Radiohead Responds To Extortionate Hacker By Releasing Hacked Recordings For Charity

from the nicely-done dept

Radiohead has always taken a more thoughtful, less kneejerk approach to how it handles the kinds of situations that many others in the recording industry tend to respond to by freaking out. Back in 2007, in the midst of the worldwide freakout over piracy, Radiohead released a surprise album, telling fans they could pay what they wanted to download it (while also selling a more expensive "box set", giving its biggest fans a good reason to pay extra. The band has also been supportive of file sharing and even leaked some of its own tracks via BitTorrent.

So perhaps this following story shouldn't be seen as too much of a surprise (though, I imagine it was a surprise to whoever hacked Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke). As noted in that parenthetical, someone apparently hacked Yorke, and somehow got access to a set of 18 minidiscs of somewhat random/eclectic material that Yorke had recorded in the 1996/97 timeframe, when the band was working on its seminal Ok Computer album. The hackers apparently then asked Yorke/Radiohead for $150,000 not to release the material. The band chose not to give in to the hackers, who then did leak the material. However, soon after the material was leaked, the band announced (via Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's Instagram) that the band was now officially "releasing" that material on Bandcamp for £18 (or more) and donating any funds raised to Extinction Rebellion (a climate change advocacy group).

Greenwood's writeup -- titled "Walter Sobchak vs Bunny's toe, as an amusing nod towards the extortion attempt in The Big Lebowski -- is worth reading:

Subject: Walter Sobchak vs Bunny's toe

We got hacked last week - someone stole Thom's minidisk archive from around the time of OK Computer, and reportedly demanded $150,000 on threat of releasing it.

So instead of complaining - much - or ignoring it, we're releasing all 18 hours on Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion. Just for the next 18 days. So for £18 you can find out if we should have paid that ransom.

Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did reach the cassette in the OK Computer reissue) it's only tangentially interesting. And very, very long. Not a phone download. Rainy out, isn't it though?

And yes, the file is quite large -- approaching 2GB -- and the band itself says it's not that interesting. But, of course, fans are interested, because that's what fandom is about. In fact, it's quite interesting to see that a bunch of fans have put together a crowdsourced Google Doc creating a track listing and annotation of what's in the files (though, they also have to explain that they weren't the ones who hacked Yorke's stuff in the first place). The notes themselves are kind of interesting:

As with all such things, this could easily have turned into the band just complaining about a situation that basically everyone agrees is unfair and unpleasant. However, Radiohead, of all bands, appears to have been quick to turn what is undoubtedly a crappy situation into a positive one that both supports a charity they like and builds tremendous goodwill with fans (while making the hackers look awful).

There's a key point in all of this that is worth noting, and it's one that we've tried to make for years about piracy: we're not arguing that piracy is somehow a good thing. However, we have argued that piracy happens. The question is how you respond to it, and whether or not you can turn it into a positive situation. Too many in the music industry have taken piracy and turned a bad situation into something worse -- pissing off fans, annoying people, and doing damage to their own brand. Radiohead has long realized it's better to do the exact opposite. That's not cheering on the hacking (or piracy), but noting that when a bad thing happens, you might as well figure out how to make the best of it.

Radiohead has done that. I wish many others in that industry would do the same.

Filed Under: extortion, fans, hacker, jonny greenwood, minidiscs, ok computer, radiohead, release, thom yorke

ICE Rigged Its Vetting Tool To Make Sure It Can Always Keep Immigrants Locked Up

from the dick-move-upon-dick-move dept

As the rhetoric has amped up around immigration enforcement, so have the tactics. ICE was never anyone's idea of a good time, but its actions have become much more aggressive, thanks to this administration's steady stream of anti-immigrant sentiment. While not supporting the criminal activity engaged in by its informants, ICE is performing warrantless raids, deporting critics, and claiming helping undocumented children is a criminal offense.

Now, it's getting its software to pitch in. Reuters reports ICE is detaining more people than ever, keeping them imprisoned while their court cases -- which may take years to adjudicate -- are pending. Up until recently, ICE would make a determination on the risk level of detainees, allowing some to post bond and stay with their families while their court cases played out.

That's no longer the case. The system ICE uses to make this determination -- detain/release -- is still being used. But the info fed into it no longer matters. Thanks to Trump's orders, there's no determination being made. The software is a facade that spits out a single answer, no matter what info its given.

To conform to Trump’s policies, Reuters has learned, ICE modified a tool officers have been using since 2013 when deciding whether an immigrant should be detained or released on bond. The computer-based Risk Classification Assessment uses statistics to determine an immigrant’s flight risk and danger to society.

Previously, the tool automatically recommended either “detain” or “release.” Last year, ICE spokesman Bourke said, the agency removed the “release” recommendation, but he noted that ICE personnel can override it.

This caused detentions to triple in 2017. And the software, which is supposed to perform a risk assessment, no longer does anything at all. It may be overridden by ICE personnel, but why would any ICE employee bother? The president made it clear he wants immigrants locked up or kicked out. A rigged machine makes it easy to ignore mitigating factors in favor of treating everyone as the "worst of the worst" ICE is actually supposed to be targeting.

At this point, it makes no sense to even have the system running. ICE may as well drop the charade and just detain everyone. The discretion was built into the system, but that's been removed. That leaves everything up to the discretion of ICE officers, who have zero motivating forces pushing them towards more lenient behavior.

This is another small step towards diminishing the protections of the Constitution. The government operates a system that pretends to offer a fair balancing of relevant factors, but has secretly removed one of the two options immigrants are supposed to have. Couple this with President Trump's tweet about stripping away the last vestiges of due process at the border and you have a government progressively undermining the rights that actually make America great.

Filed Under: algorithms, detain, detention, ice, release, risk

Ferguson PD Lies About Why It Released Videotape Of Store Robbery, Lies Some More When Confronted With The Facts

from the worst.-wagon-circling.-ever. dept

In the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown, the Ferguson Police made several ill-advised moves. The biggest was the paramilitary force that greeted protests, looking for all the world like a unit flown in from Kabul, followed shortly thereafter by the detainment of several journalists. The decision to withhold the officer's name was also received poorly, but this was complicated by one baffling move -- the release of a store surveillance tape that appeared to show Brown stealing cigarillos from a local store shortly before he was shot dead.

This tape's release was purely self-motivated. Even the Dept. of Justice -- which had stepped in shortly after everything went to hell in Ferguson -- advised against it. The only conceivable reason for the release was a post-facto "justification" of Officer Darren Wilson's decision to shoot an unarmed man several times.

But the Ferguson PD tried to cover up this motivation. Matthew Key at TheBlot has dug into the events surrounding the release of the surveillance tape and found nothing but Ferguson PD lies.

The chief of police for the Ferguson Police Department misled members of the media and the public when he asserted that his hand was forced in releasing surveillance footage that purported to show 18-year-old resident Michael Brown engaged in a strong-arm robbery at a convenience store minutes before he was fatally shot by a police officer.

The tape -- released on the same day the PD belatedly revealed the name of the officer who shot Brown -- was supposedly released as the result of "multiple" FOIA requests from journalists and other citizens.

“We’ve had this tape for a while, and we had to diligently review the information that was in the tape, determine if there was any other reason to keep it,” Jackson said at the press event. “We got a lot of Freedom of Information requests for this tape, and at some point it was just determined we had to release it. We didn’t have good cause, any other reason not to release it under FOI.”

But another FOIA request exposed this claim for what it is. TheBlot used a FOIA request to obtain all FOIA requests sent to the Ferguson PD. And it couldn't find a single one that specifically requested that tape.

Last month, TheBlot Magazine requested a copy of all open records requests made by members of the public — including journalists and news organizations — that specifically sought the release of the convenience store surveillance video. The logs, which were itself obtained under Missouri’s open records law, show only one journalist — Joel Currier with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch — broadly requested any and all multimedia evidence “leading up to” Brown’s death on Aug. 9.

With that lie uncovered, the Ferguson Police decided to double down. A statement issued to TheBlot claimed that multiple other FOIA requests were made orally, due to heavy traffic to the city's website and email server. Possibly believable, but was anyone logging these verbal requests? And could this be where the multiple requests for the surveillance video originated? The answers are "yes," "well, actually no," and "shut up."

The first response:

City of Ferguson attorney Stephanie Karr said that “many requests were made verbally due to the fact that the City’s website and email were down at several points during that week” and that “city personnel cataloged all requests and treated them in the same manner as it would any Sunshine Law request.

So, if they were logged, there'd be some record of a bunch of people asking for the release of the surveillance tape, right? Cue backpedal #1:

Karr responded to a request for comment Saturday afternoon by denying the City of Ferguson had a log of verbal records requests.

“You assume that the Custodian of Records, somehow, logged every single question, statement or request for information, verbal or otherwise, made to every single police officer, city employee, consultant, appointed official or elected official,” Karr told TheBlot by e-mail. “That assumption is, quite simply, wrong and unrealistic.”

Actually, TheBlot didn't "assume" anything. It simply took Karr's first statement at face value. Apparently, everything about the first statement was a lie. On top of that, the Ferguson PD may have violated the Sunshine Law by not logging requests it filled or denied. TheBlot has a request in for the logged verbal FOIA requests and in the meantime notes that the PD is still withholding both the incident report for the shooting (which may not even exist) as well as the incident report for the robbery.

Just a little more evidence pointing towards the unreliability of public officials, especially when caught in the middle of misconduct. Not only has the PD apparently lied about its reasons for releasing the tape, but it continues to withhold information about its involvement in the shooting of Michael Brown. Earlier, it claimed Officer Wilson suffered injuries -- possibly severe -- during his "interaction" with Brown. Those have proven false as well, with Wilson's own post-shooting text messages saying nothing about sustaining an injury as well as citizen video showing Wilson standing around the shooting scene for several minutes without seeking medical attention.

Odds are, no one directly requested this video. The release of the video coincided with the forced release of the officer's name in a blatant attempt to provide justification for his actions. While undoubtedly true that the city's website and email server have been hit pretty hard during the past few weeks, that's no excuse for city employees to fulfill or deny FOIA requests without documentation -- especially when its track record so far shows an urge to bury and obfuscate.

Filed Under: ferguson, foia, lies, mike brown, missouri, police, release, videotape

The Reason Suspected Criminals Are Walking Free In Dallas Isn't Solely A 'New Software' Problem

from the the-all-new,-cuff-free-perp-walk dept

Any major entity switching over to new software is going to deal with some headaches, many of which will adversely affect those downstream from them. In most cases, this is little more than an inconvenience. But when it's a police department upgrading its system, it means potentially violent criminals are walking free. (additional hat tip to That Anonymous Coward, who shot this link to me roughly the same time Mike Masnick did.)

Police in Dallas are scrambling after troubles involving a new records management system caused more than 20 jail inmates, including a number of people charged with violent crimes, to be set free.

Officials have downplayed the release of these suspects, with one of them (Deputy Chief Christina Smith) comparing the freeing of people booked on domestic violence charges to fiddling with dashboard controls.

“We kind of relate it to getting a new car,” Smith said. “You needed a new car, but you’re not familiar with where all the gadgets are on it.”

Others aren't quite as sanguine.

“At this point, it does not appear to be a very user-friendly program,” said Richard Todd, the president of the Dallas Fraternal Order of Police.

In fact, Todd said, the software switch has been “a nightmare” and “a mess.”

While we reflect on the fact that it's generally the police union president's duty to deflect blame away from officers, let's take a look at what's really going on here.

Officials put some of the blame on Dallas County’s policy requiring them to file many cases within three days of an arrest. That includes domestic violence cases. Other violent offenses, such as robbery or murder, have 10-day limits.

That the system hasn't been entirely helpful in meeting the 72-hour deadline is undoubtedly true. According to Deputy Chief Smith, the new software is dealing with a backlog of filings thanks to the switchover. But perps walking free because the proper paperwork wasn't filed on time is nothing new for the Dallas Police Department.

Throughout the month of June, 224 felony defendants have been released from the Dallas County Jail because the filing deadlines were missed.

Since April, the number of felony suspects released totals 613.

Over 600 felony suspects released because cases weren't filed on time, and the police department hands the public a list of 20 suspects (some facing non-felony charges) that didn't make the 3-day filing deadline -- and then blames it on the computer system.

The filing deadlines are there for a reason -- to get police departments to comply with the "speedy trial" provision of the Constitution. Mandatory cutoffs are needed because without them, people would be held without charge until officers finally get around to filing the paperwork. If Dallas' limits seem tight, it's likely because the department has had problems in the past with adhering to reasonable deadlines.

A local judge points out that not once was he (or apparently anyone else) approached for extensions in the cases currently being blamed on the system upgrade. He also points out that he's added breathing room to certain charges in the past, something that should have ensured the police filed reports on time.

That policy is set by the county’s judges. State District Judge Rick Magnis said there is nothing inherently wrong with the longstanding rule, and police and prosecutors can request extensions.

“The law is real simple,” Magnis said. “The Constitution in America says you can’t hold people without charges.”

Magnis said he changed some of the charges with three-day requirements to 10-day limits last August at the request of the DA’s office. He said judges would have likely changed the policy for domestic violence cases — if he had been asked.

“They certainly didn’t say, ‘Hey, we’re having a problem. We need help,’” he said.

But it's not as though Intergraph is completely blameless, either. The company has a long history of failures in the law enforcement market. San Antonio's police chief calls the system Intergraph provided for his officers "disastrous." New York City criticized the company last year for problems with its 911 support (and then inexplicably signed another software deal with it). A civil grand jury in San Jose investigated Intergraph in 2004, finding the response time provided by its computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system "unacceptable."

There are two problems here -- one is the DPD's inability to meet filing deadlines with or without new software, and the other is the new software's inability to perform as needed. Both are now working against each other, creating the sort of friction that dumps suspects right back on the street. Now, law enforcement resources are being expended to round up suspects they already had detained, limiting the amount of proactive policing being performed.

The software is serving at least one useful purpose right now -- a lightning rod for criticism. But it's not solely a software issue. It's also a police issue. If the police are rounding up more people than it can process in a timely fashion (or prefer the thrill of the arrest to the mundanity of filing paperwork), it may look like it's doing something useful, but the end result is nearly indistinguishable from doing nothing. Suspects are back on the street, uncharged and unburdened by the limitations that usually come with making bail.

Filed Under: dallas, police, prisoners, release, software
Companies: intergraph