Slashdot Mirror

A reader writes: "50 years may not sound like a whole lot of time. But in the computer industry it really is a great acomplishment. The UNIVAC is celebrating it's 50th anniversary."

Sacrifice writes "The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on a criminal case which will challenge the authority of courts to permit FBI agents to surreptitiously plant keystroke-monitoring bugs, which are not regulated by current federal wiretap legislation. Also, David Sobel from EPIC notes that it is now a matter of record that the FBI can, and does, conduct surreptitious entries to counter the use of encryption (see FBI application for breakin and the court order granting permission)."

A 2600 staffer known as Shapeshifter was arrested in the Philadelphia protests during the Republican convention in August. Here's Slashdot's coverage of that arrest. On Tuesday, Shapeshifter, whose real name is Terrence McGuckin, was convicted on two of the six misdemeanor counts. Apparently, the only evidence used at the trial was the uncorroborated testimony of a Philadelphia detective.

McGuckin was held in August for a week on a half-million dollars bond. The four charges that were dropped include the infamous accusation that his cell phone was an instrument of crime. The two counts he was convicted of were disorderly conduct and obstructing a highway.

His sentence is three months' probation and a fine of $135.50. He says he will appeal.

According to 2600, despite having a great deal of videotape, the prosecution used none of it, and convicted McGuckin entirely on the testimony of one police detective. Detective Angelo Parisi says he saw McGuckin talk on his cell phone, then point in a particular direction. A small group of people then moved in that direction to block an intersection for about twenty minutes.

Though Parisi was walking through the city capturing video of protesters' activities, this action was not caught on video.

Ironically, the protesters demonstrating to block the intersection "dispersed after getting a warning from police," with no arrests, says 2600.

Another protester arrested at the same demonstration was John Sellers, an environmental activist who was described in court as sowing "violence and mayhem." According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, "prosecutor Martelli spoke ominously of the massive dossier that federal and local authorities had built against Sellers."

Because of such comments, Sellers was held on $1 million bond, which is unheard of for misdemeanor charges. He was released Tuesday because, according to the prosecutor, there was no evidence against him. The same police detective who testified against McGuckin had been observing Sellers.

Nipple writes: "Using Nanotechnology scientists ar Rice University have been able to store 10 billion gigabytes of data on physical storage small enough to fit into a small vial. The whole story appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer and can be found here." No indication is given of which calculations for data density the tiny vial pictured would be able to hold that much, but the idea of all the books on my bookshelf (and yours, and yours, and yours ... in fact, all the books I ever want to read) stored inside the stylus of my 9-day-battery life, white-LED-backlit wireless anything box is pretty tantalizing.

lee writes: "Beaver College voted to change their name because censorware filters prevent people from browsing to beaver.edu. Full story at http://web.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/06/13/city/BEAVER13.htm. To add insult to injury, the same censorware filters would probably not let anyone view the story, either..." We mentioned this story previously; just following up with the actual decision.