About This Blog

I created this as a way to place all news tips for the Citizen Journalism workshop at the Pasadena Community Network. We meet every Tuesday night 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Bring these or other story ideas and learn the new exciting world of citizen based collaborative journalism. Visit http://pasadenan.com/ for more information.

Location: Pasadena Community Network - Studio G
Street: 2057 N. Los Robles Ave.
City/Town: Pasadena, CA
http://www.pasadenacommunitynetwork.com/

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

New York Man Sentenced to One Year in Federal Prison for Illegally Uploading Copy of X-Men ‘Wolverine’ Movie to Internet Site

           LOS ANGELES – A New York man who admitted illegally uploading to the Internet a pirated, nearly final “workprint” copy of the movie “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was sentenced this afternoon to one year in federal prison.
            Gilberto Sanchez, 49, who resides in The Bronx and who used screen names that were variations on “skillz,” was sentenced by United States District Judge Margaret M. Morrow, who described the offense as “extremely serious.” In addition to the prison term, Judge Morrow imposed one year of supervised release and numerous computer restrictions.
            “The federal prison sentence handed down in this case sends a strong message of deterrence to would-be Internet pirates,” said United States Attorney AndrĂ© Birotte Jr. “The Justice Department will pursue and prosecute persons who seek to steal the intellectual property of this nation.”
            Sanchez “uploaded the workprint more than one month before theatrical release, he has a prior conviction for a similar offense, he had been regularly uploading pirated movies for four or five years, and did not appear remorseful after charges were brought,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
            Sanchez pleaded guilty in March to one count of uploading a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution. When he pleaded guilty, Sanchez admitted that he uploaded a “workprint” copy of the copyrighted “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” to www.Megaupload.com in March 2009, about one month before the motion picture was released in theaters. After uploading the Wolverine movie, Sanchez publicized the upload by posting links on two publicly available websites, so that anyone who clicked on the links would have access to the movie and be able to download it. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation owns the copyright to the movie.
            “Although Fox was able to get defendant’s Wolverine Workprint removed from his Megaupload account within approximately one day, by then, the damage was done and the film had proliferated like wildfire throughout the Internet, resulting in up to millions of infringements,” prosecutors said in court documents.
            This case is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Connecticut Man Allegedly Affiliated with Anonymous Arrested on Charges of Attacking and Shutting Down Gene Simmons’ Website



            LOS ANGELES – FBI Special Agents this morning arrested a Connecticut man who is charged with waging a denial of service attack against GeneSimmons.com, a website operated by the frontman for the rock band KISS.
            Kevin George Poe, 24, of Manchester, Connecticut, who used the screen name
spydr101, was taken into custody without incident at the federal courthouse in Hartford. Poe made his initial appearance this morning in United States District Court, where a judge ordered Poe released on a $10,000 bond and ordered him to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on a date that has yet to be scheduled.
            A federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned an indictment last week that accused Poe of being affiliated with the Anonymous hacking group. The indictment specifically charges Poe with two counts – conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer.
            During a five-day period in October 2010, Poe and others linked to Anonymous allegedly conducted a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against Simmons’ computer systems, sending tens of thousands of electronic requests designed to overload the computer server and render the website useless. According to the indictment, Poe used a favorite software tool of the Anonymous collective – a Low Orbit Ion Cannon, which is a computer program that is used to send extremely large numbers of “packets” or requests over a network in an attempt to overwhelm a target computer.
            If convicted of the two counts in the indictment, Poe would face a statutory maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison.
            The case against Poe was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Los Angeles Field Office. Poe was arrested by special agents at the FBI New Haven Field Office.