The Onion presents a humorous look at law enforcement in Grand Theft Auto IV:

“The police just let them go, and 20 minutes later they’re shooting at the very same criminals from helicopters,” veteran crime reporter Mike Whiteley said. “That is not proper law enforcement. We may be seeing a return to the bad old days of 2002, when the police, the FIB, and even Army tank battalions would leave countless bodies on the streets while attempting to capture just one man on some sort of joyful mass-destruction spree.”

That sums up the whole game nicely.

Perhaps even more alarming, city records indicate that more than 75 percent of perpetrators in mass-murder or vehicular-manslaughter cases escape, usually by simple methods such as driving into a car-repainting facility. Criminals have even eluded pursuit by walking into their apartment and going to bed for six hours, after which the search has been called off.

However, one LCPD official, who wished to remain anonymous, blamed the recent crime wave on the police department’s lack of proper equipment.

“We are only equipped to pursue a suspect within a small radius on a very basic half-centimeter radar screen,” the officer said. “If we were allowed to seek criminals who escaped this radius for more than 15 seconds, our results would improve dramatically.”

Oh, it always comes down to a question of technology. Lack of proper equipment? If you have ever played the game, you might note that it can actually be hard to evade the police until you learn how to make their use of the limited radius. They could use their radius more effectively, but the game would become too hard. Likewise, the game’s engine seems to let the police get stuck whenever they drive into a park (they can’t seem to figure out how to drive out). But even those flaws in the search and arrest procedure is nothing compared to the lame legal system.

Many blame the LCPD directly for the increase in criminal activity, citing the department’s lax procedure for arresting criminals, which involves taking 10 percent of the suspect’s money, confiscating his weapons, and simply releasing him from custody later that day. Outraged citizens say this is not enough, especially in a city where assault rifles can be found on factory roofs and grenade caches are located under the globe at the old World’s Fair site.

Ha, ha, exactly. Get rid of the weapons and rehabilitate the offenders. But who would want to play in a world with real accountability?

The BNY Mellon breach story keeps getting bigger:

Ponemon Institute estimated that in 2007 companies spent an average of $197 per record following a data breach, which would put BNY Mellon’s price tag for this boondoggle at $886 million. But, in the wake of the breach that affected hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has pushed BNY Mellon to increase its credit monitoring guarantee from one to two years and provide $25k in identity theft insurance with no deductible. And even that’s not enough for plaintiff’s attorneys, who are clamoring for BNY Mellon and People’s Bank, the Connecticut institution that had the largest number of affected customers in the breach, to spring for seven years of identity theft protection.

I hate to say it but what is to stop companies from saving cash just to pay insurance and identity theft protection post-incident? Is the cost of prevention higher? If so, then keeping cash liquid instead of investing in identity theft prevention will be hard to argue against.

Jennifer has written an excellent EFF guide called Protecting Yourself From Suspicionless Searches While Traveling:

Practically, the government has not disclosed CBP’s laptop search practices, despite our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for these documents. We don’t know what a border patrol agent will do when confronted with an encrypted machine. One possibility is that the agent will simply give up and let the traveler pass with her belongings. Other possibilities are that the agent will turn the traveler and her machine away at the border, or that he will seize the laptop and allow the traveler to continue on. I suspect that on most occasions, CBP agents confronted with encrypted or password-protected data tell the owner to enter the password or get turned away, and the owner, eager to continue her voyage or to return home, simply complies.

You might not realize it at first, but this is in reference to the US border. I like the multiple accounts idea, especially as you can disable an account or even block it from appearing in the login window. Very stealth. One option I did not see is simply to use your laptop as a terminal and store nothing locally. If you absolutely must store files locally, then encrypted USB devices that look like pens, shoes, etc. are an option. Can’t wait to see if the new Get Smart movie tackles this issue.

An AP story suggests students might suddenly change their mind about using peer-to-peer (P2P) software themselves if faced with a simple test:

Missouri University of Science and Technology now requires students to ace a six-question quiz on digital copyright law to get six hours of access to peer-to-peer software they can use to share music and movies online.

The quiz has cut copyright complaints on campus from recording industry to eight this academic year, down from 200 in 2006-07, said Tim Doty, a campus systems security analyst.

I wonder whether they a) simply can’t pass the test b) suddenly become disenchanted with P2P after reading about restrictions c) have no need to bother anymore after using a “mule” to take requests and perform primary downloads from outside the campus network and then distribute files internally without detection.