From the WaTimes here:

An iFly jet made seven flights carrying a dead man in its wheel well before crews in Moscow discovered the body.
Maintenance workers noticed blood stains last Thursday on the plane’s main landing gear struts. After inspecting the wheel well they found the remains of a man carrying a Georgia passport.
“According to a preliminary conclusion, the Afro-American man died from freezing. The man was apparently flying without a ticket,” the Investigative Committee said on its website.
Authorities say the stowaway boarded the plane four days before he was found dead.

There is no heat in the wheel wells, and its freezing at 38,000 feet. What a dumb way to go.

From LI here:

1) Edward Snowden didn’t make $200,000 a year.

Booz Allen Hamilton says the annual salary it paid Snowden was $122,000, not the $200,000 Snowden has asserted. The company also confirms that it has since terminated Snowden for violations of the firm’s code of ethics and firm policy.

Yeah, even for a position in Hawaii, he may have received a slight stipend for cost of living increase, and maybe he got a relocation fee, but still that might not have amounted to 200K. When I first read his claims that Booz was paying him that much, I was tempted to go work for them. But I hate contract work for the Feds, so nyah.

2) The NSA surveillance program capabilities asserted by Snowden may have been overstated.

See my prior explanation about how the system likely really works at a previous post. Snowden did say he had the “authority” to tap anyone, given an email address. I think he meant “privileges” not “authority.” Privileges are strictly enforced and guarded at the NSA. Snowden might have had superuser privileges, but even as a sysadmin, I doubt it. If Snowden didn’t realize this tech is based on packet capture and not server backdooring, then I doubt he ever looked at this system up close. I still think he stumbled onto some scary slides.

3) Snowden may have had help.

Federal investigators say they aren’t convinced that Snowden worked alone. A source told ABC News, “The FBI is not 100 percent focused on this one guy…Agents are not just guided by what he claims.” And some in the industry are very skeptical that Snowden himself could have had access to all that has been leaked.

I personally think this guy was an Anonymous sympathizer, but we’ll see how it all plays out.

4) Snowden was on the radar before he was publicly identified as the leaker.

5) Snowden’s timeline of employment and contact with journalists is confusing, as was his access level.

Booz Allen said in its statement that Snowden was employed there for less than three months. Prior to Booz Allen, Snowden says he was with Dell as a contractor, working for the NSA.

Yeah, hopping from one contract to another is very common in the federal contracting world, and its not like this guy was going to put his employment timeline on LinkedIn.

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From ABC here:

Shannon Richardson had been married to her husband less than two years when she went to authorities and told them her suspicions: He was the one who had mailed ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg threatening violence against gun-control advocates.

When investigators looked closer, they reached a different conclusion: It was the 35-year-old pregnant actress who had sent the letters, and she tried to frame her estranged husband in a bizarre case of marital conflict crossing with bioterrorism.

Richardson, a mother of five who has played bit roles on television and in movies, was arrested and charged with mailing a threatening communication to the president. The federal charge carries up to 10 years in prison.

Richardson contacted authorities on May 30 and implicated her husband, Nathaniel Richardson. She described finding small, brown beans with white speckles — a description matching the key ingredient in ricin, castor beans — at the couple’s home in New Boston, Texas. She also told investigators that she had found a sticky note on her husband’s desk with addresses for Bloomberg and Obama.

But she later failed a polygraph test, the document said, and investigators looking into her story found numerous inconsistencies. Among them: Nathaniel Richardson would have been at work when Internet searches tied to the letters were made on the couple’s laptop and when the envelopes containing the letters were postmarked.

Finally, in an interview with authorities on Thursday, Shannon Richardson admitted that she had received syringes and lye — a caustic chemical used in making ricin — in the mail; that she had printed the labels for the letters; and that she mailed them. However, she insisted her husband typed them and “made her” print and send them.

Okay, this guy is now going to win every contest for who has the craziest ex-girlfriend. Plus, she has five kids and only got married to this guy two years ago and she goes to these bizarre lengths to get out of the relationship? She should have just had one of those “We need to talk” conversations.

From GovExec here:

A warehouse maintained by contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency contained secret rooms full of exercise equipment, televisions and couches, according to an internal audit.

EPA’s inspector general found contractors used partitions, screens and piled up boxes to hide the rooms from security cameras in the 70,000 square-foot building located in Landover, Md. The warehouse — used for inventory storage — is owned by the General Services Administration and leased to the EPA for about $750,000 per year.

The EPA has issued a stop work order to Apex Logistics LLC, the responsible contractor, ensuring the company’s workers no longer have access to the site — EPA security officials escorted contractor personnel off the premises on May 17 — and ending all payments on the contract.

“The warehouse contained multiple unauthorized and hidden personal spaces created by and for the workers that included televisions, refrigerators, radios, microwaves, chairs and couches,” the IG report said. “These spaces contained personal items, including photos, pin ups, calendars, clothing, books, magazines and videos.”

And of course, this was in Maryland, one of the most liberal states in the country. Working at this warehouse must have been the equivalent of collecting a welfare check- which now some of these fired workers will be applying for soon.

From LegalInsurrection here:

Jeremy Hammond, a notorious hacker and anarchist from the Chicago area, pleaded guilty this morning to hacking charges in a New York courtroom under the terms of a plea agreement.

Hammond was initially charged in March 2012 with one count of computer hacking conspiracy, one count of computer hacking, and one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. Several others also associated with the hacker collective Anonymous and its splinter faction LulzSec were also charged that day, in connection with the guilty plea of one of their co-conspirators, Hector Monsegur aka “Sabu.”

The information that was stolen from Stratfor was then turned over to Wikileaks, which began publishing the cache in February of 2012, billing it as the “Global Intelligence Files.”

Indeed, the information that was leaked as a result of the Stratfor hack may have exposed some “secrets” about the firm, though it was largely scoffed at by people in the industry, many of whom claim that Stratfor took itself more seriously than anyone else did. Still, this was a private firm with private clients and subscribers, all of whom became victims due to the actions of Hammond.

Hammond is scheduled to be sentenced on September 6th. His plea agreement could carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and millions in restitution payments.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Hammond delivered a whackjob anarchist speech to DefCon in 2004- I was present at this speech when the crowd jeered and taunted little Jeremy that he had seen Fight Club a few too many times.

LULZY: Their official Twitter page may have been hacked- the hyperlink to amysbankingcompany.com in the bio section redirects to an official White House petition to have Amy committed to a psych ward.

From the DailyMail here:

Police investigating the death of a young female zoo keeper who was fatally mauled by a tiger have not ruled out suicide.

Sarah McClay, 24 , was attacked by a Sumatran tiger at the park in Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria, on Friday afternoon after she went into its enclosure. Bosses at the park say she had no reason to be in the area.

Mr Gill said keepers follow ‘strict protocol’ and would never enter an animal enclosure without first radioing for permission, something Ms McClay, whom he described as ‘very professional’, did not do.

He saw her dragged the length of the enclosure and fired two shots at the animal, but it was too late.
‘You do not have a hope if a tiger gets hold of you,’ he said.

A lot of hippie chicks are getting eaten by lions and tigers these days. A good trend I think.

From FoxNews here:

A Seattle man trying to dribble a soccer ball 10,000 miles to Brazil in time for the 2014 World Cup died Tuesday after being hit by a pickup truck on the Oregon Coast.

Police in Lincoln City, Ore., said 42-year-old Richard Swanson was hit at about 10 a.m. while walking south along U.S. Highway 101 near the city limits. He was declared dead at a hospital. The driver has not been charged.

Police said Palmer’s soccer ball was recovered.

Of course everyone is calling this guy an hero for bumming naps on couches and walking to Brazil with a stupid ball. He decided to become a bum who chased his stupid ball into the path of an oncoming truck. Doesn’t sound very heroic to me.

From the Charleston Gazette here:

22-year-old Dalton Newhouse of Oak Hill, and an accomplice, used a rifle to shoot down a high-tension power transmission line, police said. They planned to strip the line of its copper wiring and sell it.

When Newhouse picked up the wire, it killed him instantly, according to a news release. His accomplice was identified as Charles Raymond Norris, 22, of Oak Hill, who was arrested Wednesday.

Norris was charged with attempting to commit a felony, conspiracy to commit a felony and disruption of a public utility.

He was arraigned in Fayette County Magistrate Court, where he posted his own bail.

Appalachian Power spokesman Phil Moye said about 50 customers were without electricity for three hours. He called copper thefts a “tragedy” and urged would-be thieves to think twice.

Its a real shame if this idiot left family behind but he really got what he deserved. Man, this blog post just reminded me that I need to get batteries for my Blu-Ray remote.

That first monkey got a little slow and the bear finally caught up to his lunch. And for the lulz, the other monkey handler made sure to slow-walk his monkey past the carnage, telling him that if he doesn’t pedal fast enough, he’s on the lunch menu tomorrow.

The Chinese have a ghastly record of animal cruelty, not that PETA has the balls to do anything about it.