From the DailyMail here:

These shocking photos show how the bodies of seven men were found on plastic chairs in Mexico having been shot in the head, with threat messages nailed to some of their chests using ice picks.

A placard on one of the bodies, which were found early yesterday morning in Uruapan, Michoacan state, said: ‘Warning! This will happen to thieves, kidnappers, sex offenders and extortionists.’

Seven bodies had bullet wounds and had been placed individually in the sitting position in chairs near a roundabout.

Some of the bodies had their hands and feet bound, outside a Pepsi bottling plant. The men were believed to have been aged from 15 to 40. The bodies were found at 05:30 local time.

The photo:

Someone has had enough down in Mexico. And they are taking out the trash. So the next time you think that smoking a little pot is a victimless crime, remember these men wearing the ice pick neckties. They worked hard to get that pot to America and paid for it with their lives.

From NMATV here:

Antigua and Barbuda, the tiny Caribbean nation whose economy was devastated by a US embargo on online gambling, is threatening to retaliate by legalizing internet piracy. The WTO says the US embargo violates international trade rules and has given Antigua the okay to retaliate by using US intellectual property.

Internet gambling was a boon for Antigua’s economy. At one point more than 4,000 people out of a population of less than 100,000 were working in the industry. Then the US placed an embargo on Antigua’s online gaming industry, under the logic that placing bets across state lines violates American law. Now the industry only employs 500 people.

Antigua is threatening to allow ultra-cheap subscription or pay-per download sites to operate from Antigua, or set up a government-run torrent site that would allow free downloads of American music, movies and software, unless the US decides “to negotiate fairly and honestly in the very near future.”

I was never an advocate for online gambling because I simply didn’t trust it to be honest. And in its heyday you were likely playing against smartbots rather than other people. To me it was just another dangerous place on the internet where the buyer should beware. For the US to have outlawed it always struck me as inappropriate. But now the Hollywood bigwigs will certainly get involved. Pass the popcorn, this is gonna be good.

From TorrentFreak here:

Every other Friday there is a court hearing in Sweden to discuss the continued detainment of Gottfrid Svartholm. A request to detain the Pirate Bay co-founder for an additional two weeks was granted yesterday but not without more drama being added to the proceedings. Gottfrid was arrested under suspicion of being involved in a second hacking case along with accusations of four instances of serious fraud and four attempted frauds.

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm is currently being detained in Sweden, locked up for 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.

He is being held under suspicion of hacking into Logica, an IT company closely connected to Sweden’s tax authorities.

The prosecutor presented new accusations against the Swede, namely that he was involved in a second case of criminal hacking, including four instances of serious fraud and four instances of attempted fraud.

“The new suspicions mean that the court can keep Gottfrid in custody even if the Logica case is closed in the near future,” Gottfrid’s mother Kristina Svartholm informs TorrentFreak.

What a shame this thief is still in jail. I’m sure the charges are 100% politically motivated and have nothing to really do with breaking Swedish law, at least not according to every left-leaning hacker out there. And what’s up with these hackers’ mommies becoming their criminal children’s mouthpiece to the Press? Gary McKinnon’s mom was a media whore and it looks like Gottfried’s mom is a bit of one too. Maybe if Gottfried flaps his arms and pretends he has Aspergers, this will all clear up in no time.

From WTOP here:

The Coast Guard rescued 14 members of a crew forced to abandon the tall ship HMS Bounty caught in Hurricane Sandy off the North Carolina Outer Banks and continued the search Monday for two other crew members.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Brandyn Hill said the crew members were rescued by two Coast Guard helicopters around 6:30 a.m. Monday. The survivors were being taken to Air Station Elizabeth City on the North Carolina coast.

The tall ship had left Connecticut last week en route for St. Petersburg, Fla.

“They were staying in constant contact with the National Hurricane Center,” she said. “They were trying to make it around the storm.”

The rescue took place in winds of 40 mph and 18-foot seas about 90 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C.

The tall ship had been used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The website is here, but unreachable as of this post. You know, for a historical society, these guys sure did ignore a lot of history in regards to storms and the difficulty of navigating the treacherous waters of the Outer Banks.

From CBS here:

A recent study found that those who participate in illegal file-sharing are not flying under the radar, but rather are closely monitored within hours of engaging in suspect activity.

The study, conducted at Birmingham University in the United Kingdom, used software created by computer scientists that emulated the file-sharing program BitTorrent and logged all interactions and connections made to it, the Korea IT Times reported.

Over the course of the three-year study, researchers reportedly saw monitoring firms tracking activity within three hours of a given download.

According to the tech website, those conducting the study were “surprised” at the diligent way in which such activity was monitored, and noted in their findings that there was no difference between frequent users and occasional downloaders.

The monitoring likely happens at several organizations at once. Your own ISP has a legal liability if you use their network for criminal activity, so they are the first tracker. Likewise for the ISP at the other end. And owners of intellectual property and copyrighted works have agencies that track these things for them too. The Tor network won’t help. Its seeded with sniffing points as well, decrypting traffic, recording it and then passing it along re-encrypted.

From CNET here:

Swedish police arrested Gottfried Svartholm Warg today as soon as he stepped off the plane from Cambodia.

Warg, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, one of the best known file-sharing services on the Web, is accused of hacking into the servers of a company that supplies IT services for some of Sweden’s tax services and making off with records belonging to thousands of people.

Up until late last week, it was believed that Warg had been detained by police in Cambodia because of his conviction in Sweden on copyright charges. In 2009, Warg, and fellow Pirate Bay cofounders Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij of creating 33 copyright-protected files for downloading on Piratebay.org.

Warg failed to show up at a hearing on the matter and was believed to have fled the country. An International arrest warrant was issued.

Gads, it would suck to be on the run and have to live in Cambodia. Kudos for the cops arresting this criminal. And leftist hackers around the world will start parading around in their “Free Gottfried” shirts.

From the DailyMail here:

Lost treasure belonging to the pirate who inspired Johnny Depp’s famous character Jack Sparrow has been discovered hidden in a house under a grand piano. Carved with a skull and crossbones, the 17th-century wooden Bible box, King James Bible and mirror were possessions of Dundee-born scourge of the seas William Kidd.

There has long been speculation that Kidd buried treasure on an island and maps apparently showing where it is stashed have surfaced over the years.

The 17th-century treasure includes a wooden Bible box, King James Bible and mirror once belonging to the feared pirate William Kidd was found inside a piano formerly owned by Hubert Palmer, a collector of pirate memorabilia.

Kidd, who was born in Dundee, was initially hired by the government as a privateer to hunt down pirates, but became one himself.
He murdered one of his crew on board and captured many ships, robbing them of their treasure. He buried some of the plunder on an island off the US and it was dug up and sent back to England for use in the trial against him.

He was convicted of murder and piracy and hanged in 1701 in London. The rope broke on the first and second attempts and he had to be hanged a third time. His body was then tarred and suspended in an iron cage for three years over the River Thames at Tilbury Point as a warning to others.

Kidd was also one of the only pirates to actually bury treasure, and he did so when he was on the run from Royal Naval forces.

And those domains that were shut down without having SOPA already written into law? The huge bulk of them related to non-official NFL Jerseys.

The story about the Jersey takedown operation is here at Torrentfreak.

Now Jagadish of Aiplex sends me this threatening letter, accusing me of causing defamation to his company and causing his company to suffer losses due to damages and threats from hackers. Honestly, I never knew I had such awesome power by using hyperlinks to stories others have written!

From: Aiplex AntiPiracy [mailto:antipiracy@aiplex.com]
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2011 4:53 AM
To: dr.jones@belch.com
Cc: Girish; Mahesh R
Subject: Request

This has reference to the below article on your webpage, we kindly request you to deactivate the link as the article is defaming the company’s image & its prospects. It was mis-interpreted by the news agency which was blown out of proportion by some of the pirates across the globe. And subsequently we have to face damages/threats from the pirates & undergo immense losses due to their attack on our servers/websites etc.

Although, we did declare that we are not involved in any of those activities as published in the article, we still have to face the consequences for reasons unknown.

Below is the link for your reference:

http://www.belch.com/blog/category/movies/page/3/

We kindly request you to deactivate at the earliest possible please.

Appreciate your help on this matter.

Jagadish
Support Operations
Aiplex Software Pvt. Ltd.
No. 2943/E, 1st floor, Opp Maruthi Mandir,
Service Road, Vijayanagar,
Bangalore – 560 040
Ph : +91 80 23305411 / 12 / 13
Email : antipiracy@aiplex.com
Website : www.aiplex.com

To which I responded:

Please stop DDoSing me you evil bastards!

Now I get the following response from a lawyer for aiplex, who I’m sure has belch.com in the sites of his nefarious DDoS botnet:

I did clarify that we are not into such unscrupulous activity pls understand that it was a mis-interpretation by a news agency.
Anyways, it is your prerogative to keep it active or disable the link.
U have a nice weekend Patrick.
Best,
Girish Kumar N
Managing Director
Aiplex Software Pvt. Ltd.
Bangalore
Ph : +91 80 23305411 / 12 / 13
Mb : +91 98451 28280
Email : girish@aiplex.com
Website : www.aiplex.com

Confidentiality & Non-Disclosure Warning: This message is intended for the exclusive use of the person or entity to which it is addressed. It may contain information that is confidential/privileged, and must be treated as such. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying or making a decision in reliance of its content is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message by error, please, destroy the message and kindly notify us immediately. Inappropriate/unauthorized use of the information shall be dealt with the applicable confidentiality and non-disclosure laws. Please note that while we scan all e-mails for viruses we cannot guarantee that any e-mail is virus-free and accept no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email.

I snort loudly, by the way, for every lawyer who sends out a clear text email with a retarded non disclosure warning appended to it. I can disclose anything I want, and I dare anyone to find a law that says posting something like this is a breach of any confidentiality laws.

Who is the Girish Kumar who is spending so much time emailing me? This guy pictured here. The story from theAge in Australia describes further how Girish Kumar was bragging about launching DoS attacks against websites that link to movie downloads.

Anyways, I finally responded:

Wait a minute. Are you accusing me of defamation or not? Am I causing you to suffer damages and threats because of hackers or not? Your email seemed to imply this, and my own legal team will need clarification. And of course, I expect if I don’t comply you will immediately DDOS me, right? That’s what you guys do, right? Send threats and then strong arm/abuse people to bow to your every demand to remove links? So even if you talk about piracy its as bad as committing piracy because now you are going to wreak havoc on my internets page because I linked to a story about you guys running huge DDOS operations against pirates?

Lets see what they say next! In the mean time, Girish has joined other legal scholars who have decided to send me threatening emails. At least this one’s not a clown.