Gawker: valleywag, canada

Israeli hacker in jail ten years after U.S. military break-in

Jackson West — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:00:00 EDT

Ehud "The Analyzer" Tenenbaum, who became world-famous when he and a number of fellow Israeli and California teens successfully exploited a vulnerability in Sun Solaris to gain access to computers at Nasa, Andrews Air Force Base and the Department of Defense, is in jail. Earlier this month he was arrested in Montreal on suspicion of having helped defraud credit card companies of $1.8 million. Wired dug up a slickly produced, pretty entertaining video produced by the FBI a year after the intrusion.

I happened to be in Tel Aviv when Tenenbaum turned himself in to Israeli authorities on the day he was set to report for compulsory military service — he was treated as something of a national hero, a symbol of Israel's technology prowess, with even then Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu praising him as "damn good." Tenenbaum ended up with probation and community service instead of jail time. So it wasn't with much surprise when I read Tenenbaum's mother calling the arrest a frame-up by the FBI.

The truth? The prepaid credit card scam described is a classic modus operandi in Canadian tweaker circles, at least as described in Zero Day Threat. And Tenenbaum certainly had to chops to pull it off, with the cast of fellow suspects who've been released probably participating as mules to make transactions. So once again, I'm betting Canadian dollars to donuts from Tim Horton's on meth.

Bill Gates praised Canada's skilled murderer immigration program

Jackson West — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:40:00 EDT

A grisly beheading on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg, Manitoba may well have been committed by an immigrant admitted under a skilled-worker program in 2001. While riding the bus, a reportedly unprovoked Vince Weiguang Li stabbed carnie Tim McLean twelve times, beheaded him, and began eating parts of the corpse. A laptop which Li sold to teenager Darren Beatty had a letter which said "he felt guilty for leaving China, and that everything in Canada was not as he expected," according to a Google translation. Why are we subjecting you, dear reader, to this gory tale?

Because this is the same skilled-worker immigration program that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates praised at the 50th anniversary hearing of Congress's science and technology committee:

We created an office up in Vancouver, Canada, because that government, like virtually every government other than the United States, recognizes that competing for talent and encouraging talent, particularly talent educated in a country, getting them to stay, that that's very, very important.

Gates did not continue, "At this rate, Microsoft will be unable to find the kind of innovative murderers we need to stay competitive in the global beheading and cannibalism economy," before praising representatives for their own skill at gutting bills and bleeding funding from programs. (Photo by AP/Graeme Roy)

Angry Canadians will be getting gouged on iPhones by Rogers after all

Jackson West — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:20:00 EDT

And you thought Canadians were all nice. After whinging about not getting the first-generation iPhone in a timely way, Rogers Wireless customers shrieked about the rate plans for the latest handsets. Then a rumor quickly spread that mercurial gadget guru Steve Jobs's sensibilities were offended by the wireless company's price gouging and denied them the new phones at the last minute. First, since when has Jobs been against gouging customers? Second, the company sent out a release today promising our northern neighbors they will begin getting gouged on schedule. [Rogers Wireless]

Bell Canada's file sharing throttling data shows mixed results

Jackson West — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:00:00 EDT

Bell Canada, which was accused of throttling peer-to-peer file sharing traffic, was order to release details of their bandwidth management procedure by Canadian officials. Did it work? Kinda. Backbone congestion improved, but local loop backups — the kind that more directly affect users — actually got worst. Bell argued that even after spending $110 million in unplanned capital improvements to the network, 790,000 users would have had congested connections by 2009. Who was responsible for vetting those expenditures? Likely incoming Google CFO Patrick Pichette. [Ars Technica]

RIM seeds new $150 million venture fund for BlackBerry software

Jackson West — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:20:00 EDT

Canadian smartphone maker Research in Motion (RIM) announced a new $150 million Blackberry Partners Fund which includes private Canadian investors, RBC and Thomson Reuters. The fund will focus on companies building technology that works with RIM's popular BlackBerry mobile devices. And it raises the question: Why isn't the large installed base of BlackBerry devices motivation enough for developers? [PEHub]

Bad iPod batteries could cost Apple $3.6 million loonies

Jackson West — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:40:00 EDT

Apple has settled a class-action suit in Canadian courts over first, second and third-generation iPod batteries that fell well short of claimed battery life. Up to 80,000 Canadians are eligible for CA$45 credits. I'd make a joke about worthless Canadian currency, except that it's now trading near parity with our own worthless currency. [Canada.com]

Bell Canada's peer-to-peer throttling mess

Jackson West — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:40:00 EDT

Bell Canada, the largest Internet service provider for our neighbors to the north, has admitted to using "deep packet sniffers" [Ed's note: Sounds intriguing, am assigning Melissa to look into these people] to throttle peer-to-peer protocol transfers such as BitTorrent downloads. Executives there obviously hadn't spoken to peers at national broadcaster CBC, which recently started legitimately distributing shows via P2P, as has American network NBC and musicians like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The company also throttled traffic from ISPs that buy bandwidth wholesale from the company. Net neutrality groups are lobbying Canadian officials to regulate Bell Canada into submission. But Minister of Industry Jim Prentice is opposed to any further regulation, and the Conservative Party-led government has been in favor or easing current regulations on telcos. Meanwhile, here in the states, Comcast has cozied up to BitTorrent and the FCC has proven more amenable to arguments in favor of net neutrality.

Inside Capazoo's drug-fueled implosion

Jackson West — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:00:28 EDT

The Montreal-based social network that's teetering on the edge of extinction was a family affair, both in the nepotism sense and allegedly in the mafia sense. That's according to a former employee who sent in an epic tale of sex, drugs and shady business dealings under CEO Luc Verville, pictured here in happier times. His brother Michel, a cofounder, was kicked out of the company — but not before generating some serious ill will among employees:

- The flip side of the founder's coke addiction was a black market Viagra dealer in the office who supplied him, which enabled him to brag publicly and often about having sex with his 20-year old girlfriend several times in one day.

Much, much more after the jump.

- When I arrived at Capazoo, his wife worked there, as did his mother. And the other founder's wife as well. I should have run screaming. He left his wife a few weeks later... That didn't stop her from showing up at the office with their young child and spitting on the window while we were having meetings.
- [His wife] started posting messages on the founder's page on the website, including that he was bi. Unfortunately, we hadn't yet implemented "remove comment" functionality, which led to several weekends spent just cleaning up the founder's profile, over and over again. Fun.

- The brothers often talked shit about each other, saying that they saved the other from destitution, and that one would be nothing without the other. Should have run screaming.

- Was contacted one day by the founder's assistant, because she was trying to mount a coup d'etat with the other founder to get rid of him. As if that's something you can do to the guy who holds over 50% of the company.

- Several people with ties to the gambling and porn industries, as well as the mafia were hired. On this last point, at least one investor/partner told me he was not worried about losing his investment for this reason. Just another reason you cannot use my name.

- BTW, pro athletes are idiots, it's not hard to swindle them out of money by saying things like "next MySpace, next Facebook".

(Photo by LaPresseAffaires.com)

Too lazy to do research, Canada looks up piracy stats on Wikipedia

Mary Jane Irwin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:50:27 EDT

Apparently digital-music piracy isn't as prevalent as we thought. Canada's Royal Mounted Police simply made up the fact that the country loses $30 billion to software piracy. We thought only gossip blogs did that kind of thing. The figure, a jumble of Internet research and corporate propaganda from the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (members include the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Software & Information Industry Association), has helped shore up Canada's anti-piracy laws. Let this be a lesson to you kids: Don't always believe what you read on the Internet. Even if the Mounties wrote it.