A 15 year old girl has been charged with several counts related to "child pornography" for sending out pictures of herself to several people she chatted with. As more and more teens use webcams for all sorts of things from keeping in touch with friends, getting strangers to buy them things from their wishlists and making some $$$ this has caused a little discussion. As she did not "force" herself, how does this intersect with recent attempts to criminalize "virtual" child porn as both situations have at their heart whether the primary issue is coercion/harm or the concepts images themselves. At the risk of "Newsfiltering", I am interested in opinions from a less histrionic group (thats you) than some others who are discussing it.
posted by soulhuntre on Apr 3, 2004 - 77 comments

Hey! A thirteen year-old kid gets suspended for three days for using a DOS command to send a one-word message to all 80 computers on his school's network. Even more charming is that the computer teacher of his school apparently doesn't know much about the computicatin' machines.
posted by Ufez Jones on Jan 9, 2004 - 72 comments

Man sentenced to read "To Kill A Mockingbird." For spitting at a cop and disorderly conduct, a PA man is jailed and required to read and write a report on Harper Lee's classic. What other books might be fit punishment for certain crimes? (via Obscurestore)
posted by serafinapekkala on Jul 16, 2003 - 52 comments

Coincidence? The man being questioned by police in relation to allegations that he took a £1,000,000 bribe during the takeover of Wessex Water (audited by Andersen and previously owned by Enron) is also on the board of the company whose track maintenance may have been responsible for the Potters Bar Rail Crash. Why am I not surprised to see so many of the same fingers in the same rotten pies.
posted by essexjan on Aug 22, 2002 - 1 comment

A tale of two dumb-dumbs. This car enthusiast forum story really has me wondering who the dumb one is in this situation: the guy who got his car stolen, or the guy who stole the car.

Guy befriends another guy on the forum, starts talking, gives out his VIN, information on when he drives his car to work, and his address only to have the other forum-goer steal his car. Then, the brilliant car thief posts up parts from said stolen car on the EXACT SAME forum under a new name, then makes the mistake of logging in under his old name and posting a message in his sale thread.

An amusing read to say the least.
posted by PWA_BadBoy on Jul 11, 2002 - 10 comments

Wow, talk about your bad luck. Or perhaps proof that heavy pot use(or hot-tubbing) can addle your thinking processes.
posted by jonmc on Feb 6, 2002 - 11 comments

Don't steal gas during a volcano. Bad things will happen.
posted by kirkaracha on Jan 21, 2002 - 15 comments

"This is a painful reminder of the risks our agents take each and every day." Is this referring to the CIA? The FBI? Nope -- real estate. (via the one true /usr/bin/girl)
posted by jjg on Jan 5, 2001 - 11 comments

Baby killing accomplice in trouble with law again.
This news item seemed to have fallen through the crack. I am tempted to make some sociological comment about the criminal mindset of people who resort to frivolous baby killing, but, I am too ourtaged to write anything remotely coherent.
posted by tamim on Sep 28, 2000 - 3 comments

So Nixon supposedly took drugs and beat his wife? If that's true, he was really going for the trifecta with the whole Watergate thing.
posted by muffin on Aug 27, 2000 - 1 comment