Sex Education online by Planned Parenthood

Good info by a trustworthy organization. Too bad that so many idiots will try to prevent you from seeing it. Sex education helps tremendously in preventing pregnancy and diseases. Fight for your right and your teen's right to know the truth. Support Planned Parenthood. Science over fear.

Mfone sentenced to 2.5 years in prison

Pittsburgh's so-called graffiti king was sentenced today to 2.5 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution and perform community service after pleading guilty to causing nearly $300,000 in property damage.

Daniel J. Montano, 22, of Highland Park pleaded guilty May 16 to 79 counts of criminal mischief for an 18-month graffiti vandalism spree that plagued Lawrenceville, East Liberty, Bloomfield, Shadyside and Oakland.

Montano also was sentenced to five years' probation, and ordered to perform 2,500 hours of community service in the city and pay $232,584 in restitution. Montano is best known by the tags "MFONE" and "MF."

City police have described Montano as the country's most prolific graffiti artist. They said he has caused nearly $750,000 in property damage from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, where his mother lives.

The claim that he's the city's or the country's most prolific graffiti writer is probably sensationalism designed to create a tougher sentence for him in court, but no doubt Mfone is up, and now he's up the river as well. This is a cruel and unusual sentence for a nonviolent property offender, so let's hope that he gets out on parole quickly or has an effective appeal down the road.

This is the latest in a series of big time jail sentences for writers in the US since GK set the pace. It would be a mistake to think at this point that a first offender would get off with a warning, so be careful out there, and pay for the lawyer if you get popped. The UK and Czech Republic also have a track record of putting writers away for years at a time. The Czech penalty is 5 years.

How posting online can get you busted UPDATE

UPDATE: Burning Black says that with a little work you can change your computer's MAC address as needed.

---

Recently, writers have been arrested for:

* showing throwups and tags on MySpace
* showing videos of their illegal actions on YouTube
* posting bombing photos to forums
* other people posting their trains on forums

The way this generally works is that everything you do online technically requires that the IP (internet protocol) address of your computer be recorded by the web servers at the sites you visit. Sometimes the IP address simply points at your ISP (internet service provider, for example: AOL, Comcast, BT etc.), but those companies can figure out who was doing what at a particular time, and web servers also record the time. So together, quite often, the webserver info and the ISP info lead straight to your bedroom. So if you have a local cop or reporter who hates you, s/he may do the work to track you down over the net.

Sites that care about your privacy, like Art Crimes, do not keep logs of user activity. Unfortunately most sites want to keep that information so they can count visitors and sell more advertising or simply have some way to ban some people temporarily from a forum. Some sites keep webserver logs forever and others dump them after some amount of time.

Google tracks everyone's search terms, for example, but now they say they will throw the IP addresses away after 18 months. But they have been forced to give massive amounts of YouTube logs to Viacom in a copyright dispute and this week won the right to anonymize them first. If those logs had been stored in an anonymized state they would not have posed the risk to millions of people that they did.

Posting copyrighted materials is illegal (expensively) and yet digging through everyone's records in order to find out who uploaded what is the wrong way to address it. Terrorism is terrible, but spying on everyone's phone calls in order to find the dirty dozen is not an acceptable solution either. Unfortunately the US Congress thinks this is fine and passed a law about that this month (FISA).)

My point here is that we all are being tracked by governments and media giants routinely, and that your favorite little forums can give you up by accident or through being forced to give up those logs they save. Your own equipment can leak information that's dangerous to you.

To get a bit more anonymity online, you need to use public computers or free wifi that you don't have to sign up for, but if you use your own computer or phone, it can still leave its own unique ID number behind (MAC address). Even your camera or camera phone can give up important info such as the exact location (GPS) and time and date you took the photo, camera type, etc., if you don't erase that info (EXIF) before you upload.

The best policy is not to incriminate yourself by posting your own illegal acts online, because technically, you may not be able to delete them, ever. Even then it's possible that someone else's posting of your illegal stuff will get you in trouble, so it's best to try to control what you've got out there and how it represents you, by restricting access to or usage of your photos. Same advice goes for those drunken orgy photos, of course.

New Orleans' Insane Anti-Graffiti Law

Interesting article in general, with lots of pictures ... Near the end it reveals this:

"In the recently ended session of the Legislature, state Rep. Anthony Ligi of Metairie successfully sponsored a bill that skyrockets the penalties for graffiti. Currently the maximum fine in New Orleans is $500, plus community service, restitution and a possible six months in jail. Beginning Aug. 15, the maximum fine increases to $10,000 with a prison term of up to 10 years. Ligi, a lawyer and real estate title insurance agent, said he believes that Louisiana judges will be able to apply looser local penalties or the more stringent state penalties as they see fit.

"If it's a kid who's written his girlfriend's name on a wall, a judge will see it one way," Ligi said. "If it's somebody who's marked up an office wall and done thousands (of dollars) in damage, it gives the judge more options."

So not only do they have a stupid law, but they plan to enforce it selectively depending on who does it and what's written? That sounds like poor, minority kids going to jail, as usual in the South. I hope some heroic lawyer and judge step up to strike this for the cruel and unusual - and potentially racist - punishment that it is. New Orleans needs community service and community art, not more young people in jail for nonviolent property crimes.

When will the government in Louisiana get a clue and join the civilized world? This is the same state that recently decided to teach wishful thinking instead of science.

Book publishing: the lowdown, by Mark Hurst

If you ever think about writing a book, know this first.

Philly cops charged in attack on graffiti artist

Cops break this guy's jaw, knock out some teeth, then try to cover it up. PD vows to stop the violence.

Most larger police depts in the USA seem to have a few bone breakers and shoot-first guys working for them, and those guys get most of the excessive force complaints, statistically. It would be great if these thugs could all be forced to find other jobs before they kill people. It would be REALLY GREAT if the police departments would fire them before they become front page news. When the courts have to step in to clean up the PD, the thugs should all go to jail.

If the goal is to have citizens obey the law, it's essential for the police and elected officials to toe that line and to be punished when they don't. Terrorizing citizens is not something civilized society should allow its police to do. Document, publish, and complain when you see it go down, because you could be saving lives.

Thanks to David Vernitsky for fighting this good fight in Philly. We sure hope he's recovering well from his awful injuries.

Kudos to the Philly PD for getting rid of the violent offenders on the force.

We hope the wedding-party-killing NYPD thugs don't go unpunished either. The courts really let the people down on that one, but the department is taking some internal action allegedly.

--from the article:

-AP

"Philly cops charged in attack on graffiti artist

By BOB LENTZ ? 9 hours ago

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Two Philadelphia police officers accused of beating a man they saw painting graffiti were charged Tuesday with assault and falsifying records.

[...]

Authorities say Officers Sheldon Fitzgerald and Howard Hill III broke the graffiti painter's jaw on one side and dislocated it on the other before throwing him head first into the back of a patrol car. The man was never charged with a crime.

'This is an unfortunate incident, but it is in no way a reflection on the entire department,' Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said at a news conference Tuesday. 'I do think that it is another statement that excessive force just will not be tolerated in our department.'

District Attorney Lynne Abraham said her office completed its investigation into the attack on David Vernitsky earlier this month after receiving a complaint of excessive force in November.

Vernitsky had attended a wedding and was spray-painting congratulations to the couple on the wall of a beauty supply house in the city's Feltonville section when police saw him, officials said.

Vernitsky fled, but the officers caught up and beat him, kicking him in the groin, bruising his face and ribs, and knocking out three teeth, Abraham said at the news conference.

The officers released Vernitsky after they checked for outstanding warrants and found none, officials said. The 36-year-old Philadelphia man was taken by friends to a hospital, where he stayed a few days, Abraham said.

The officers didn't document their contact with Vernitsky. Instead, officials said, the pair made a false entry in their log showing they were elsewhere at the time of the beating.

Fitzgerald and Hill were suspended without pay pending trial, Ramsey said. The pair was notified of the charges Tuesday and have 72 hours to turn themselves in.

[...]

The officers, who have been on the force five years each, face charges of aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, tampering with public records and conspiracy.

Earlier this month, a television news helicopter videotaped 18 city police officers and a transit officer kicking and beating three shooting suspects as they were dragged from their car. Ramsey said last week that four officers would be fired and four others disciplined for their roles in the beatings."

-AP

Paint and sperm trouble

Some paint and solvent ingredients (some types of glycol ether) are reportedly responsible for low sperm quality (infertility) problems in men, according to a British study. Unfortunately the article doesn't seem to link to the study or name it, so it's hard to find out which glycol ethers are now known to be at fault. A quick search online for [MSDS spray paint glycol ether] seems to indicate that many spray paints also have forms of glycol ether in them, as apparently do the water-based paint (latex?) mentioned in the article. There's no indication whether the impairment is permanent or will wear off after exposure stops, so best to err on the side of safety. We've long known that spray paint is dangerous to the central nervous system over time, not to mention lungs of course, so the smart move is to wear good protection.

Definitely wear those respirators that can help protect you from paint. Dust masks are useless except for the largest droplets. They won't protect you from the solvents.

A British study suggests that men routinely exposed to chemicals found in paint may be more likely to experience fertility problems.

The research found that men, such as painters and decorators, who work with glycol solvents are two-and-a-half times more likely to produce lower levels of "normal" sperm.

The study, a joint research project between the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield, examined more than 2,000 men attending 14 fertility clinics. The research found identified a wide variety of other chemicals that did not impact fertility.

Teen falls through roof in Melbourne

"A TEENAGE boy suffered a broken jaw, smashed teeth and fractures to his legs and wrists when he fell through a fibre glass roof while out graffitiing property in Melbourne.

Police said the 14-year-old was seriously injured in the fall in Mentone, in Melbourne's southeast, about 2am (AEST) today.

The boy had been graffitiing the rear sections of buildings in Como Parade at the time, police said. He was walking across a section of fibre glass roofing when he fell through it, about six metres to the ground.

Police spokesman Senior Constable Wayne Wilson said another boy, 13, called an ambulance, and the injured teenager was taken to the Royal Children's Hospital.

Police are yet to speak to the boy and have not charged him. "

Another lucky rotten-roof survivor.

Be careful out there. Never trust a roof. Always have a lookout.

We sure hope he makes a speedy recovery.

Fotolog continues to delete writers' sites

I think I've said this before, but it is only getting worse, so I'll say it again: Fotolog seems to have a special hatred for graffiti artists, because it routinely closes their sites without warning (and we hope that's the worst thing they do). I suggest all you folks with fotologs go to Flickr instead.

Wherever you do it, make sure you keep copies of your photos, because most companies can't be trusted to keep them safe, and it's a hassle to download them one at a time too.

Copyright for artists, in a nutshell

I get a lot of questions about copyright. This blog article at emptyeasel.com explains the basics and links to the US gov site for copyright details and forms.

Copyrights are for individual expressions. Trademarks are for goods and corporate identity. Some copyright law is international and some is for your own country only. This info pertains to the US but might also apply somewhat to you if you live in another country.

Tip: If you are printing your name on products, you need a trademark also to protect against other people using your name or making counterfeits, but it's $$$$$ to do it, and you might need one trademark per country of interest. If you need a trademark, you probably need a trademark attorney, if only because they can do the big database searches for you.

Web cookies: what, how, where - and why you should delete them

All cookies are not evil, but bad people can hijack your good cookies, and bad websites can track you across the web.

Anonymous vs Scientology - video #3

Recently Anonymous called for people to show up at Scientology locations worldwide to protest this dangerous cult. See the link under the title to this article for a picture from this protest.

More info about the epic battle at Wikipedia

Surveillance cameras: the simple approach

Headband restores anonymity on the street.

Anonymous vs Scientology

Vigilante hacking crew goes after dangerous cult: awesome manifestos on YouTube. Plotting continues at Project Chanology.

Sydney graffiti writers drown in storm drain

Gone are Flaps and Banish from Sydney Australia. May they rest in peace. Their friend survived and was rescued from the ocean by surfers. We wish him strength to get through this terrible tragedy.

They were inside an underground storm drain structure that was a frequent playground for urban explorers, when it rained, killing the couple.

TJ and Baja Mexico: tourists are getting jacked

It seems masked and heavily armed banditos are running rampant in beach country these days, on the Mexican baja coast. Robbery, carjacking, rape ... everything you don't want on your vacation.

I hear good things about Lima and Peruvian beaches though. And airfare is really cheap right now. ... check out farecompare.com

Music sites that charge you money but sell you music that might not be legal

A list of these misleading sites that charge you money for music without protecting you from prosecution.

Why pay attention to the threat of climate change?

There's no debate among climatologists about whether or not global climate change is happening. It is. The only debate is between those who hope humans didn't cause it and those who hope humans can change it. That debate is meaningless. If we might be able to change it, we have to try, because it's our survival as a species that's at stake. The only smart thing to to is to try to curb the changes before life on Earth becomes difficult or impossible for humans.

We're the last generation of people who have a chance to try before it becomes too late, because the changes are not going to be gradual or incremental. Climate changes happen when conditions tip into a new dynamic and then become inevitable.

Don't let the wishful thinking of the anti-science people lull you into a false sense of security. Climate change is not something in the far future, it's something that will make our own lives and the lives of our children very different and difficult indeed. The earlier we act to curb human pollution the less expense and disastrous results we'll have.

The first step is to get everyone on board. Spread the word.

Thanks to Roger for the heads up on this video.

Ket speaks to Urb about his trial and tribulations

In part one "The Taking of Alan Ket," an interview by Michael Vazquez of URB magazine, graffiti veteran Ket discusses the nature of his prosecution; his regrets about storing and jeopardizing archives; the silence regarding his case from international museums and art organizations. In part two, he discusses the responses he'd received online about his case; his work with companies who have not taken an interest in graffiti prosecution despite their use of the aesthetic vernacular which is honed in the streets; his own hard lessons learned; the logical extension of what his prosecution means to others the world over. In part three he discusses his life-long immersion in graffiti culture, and the artists who meant the most to him when he was young.

You can comment on this at URB at the link above.

Ecko gained everything from Ket and the other graffiti artists that have made that company what it is today. Ket made their graffiti game happen. Ket was arrested because of fighting city hall for Ecko's NYC event. Where was Ecko when Ket needed help? Where is Ecko now that the NYC PD won't give the graffiti archives back to Ket? Time to stop supporting corporations that just want our money. Marc Ecko needs to put his money where his mouth is.

Mark Klein vs Big Brother

* US spooks tap the net illegally (not just tapping terrorists, they hoover as much as they can get of everybody's business into storage)

* Mark Klein blows the whistle

* Telecoms want immunity from prosecution

* Congress, White House, (spooks), and newspapers want the story to go away

If only the truth would set us free...

Meanwhile, there's no reason to think the tapping has stopped.
Every time you talk about bombing trains in email or in a forum, think of the fascinated audience you'll have.

Thanks, Mark! This is what heroes do.
If only we had people like him in office instead.

Ebay users beware, especially when buying cars

There's a new Trojan that has been helping thieves steal from innocent ebay users. It makes fake websites on your infected computer that make the thieves look legit. All you have to do is click on an attachment that looks like it came from ebay and your computer is theirs.

The Trojan installs a scaled-down webserver on an infected machine that masquerades as eBay and several third-party destinations frequently used to sniff out fraudulent offerings, including Carfax.com, Autocheck.com and Escrow.com.
When a victim browses to one of these sites, the webserver creates a parallel universe of sorts, in which the victim sees counterfeit pages designed to counter fraud protection mechanisms offered by eBay and third-party sites.

"To think that somehow they got software on their system that managed to spoof all the validation sites - that's a shit-scary story," said Roger Thompson, a researcher at Exploit Prevention Labs who specializes in web-based attacks. "It's fiendishly clever."

If you really want to read a scary story, though, it's all about Storm Worm.

Martin Lee Anderson's killers go free

This is insanely wrong. I hope there's an appeal, quickly. The people who beat Martin to death should go directly to jail, all of them. And their pet doctors too. The worst irony is that if his parents had beaten him themselves instead of paying someone else to do it, the parents would go to jail.

Just say no to booting out your children.

Flee children, flee.

Martin Anderson, RIP.

Blade Runner Art Contest

The PR firm for the movie just contacted me and suggested that you and yours might want to submit some inspired ideas. See the link for details.

"In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Blade Runner, we are seeking artists of all mediums (film, photography, painters, designers, writers, etc.) to submit a personal piece that has been inspired by the film."

UPDATE: Logan Hicks says not so fast, read the fine print.

Dang. Another artist-unfriendly rule set.

Sorries.

Another good reason to buy condoms ... a new artist series

Ron English, Winston Smith, Robert Williams, SubGenius and more.

via boingboing.net

40 million have HIV-AIDS (SIDA) + 4 million more this year alone

Teenagers and young adults (and their babies) worldwide are being killed by this incurable disease even though it's preventable.

We must each save ourselves, our friends and our loved ones, because the world can't afford to save us. Even if someone makes a vaccine (and no one knows if this is even possible yet), it wouldn't help you if you're already infected.

Our governments, churches, families and schools are afraid to give us any information that involves sex and drugs. In many countries where the number of infected people is rising most rapidly, the governments won't even alert the public to the threat! They would rather let you die than admit you are having sex.

So it's up to us to bring the news to the kids who need it.

Here's the bottom line: Use condoms and don't share needles. That's what works best.

Condoms show you care about yourself and your partner. Condoms are about germs and sperm, not about morality. Let's be practical. They are not a perfect solution, but this is what we all must do if we're to stop this global pandemic and avoid killing ourselves, our lovers, and our children. We need to get creative about making them more available too, such as providing them at parties and clubs.

Spread the word, please, on your blogs and personal pages ... and on the walls.

Here's a good place to buy them online (in business since 1994) and they ship worldwide: Condom.com

I'd like to show more paintings on AIDS prevention too.
info@graffiti.org

NYC prohibits unlocked paint, markers for under-21

"The law, authored by City Councilmember Peter F. Vallone Jr., outlaws the possession of graffiti instruments in public places by people under the age 21. Under the new bill, it will be a criminal violation to carry spray paint, broad-tipped markers or etching acid unless it is enclosed in a locked container, or if the tools are needed for educational or professional purposes."

Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual 7th ed. - Columbia University

Hope you never need this, but it looks like a handy reference.

Flickr Graffiti Geotagging

As promised.

From the article:

"For example, fans of graffiti can search the word, "graffiti," and "New York City" at Flickr.com/map, and pull up photos of freshly painted tags, all plotted with pushpins on a clickable Yahoo map. A search for "Dumbo Brooklyn graffiti," for example, finds some 99 photos, including the infamous "Neck Face" tag, spray-painted on a brick warehouse at Jay and Front Streets in Brooklyn. Try finding that in a guidebook."

www.flickr.com/map

It's a bit fiddly so far. Search at the bottom, then click on the dots on the map to zoom in until they are at a meaninful level of detail. Or you can watch the slide show anytime.

Some cameras do the GPS/geotagging automatically (it's embedded in the information in the image files), so if you upload your photos to flickr, you might blow up your spot, or someone else's.

Be very careful what you upload anywhere if your camera has GPS.

I'm hoping Graphic Converter (Macintosh only) will have editing access to the GPS stuff as it already does to the camera info, however. If you have a clue about a Windows tool for removing image metadata, please send it to info@graffiti.org and I'll add that here too.

Problem: Dangerous Chinese Food - Solution: Stop Buying It

From dead pets to poisonous toothpaste, the horror stories of deadly Chinese imports continue to pile up. People are furious, business looks the other way, Congress wrings its hands, FDA says it's not really their job, and Wal-Mart plays into Chinese corruption by working against inspections.

The only really effective thing we can do is to buy something else until China -- and Wal-Mart -- care about the problem. China has unhelpfully decided to kill the guy at the head of their food inspection and quality organization for taking bribes, but that's just barbaric political scapegoating. It will take an army of inspectors who care on both sides of the ocean to stop this blatant profiteering from unsafe foodstuffs. Meanwhile Wal-Mart tries to diguise its products' origins.

"As the world?s largest retailer, it distributes massive quantities of imported goods. Wal-Mart should use its significant clout with China and other importers to demand higher quality standards and more product testing. On the home front, Wal-Mart should stop fighting additional inspections and country-of-origin labeling, which would allow customers to know whether they are buying beef from Iowa or China. Wal-Mart should also consider returning to its abandoned 'Buy American' campaign and support U.S. manufacturers and local farmers rather than shifting jobs and purchases overseas."

"... American consumers we can use our purchasing power to influence how business responds to the challenge. Without assurances that imported goods are subject to rigorous inspections to ensure their safety, we can opt to buy locally grown and American-made products when we shop for groceries and other items each week. We can also decide that if we don?t know where a product comes from, maybe we don?t need it. Purchasing in such a manner not only supports local farmers and U.S. manufacturers, it protects consumers. It also provides the opportunity to strengthen our farm economy while protecting our food supply."

Someone should clue the Department of Homeland Security that weapons of mass destruction could be in those containers they don't inspect from China: E. coli, botulism, and lysteria, for starters. Instead, we have phone taps and shampoo confiscation, go figure. Let's bring the National Guard home from Iraq and put them back on the job, hmm? We could pay for it with the money that's now going to Blackwater and black-hole budgets.

GPS, Graffiti, and Self-Incrimination

The article above describes a system of graffiti surveillance involving police using Global Positioning System (GPS) tagging of photos, etc. We could worry about that, but consider this bigger picture:

GPS is a system that involves a satellite and a ground receiver. The satellite tells the receiver on the ground where the receiver is located, to within a few feet. This system is very handy indeed when, for example, you happen to be lost.

Problem is when your devices report your location without telling you. Your phone might already be GPS-enabled. If not, your next one likely will be. It's not something you can turn off in most cases, because it's used by the emergency services, for example when you dial 911 for an ambulance, in the USA. You have to be tracked for your own good, see?

Your car might already be GPS-enabled. Maybe it has a map or direction finder, very handy. Or maybe it has an antitheft system like OnStar that keeps track of where your car is without telling you. Or maybe your rental car, company car or truck tells the company where you are all the time and your route, again without your knowledge or permission.

Your camera is next, and of course your phone camera. They will have GPS and it will be a "feature." Your photos will automatically contain where and when you took them and with what device, and when you upload to Flickr or whatever, the websites could display that info on a map. Cute, right? Except when the buffers come to the wall hours later or your secret bridge turns into a tourist area, or when the cops need a quick list of every place you hit this year.

GPS is only one of these passive-surveillance technologies of concern. There is also RFID, unencrypted wireless (email, texting, web browsing, pagers, keyboards, cordless phones, most cell phones), surveillance cameras, outdoor listening devices, and cell-phone triangulation, just to hit the high spots.

Clearly, humans need to be more in control of the kind of info their devices are sharing without their permsission. Nothing else will do. Try to buy stuff that has controls that put you in charge and features that are not hidden or automatic. Be aware that your devices can create big security problems for you.

And let's not forget the most dangerous form of self-incrimination: running your mouth. What you say in chatrooms, on phones, on Myspace, in email, to reporters, and to the nice policeman who promised to let you off easy if you just showed him every piece of graffiti you ever painted -- are the most dangerous kinds of self-incrimination available.

Facebook Intelligence Gathering

Thanks to Air33 for the link.

This is not surprising, and it's not just Facebook -- MySpace is also being datamined by Big Brother, as are lots of other public forums. And of course, there's nothing to be done to prevent this except not participating, which also sucks. Creating fake profile info is a good idea, as is making sure your real name is not associated with your pages. The info may be around for the rest of our lives in some database or another, and many people are already finding out the hard way that their party preferences are costing them job opportunities.

In the pre-Web days, the cops used to have to snatch your phone book to find out who you knew. Now they need only your public friend list and maybe your phone. So it's not just yourself you put at risk when you publish your life online, it's everyone you know.

Man severely burned while painting electrical substation

We sure hope for a speedy recovery for this unfortunate guy.

US wants free image hosting sites to give up records whenever

As usual, they are waving the child porn flag, but you know they will go after writers with this too, if they can get the power. Of course, most companies already track who uses their services (with IP numbers) so the only really safe thing to do is to use a proxy server or another anonymous account not related to your home or credit card, etc.

Thanks to 12-oz for posting about this.

Of course, this applies to sites like flickr, image shack, and fotolog, etc etc, not sites like Art Crimes, since nobody directly uploads images themselves here. We also don't keep logs of user activity.

Learn more about proxies and anonymous internet use here (constantly updated proxy list): proxy.org

Please write to your congresscritters about this and other Bush regime violations of privacy and civil liberties, and to support those who fight the good fight such as EPIC and EFF and ACLU.

Track tragedy ruled accidental

Thanks to Deal for the sad news.

Islington Tribune [London] - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 23 February 2007
Graffiti artist died on tracks

A graphic designer was electrocuted when he slipped on train tracks after drunkenly reverting to the graffiti lifestyle he had abandoned since the birth of his child, an inquest heard yesterday (Thursday). George Andrew King, 22, was hit by 750 volts of electricity when he fell on the live rail near Caledonian Road and Barnsbury railway station during a graffiti spree in the early hours of Saturday September 16 last year.

After a night at a media party, he had gone on to the rails with friend and fellow spray-canner Jason Edwards, who ended up trying to prise his convulsing body from the line with a plank of wood before calling for an ambulance.

Mr Edwards said he had been walking ahead of Mr King as they returned to the station after tagging a bridge.

He said: "I just turned round and he was lying on the rail. I know from before - it's instant death on that track."

Though they risked their lives and broke their own safety protocols by rushing to the still-live line, the paramedics could see instantly that Mr King was dead, Coroner Dr Andrew Reid was told. Katherine Ketchaev, Mr King's partner and the mother of his young son, said he had given up graffiti on the railways since she had become concerned for his safety - but had given in to temptation after a few drinks while she slept.

Police experts said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.

Verdict: accidental death.

Atlanta injustice strikes again

Men arrested for graffiti on interstate signs

Published on: 02/12/07

Two men were arrested Monday and charged with spray painting graffiti on overhead exit signs along the Downtown Connector last fall.

Officials with the state Department of Transportation said xxxxx, 20, of Atlanta, and yyyyy 22, of Smyrna, face felony charges in connection with the Oct. 10, 2006 vandalism of the exit signs for the Peachtree and Pine street exits.

xxx is also charged with a similar graffiti incident on the I-85 southbound exit sign to I-285 westbound in DeKalb County, said DOT spokesman David Spear.

Spear said xxxx could be sentenced to up to 21 years in prison if convicted, while yyyy faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison if convicted.

Spear said that the state spends more than $150,000 annually to repair and replace road signs defaced by graffiti.

---------end of article-----

Can I be the first to say WTF? These guys need a super lawyer, because they sure don't have a justice system.

Police make fake MUL site

NYPD have apparently set up a fake MUL website to trap the unwary.

The bogus site is http://www.madeulooknyc.com

How many cops does it take to arrest a jaywalker?

They arrest jaywalkers? (Jargon tip: "jaywalking" is simply crossing the street while not at a designated crosswalk.)

Actually, this visiting historian and conference attendee in Atlanta (Georgia) made the common mistake of asking Officer Friendly for his ID while being accosted for jaywalking ... between the Hyatt and Hilton hotels. Maybe the APD were trying to show equal treatment to rich people for once, but still. Dude spent all day in jail before charges were dropped. Safety first! Serve and protect!

Conferences are one of the biggest sources of income for Atlanta too, so go figure why the cops are bothering the cash cows ... or is it the irresistable ticket opportunity? That's penny wise and pound foolish for the city, if so.

Columbus (Ohio) and Oakland (California) police are also obsessed with you crossing at crosswalks, and there are probably many more places that micromanage foot traffic in the USA as well. Fines can be $75-150, and if you complain, that's resisting arrest and generally results in a beating then jail. It's for your own good, kids.

With that kind of tourist outreach plus the fingerprinting at the airports, it's a wonder anyone bothers visiting the US armed camp anymore.

If only all this security theater were making anyone safer.

Pretending to be writers, police bust 27 MySpace users

The Associated Press reported today that "Undercover police posed as taggers [sic] on the Web site during the four-month investigation, befriending vandals who bragged about their work .... Some of the alleged vandals even shared photos of their work with the officers on the site."

[Same old story. Beware also of people online pretending to be YOU, because they want to trick you into proving who you are.]

Security expert advises renewing passports before RFID rolls out

Too late for UK, NZ, NL, and Germany, but Americans may still have a small window of opportunity to get a chip-free document. Read the article to find out why chips are bad news for you.

Update: It seems it's also too late if you send your passport to Colorado for renewal: Notice from State Dept.

But what if explosives could be triggered when a US passport is detected? It seems the shielding on the passports is flawed. There's a YouTube video with this eecue.com post that explains the problem

Great. Another half-baked idea that doesn't increase safety or security. Just what we need.

Update2: Someone told me that he applied for a passport recently and the form said he would get a chipped passport but that when it arrived it was still the old style, so you can't tell just by reading the form.

Search logs show what people are thinking

Some AOL search records were published this week, in violation of their privacy policy. Although users' names were not released, it is obvious that many people could be identified by what they searched for.

News agencies, marketeers, voyeurs, and law enforcement can't help but want to dig around in it because it is so revealing -- like reading someone's diary, or their mind.

We are all potential victims of this kind of exposure. There is no reason to trust the search engines. They want to spy on us so they can sell us stuff, and privacy invasions like this are inevitable, because they keep the records around for some unkown amount of time.

Only one service is safe to use if you want your most private searches to stay private. scroogle.org, which anonymizes Google searching. Remember to donate some cash to keep them going now and then.

Of course, your Internet service provider can intercept anything you do online, but at least with Scroogle you're not giving up your secrets to a company run by advertising dollars, and they don't keep the search records.

More stories about the problem:

Google sees privacy threats

The Register points out the 600,000 AOL users' data were released intentionally for research purposes

"The only solution to the problem of data abuse - and it's only an inadequate, and very partial answer - is to ensure the data isn't there to abuse in the first place. If search engines were required to delete their users' queries as soon as they were made, and to leave no trace, this would greatly diminish the dangers of false inference by law enforcement officials, health companies, banks, HMOs, and anyone else seduced by the lure of a faulty algorithm."

This Firefox extension is aimed toward putting the privacy back into your Google searching: Customize Google

Fish oil better than Ritalin says UK study

It needs to be high-quality fish oil (see comments on article) but hey, worth a try for you guys on ADD treatment, right? Why take something dangerous if you can take something good for you.

Why Myspace is bad for you

1. Rupert Murdock bought MySpace, which means your information is no longer yours. (Lots of free sites pull this crap, even Flickr.)

When you use the site you "grant to Myspace.com a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide licence (with the rights to sublicense through unlimited levels of sub licensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit and distribute such content on and through the services."

You wouldn't sell these kinds of broad rights to your record company, so why give them away to a website? And of course, it's not just music, it's whatever content you provide there.

Billy Bragg is out of there as a result

2. US gov spy agencies are slurping up all your personal info from MySpace. They want to build information about who knows whom.

3. Employers are looking at MySpace pages for reasons not to hire you.

4. Graffiti writers are being arrested after cops find their MySpace pages.

5. MySpace messages and chat are not private and they don't belong to you.

I am hopeful that as people wake up to the dangers of using MySpace that other, better alternatives will spring up. In the meantime, be very careful what you reveal about yourself on this heavily surveilled site.

No Glove No Love

"Since June 5, 1981, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has killed more than 25 million people, infected 40 million others and left a legacy of unspeakable loss, hardship, fear and despair."

[...]

"AIDS could kill 31 million people in India and 18 million in China by 2025, according to projections by U.N. population researchers. By then in Africa, where AIDS likely began and where the virus has wrought the most devastation, researchers said the toll could reach 100 million."

[See full article at the link above, at Yahoo news.

Please protect yourself, people. Nobody else is going to do it for you. Condoms are not perfect, but they are absolutely necessary. Don't leave home without one. In the US, you can get condoms for cheap at the public health family planning and planned parenthood clinics. (If you can't afford condoms, imagine how you're going to afford kids!) Do what it takes to take care of yourself, please. We need you, and you need you. HIV takes out young, healthy, good people just like you from Iowa to the Ukraine. It's way more likely to get you than terrorists are. Plus condoms can protect you from herpes and chlamidia, which are both also rampant in the world population of young people now.

On the good-news front for STDs, scientists have recently succeeded in making a vaccine that prevents HPV infection (warts) which causes most of the cervical cancers in women and can be fatal when not treated early. Make sure all the women you know get vaccinnated as soon as it's available, especially your pre-teen girls, because it won't work if you've got the virus already.]