ReadWriteWeb

Maybe Marc Goodman's talk from the Strata Summit on the business of illegal data grabbed me because I just finished watching the entire series of The Sopranos from start to finish last week. But even if you don't have a penchant for mob shows, Goodman's talk is worth the time to watch.

As we wax on about the wonders of big data, Goodman reminds us "the more data you produce, the more criminals are happy to receive what you produce."

London's Metropolitan police told reporters they were delving into Twitter and other social media as part of their investigation into looting. For the past four days, many parts of London, centering on Tottenham, have erupted in fire and looting. Started as a response to the alleged shooting of a protestor, Mark Duggan, it seems to have taken a less salubrious turn as the days wore on. Now, police are looking at, among other things, tweeted pictures of looters' spoils. According to PCR, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh told the media:

"Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality ... That investigation is already under way and that is exactly the sort of thing we are looking at."

Five suspects have been arrested in the politically-motivated killing of Brazilian blogger, Ednaldo Figuiera.

In June, Figuiera became the first blogger to be assassinated. Figuiera, who was also a newspaper editor and the president of the local branch of the Workers Party, used his blog to discuss drug-related corruption in his home state of Rio Grande do Norte.

There are a number of questions people ask when looking for a new place to live: What are the schools like? How close is public transportation? Are there grocery stores nearby? But one of the most common concerns is safety. People want to know about the crime rates in cities and neighborhoods.

The real-estate Trulia launched a new product today called Crime Maps that should answer some of these questions. As the name suggests, the new tool lets people view and compare the frequency, types, and history of crimes across various cities in the U.S.

Prank or crime?

David Kernell was sentenced to prison today for one year and one day as a result of his hacking into the Yahoo account of Sarah Palin during the 2008 Presidential Election. Kernell's lawyer had hoped for probation, describing the actions of the then 20-year-old college students as "a prank that spun out of control."

Paul Chambers lost his appeal in a U.K. Crown Court this week, as he sought to overturn his conviction for "improper use of public electronic communications network." Chambers, when learning that his local airport was closed, Tweeted that it had better reopen or "I'm blowing the airport sky high!!!" - something described as simply "a foolish prank."

Yesterday, Utah's Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, used his Twitter account, to notify the world that he had OK-ed the execution of a prisoner.

"I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims."

The Tweet elicited some shock and moral outrage. Any shock I initially felt was, I think, more due to this announcement being made via a medium better known for less life-altering announcements, like personal lunch menus and the unboxing of electronics.

The "Dark Figure of Crime" is not, as one would imagine, a London-fog-bedecked, cloak-and-dagger figure slinking down a shadowy alleyway. It sounds very Hollywood, but "The Dark Figure" is simply a term used by statisticians to describe a crime that goes unreported.

Serious and even violent crimes go unreported for a myriad of social, political and personal reasons. What does this have to do with Twitter? Criminologists have for years grappled with that dark figure, and while police science research on social media is in its infancy, the ability to compare official and real-time crowdsourced data could change how we research crime.

Australia is only the latest country to announce it is officially investigating Google for its collection of personal information. The company used its Google Street View cars to map Wi-Fi locations. However, it collected not just anonymous and aggregated info, but unprotected personal information which may include emails and photographs.

Australian Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland announced today that the Australian Federal Police are investigating Google for a possible breach of the country's telecommunications interception act.

The state legislature in the U.S. state of Louisiana has passed a law adding extra time for committing a crime with an online map. Senate Bill 151 adds at least one year to the sentence of any criminal found guilty of using an "Internet, virtual, street-level map" like Google Maps with Street View to commit a crime.

"'Internet, virtual, street-level map' means any map or image that contains the picture or pictures of homes, buildings, or people that are taken and dispensed, electronically, over the Internet or by a computer network, where the picture can be accessed by entering the address of the home, building, or person."

This is a follow-up to our earlier post on RFID and rustling. This is the first draft of a blueprint for a grassroots method a rancher could use, free of federal involvement, to employ RFID against rustling. This is not the finished product.

Federal livestock-tagging systems have been tried before, most prominently in the wake of the mad cow disease scare. They have all been disastrous. Ranchers disliked the perceived imperiousness of a top-down implementation and resented the expense. Distrustful of federal authority, which has resulted in high-handed dismissal of ranching concerns at times, the centralized nature of a national data bank was also rejected. Organizations that do not exist on the federal level have also tried to encourage a centralized tagging protocol. The same issues inhered.