency phone number in the first four hours of Saturday morning, with over 800 occurring in that first 15 minutes when all 156 sirens started going off simultaneously.

schwit1 writes "Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at a police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood. It was part of a government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is spending $7.9 million on the survey over three years, said participation was '100 percent voluntary' and anonymous. The 'participants' hardly agree."

cultiv8 writes "When Miguel Hanson and his fiancee, Diana Wesley, got married on Saturday, a computer program Hanson wrote served as the minister. During the wedding, held in the Houston home of Hanson's parents, the couple stood before a 30-inch monitor in the backyard. In a robotic voice, the computer greeted the guests, and told how the couple met."

A package containing 40-60 human heads caused some concern to the Southwest Airlines employee who found them. The package was unlabeled and was supposed to be delivered to a Fort Worth medical research company. From the article: "The heads were being transported to the Fort Worth office of Medtronic, a leading medical research and technology company based in Minnesota. Medtronic spokesman Brian Henry said it is common to ship body parts for medical education and research, but he said it is rare for a shipment to be seized."

theodp writes "Kevin Smith is not a happy Southwest customer. The director was thrown off a flight from Oakland to Burbank, after being deemed too fat to fly. He later wound up on another Southwest flight, but has declared It's On and taken his rants to Twitter. 'Dear @SouthwestAir — I know I'm fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?' he began. He also let the airline know he'd made it to his destination. 'Hey @SouthwestAir! I've landed in Burbank. Don't worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.'"

jhoger writes "Matthew Crippen was arrested yesterday for hacking game consoles (for profit) in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He was released on a $5,000 bond, but faces up to 10 years in prison. This is terribly disturbing to me; a man could lose 10 years of his freedom for providing the service of altering hardware. He could well lose much of his freedom for providing a modicum of it to others. There is no piracy going on, necessarily — the games a modified console could run may simply not be signed by the vendor. It's much like jailbreaking an iPhone. But it seems because he is disabling a 'circumvention device' it is a criminal issue. Guess it's time to kick a few dollars over to the EFF."