Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,515 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 64 of 152).

Media helped feds arrest suspected ‘child predator’ in Raleigh | News & Observer News & Observer

I’m thrilled authorities caught this sick bastard who allegedly committed this heinous crime. I only hope, though, that the innocent man they first arrested can put his life back together. He spent 105 days in jail and lost his house and job. How can this be fixed?

A wildfire of social media helped federal authorities find and arrest a Raleigh man accused of sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl as part of a suspected child pornography ring in Harnett County.

On Wednesday, federal agents asked for the public’s help in locating “John Doe,” a man they described as a “child predator.” They provided a photo of the man and said he might be using the name Peter Gilbert.

via Media helped feds arrest suspected ‘child predator’ in Raleigh | News & Observer News & Observer.

Fifteen years of public service

Found in the attic a few weeks ago is this letter from the late Garner mayor F. Don Rohrbaugh, thanking me for my service on Garner’s Land Use Ordinance rewrite committee. It was my very first public service (outside of the military).

Thanks, Don (wherever you are), for getting me started!

Garner_Land_Use_Ordinance-letter

Who Really Benefits from Daylight Saving Time? – The Takeaway

Most Americans will "spring forward" this weekend and lose an hour to daylight saving time. But daylight savings is hardly standardized in the United States, much less the world: Both Hawaii and Arizona will stick with standard time on Sunday, and Europe won’t spring forward until March 30th. Few other countries practice daylight savings at all.

Michael Downing, a lecturer at Tufts University and author of the book "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time," started wondering about the history and purpose of daylight savings a few years ago. He began to research the phenomenon and realized that most of the justifications for the practice that he remembered had very little to do with its existence.

via Who Really Benefits from Daylight Saving Time? – The Takeaway.

Hillary’s Secret Email Was a Cyberspy’s Dream Weapon – The Daily Beast

Here’s a good, in-depth look at the perils Hillary faced when she opted to run her own mailserver.

The private email address for Hillary Clinton, which became the talk of Washington this week and created her first major speed bump on her road to the White House, has actually been freely available on the Internet for a year, thanks to a colorful Romanian hacker known as Guccifer.

On March 14, 2013, Guccifer—his real name is Marcel-Lehel Lazar—broke into the AOL account of Sidney Blumenthal, a journalist, former White House aide to Bill Clinton, and personal confidante of Hillary Clinton. Lazar crowed about his exploits to journalists, disclosing a set of memos Blumenthal had written to Clinton in 2012, as well as the personal email address and domain she’s now known to have used exclusively for her personal and official correspondence.

Few journalists noticed that at the time, and it caused no ruckus in Washington. But the fact that Clinton’s private email was now public means she was not just putting her own information at risk, but potentially those in the circle of people who knew her private address.

via Hillary’s Secret Email Was a Cyberspy’s Dream Weapon – The Daily Beast.

‘Homebrew’ email servers: Genius as well as sneaky? :: WRAL.com

No, it’s not always a room filled with wires and glowing blue lights. It’s probably not even the size of your furnace. The personal email server used by Hillary Rodham Clinton during her time as secretary of state was probably about the size of your office desktop computer and could have been tucked quietly in a corner somewhere.

She’s come a long way since 1997, when Clinton’s staff bought the then-first lady a copy of the book "E-Mail for Dummies."

Setting up your own email server is something only the geekiest of tech geeks do because of the serious hassles involved, including spending every waking hour fending off spam. Like brewing your own beer, it’s typically done just for fun — a way to challenge your smarts and fill the time. It also appeals to those who fear the government is sniffing around and could compel companies like Google or Yahoo to release customer data.

via 'Homebrew' email servers: Genius as well as sneaky? :: WRAL.com.

Historic moment: Saudi Arabia sees End of Oil Age coming and opens valves on the carbon bubble – EnergyPost.eu

This is a fascinating read about the oil market that took me a while to really get, but it finally makes sense.

Tl;dr The Saudis are selling all the oil they can now because they’re worried that oil is quickly becoming obsolete. They’d rather sell at a drastic discount than be left with oceans of oil but no buyers.

Most analysts believe Saudi Arabia refuses to cut production because it wants to shake out its higher-cost competitors or because it wants to punish Iran and Russia. There may be some truth in those theories, writes Elias Hinckley, strategic advisor and head of the energy practice with international law firm Sullivan and Worcester, but they miss the deeper motivation of the Saudis. Saudi Arabia, he says, sees the end of the Oil Age on the horizon and understands that a great deal of global fossil fuel reserves will have to stay underground to avoid catastrophic global warming. “That’s why it has opened the valves on the carbon asset bubble.”

via Historic moment: Saudi Arabia sees End of Oil Age coming and opens valves on the carbon bubble – EnergyPost.eu.

Separate And Unequal: Gen. Petraeus Facing Mild Wrist Slap For Leaking Eight Books Full Of Classified Info To His Mistress

Can’t wait to see Ed Snowden offered the same sweet deal. I’m sure that will happen, right?

The administration still wants to punish whistleblowers and leakers, but only if it can do it with logic borrowed from Animal Farm. When it comes to prosecution, some leakers are more equal than others.

John Kiriakou — who exposed a single CIA operative’s name while exposing its waterboarding tactics — spent more time in jail than former CIA director Leon Panetta, who has spent (at last count) a grand total of 0 days locked up for leaking tons of classified info to Zero Dark Thirty’s screenwriter, Mark Boal.

Of course, some leaks just aren’t leaks, at least not according to the government. Kiriakou’s were wrong. Panetta’s were right. And Kiriakou spent three years in prison for a lesser "crime."

via Techdirt..

Detectives suspect inside job in North Carolina gold heist | abc11.com

Stating the obvious, exhibit 34,532.

Search warrants obtained by ABC11 show that detectives suspect an inside job in the robbery of $4.8 million worth of gold from a truck along I-95 Sunday.It was originally reported that guards working for Transvalue Inc. of Miami said they pulled off to the side of the interstate about 6:30 p.m. after their vehicle began having mechanical problems.

But the warrants made public Wednesday show a passenger in the truck said he was feeling sick and requested the truck pull over so he could vomit.

via Detectives suspect inside job in North Carolina gold heist | abc11.com.

Clinton ran own computer system for her official emails :: WRAL.com

Hillz got mad skillz, running her own mailserver. Who knew she was a 7337 hacX0R?

The computer server that transmitted and received Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails — on a private account she used exclusively for official business when she was secretary of state — traced back to an Internet service registered to her family’s home in Chappaqua, New York, according to Internet records reviewed by The Associated Press.

The highly unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official physically running her own email would have given Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, impressive control over limiting access to her message archives. It also would distinguish Clinton’s secretive email practices as far more sophisticated than some politicians, including Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin, who were caught conducting official business using free email services operated by Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.

via Clinton ran own computer system for her official emails :: WRAL.com.