Russian rocket shows up as a streaking fireball over Nevada

The fireball people saw streaking across the sky in Southern California and Nevada earlier wasn’t the Millennium Falcon. According to US Strategic Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, it was a Russian space debris, particularly the burning body of an SL-4 rocket reentering the atmosphere. A lot of people took to social media to report sightings of the strange fireball in the sky, and they offered a variety of explanations, from asteroid chunks to UFOs and Santa dropping off presents a bit too early. The Strategic Command’s Joint Space Operations Center has been keeping an eye out for any debris from the rocket since it blasted off on Monday, so O’Donnell knows what he’s talking about. If you wanted it to be a spaceship full of aliens instead, though, then sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

LOTS of reports of fireball over SW US. Clearly space debris re-entering; I’m looking for more info. Video: pic.twitter.com/0hnxswRIUs

— Phil Plait (@BadAstronomer) December 23, 2015

[Image credit: NASA Johnson/Flickr]

Via: Phil Plait (Twitter)

Source: NBC News, The Blaze

London adopts e-paper signs for real-time bus schedules

Picture the scene: it’s raining and you’re waiting for a night bus in London, with very little charge on your phone. Wouldn’t it be great if the bus stop had some up to date arrival times? So you didn’t have to pull out your phone and refer to Citymapper or Google Maps? Transport for London (TfL) is now trialling e-paper displays at a small number of bus stops which show timetables, route maps and real-time travel information. The screens are roughly the same size as a conventional bus stop sign — equivalent to three A4 sheets of paper, stacked on top of one another — and include some colourful buttons for illumination and page switching.

The hope is that the new displays will be both readable and environmentally friendly. Like a Kindle, they should be readable in bright sunlight and require less power than a conventional full-colour screen. TfL says they can be charged from a solar panel too, and retrieve bus arrival information over 3G. For now, it’s only available in one location, near Waterloo Bridge, although the plan is to introduce a further three in Parliament Square, Piccadilly Circus and Sloane Square next month. They’re be trialled until the autumn — a full roll-out would probably be too expensive, but this should give TfL a better idea of its future viability.

Via: BBC

Kim Dotcom could face extradition to the US

Kim Dotcom, essentially the Motion Picture Association of America and Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s de facto prime target, and his colleagues actually can be extradited to the United States to face copyright charges according to a judicial ruling. However, don’t expect the man behind Megaupload to appear stateside anytime soon. As The New Zealand Herald, Dotcom’s local news publication, tells it, the internet mogul has 15 days to appeal or apply for a writ of habeas corpus (produce the body) and it looks like his legal defense team is already taking care of that. In addition to copyright infringement, he faces charges for racketeering and money laundering as well. The BBC reports that he owes domestic authorities somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million.
Dotcom’s legal team naturally feels that the current ruling doesn’t suffice, and the man himself has an eye on moving the case to his adopted country’s high court, while The BBC also notes that he’s going to sue the Hong Kong justice department (he founded Megaupload in China) for some $2 billion for taking the site offline.

Thank you for your support. The fight goes on. Enjoy the holidays. I'm happy to be with my kids. There are bigger things than copyright

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) December 23, 2015

The Associated Press says that should he and his colleagues be found guilty, they’re looking at “decades” of imprisonment. The publication goes on to say that this wasn’t a case for actually proving guilt or innocence, but where or not Uncle Sam could actually prosecute the man. It also notes that this case brings some bigger queries to light regarding how far the boundaries of United States law extend when it comes to the internet, and that this could affect how internet companies handle the sharing of copyrighted content.

For his part Dotcom seems disaffected by the entire situation. He recently tweeted that he’s happy to be with his children over the holidays and that they’re more important than any pending litigation. For an altogether different, jovial look at Dotcom than what you might have in mind, check out the Vice video below where he’s found singing, playing GTA Online and giving a tour of his New Zealand compound.

Source: The New Zealand Herald, The BBC, The Associated Press

Feds arrest hacker for stealing scripts, celeb identities and sex tapes

The Department of Homeland Security has arrested and charged (PDF) a man from the Bahamas for stealing unreleased movie/TV scripts along with celebrities’ files and sensitive information. According to The New York Times, the 23-year-old hacker named Alonzo Knowles contacted a radio host in an effort to sell his loot, which included the scripts for six episodes of a hit drama currently being filmed. When the unnamed host got in touch with Homeland Security, the agency cooked up a sting operation and had him put Knowles in touch with an undercover investigator posing as a buyer. Although the operation has not been publicly linked with any previously known hacking, it immediately calls to mind the stolen celebrity photos and information that were released late last year, as well as private information leaked by the people who hacked Sony Pictures.

The accused allegedly tried to sell the agent 15 scripts and the social security numbers of two athletes and a movie actress for $80,000. He also showed the agent a sex tape, saying that it’s merely a “sample of things [he] can get” — he had “more stuff along these lines and can get more” if the buyer was interested.

Knowles would hack into celebrities’ emails to look for juicy details to steal, the court documents posted by NYT said. He reportedly admitted to the undercover agent that when it was too difficult to hack a particular celebrity, he would look at pictures online to see who his friends are and then hack them instead. He’d also send fake automated text messages telling recipients that their accounts had been hacked, and some people actually replied with their passwords. Other times, he’d send a virus to celebrities’ computers to infiltrate their systems.

By using all those techniques, Knowles reportedly gained access to 130 email addresses. From those accounts, he managed to pilfer all kinds of details and data other than scripts, such as explicit images and even the future album of a famous A-list celebrity. Prosecutors have charged him with felony criminal copyright infringement and identity theft, which both have a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Source: The New York Times (1), (2), NBC New York