crime

A jury in Alameda County, Calif., on Monday afternoon found Linux programmer Hans Reiser guilty of first-degree murder in the 2006 killing of his estranged wife, Nina Reiser, according to news accounts.

The jury made its decision after three days of deliberation following a drama-filled six-month trial. The jury had the option of considering a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Hans Reiser, 44, is known to the technology world as the founder of the ReiserFS file system software, which is available for Linux. Nina Reiser, then 31, was last seen alive on September 3, 2006, in Oakland, Calif., as she … Read more

This post was updated with the correct spelling of David Kravets' name.

The most undisputed assertion in the trial of Hans Reiser, the Linux programmer accused of killing his estranged wife, is that he's a geek to the nth degree. He's been called strange, socially inept, devoid of emotion, and paranoid...and no one disagrees.

Even the typically easy-going Alameda County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman, who is presiding over the Oakland, Calif.-based trial, called Reiser arrogant and rude and at one point, in the jury's absence, said "there are not enough words in the … Read more

Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee was indicted on charges of evading taxes on billions of dollars he hid in stock accounts under the names of his aides, The New York Times is reporting.

He also faces criminal charges of breach of trust, stemming from his involvement in arranging for company subsidiaries "to sell stock to his son" at "unfairly low prices" to help his son "take over management control," The Times says. Lee was cleared, however, of more serious allegations he starting a slush fund worth $215 million used to bribe prosecutors, judges, and other public officials.… Read more

Fans of home automation systems controlled by a personal computer like to speculate about how their software might be able to snare intruders. An Indiana man named Fred Thompson actually did it.

Court documents show the story started after Thompson's home in Fort Wayne, Ind., was burglarized. Thompson responded by setting up a video camera hooked up to his computer and configured it to remotely notify him when motion was detected when the house was supposed to be empty.

On October 10, 2006, the system notified Thompson that movement was detected. He jumped in his car, called the police, … Read more

Worried about online auction fraud? If you're a man you should be, according to the latest Internet Crime Complaint Center report (in PDF). On average, men lost more money to online fraud than women in 2007. Men also perpetrated most of the online crime, accounting for 75 percent of the total reports last year. And while the overall number of complaints declined when compared with previous years, the total dollar value in losses rose to a record high of $239 million in losses in 2007. That's $40 million more than in 2006.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) … Read more

Bar owner Rufus Terrill has enlisted a rather odd-looking security guard to chase away prostitutes and drug dealers milling about his Atlanta tavern: an R2-D2-like robot called "Bum Bot 2000."

The patchwork device is controlled via remote control and targets law-breakers, reports The Los Angeles Times. But homeless advocates aren't too fond of Terrill's water-squirting Bum Bot.

Read the full Los Angeles Times story: "Robot reports for security duty in Atlanta"

OAKLAND, Calif.--There are stereotypical nerds...and then there is Hans Reiser. He's in a class all by himself, or at least that's how he was being portrayed here Monday in his first day on the stand in his own murder trial.

Between getting him to talk about the game he created at age 17 to compete with Dungeons and Dragons, to highlighting his interest in Russian mail-order brides, to having him explain a Linux kernel to a jury of laypeople, Reiser's attorney is laying his client's geekiness on thick.

Reiser, 44, the founder of the ReiserFS file system software … Read more

OAKLAND, Calif.--When he was just 14 years old, Hans Reiser entered the admissions office at University of California at Berkeley, and eventually persuaded officials to enroll him without a high school diploma on the basis of his college entrance exams.

Thirty years later, the computer programmer finds himself again arguing his case, but this time it's before a crowded courtroom where he is facing charges he murdered his estranged wife, whose body has never been found.

The now graying 44-year-old Reiser, donning a blue sportcoat and an occasional smile, took the stand Monday morning at Alameda County Superior … Read more

The courthouse has long been one of the last bastions of gadget-free life. Cell phones, PDAs, and laptops are often banned in courtrooms, and based on first-hand observation, I can warn that you never, ever want to be caught there with a ringing device.

That means when you're covering a trial, you leave your multitasking life behind. Even during the most mind-numbing of testimony, you have to sit tight, a particularly challenging task for San Francisco Chronicle crime reporter Henry Lee, who is known for toting around a folder of crossword and sudoku puzzles to help get him through … Read more