pornography

The 404 877: Where you learn a lot about people at the beach (podcast)

Jeff's back in the studio after his vacation week, and any positive vibes floating around in the air are obliterated when he tells us about the things you can learn about people just from spending time at the beach.

Unsurprisingly, none of us plan to see "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," despite its 80-percent "fresh" rating on RottenTomatoes.com. We're also ripping a page from the Obvious News section and talking about TV porn sales going down in recent years, and playing a handful of voicemails carefully chosen by Mr. Bakalar.

The 404 Digest for Episode 877

Big surprise: TV porn doesn't sell like it used to. FBI releases child ID iPhone app.

Episode 877 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

72 people charged in online child porn ring

Federal law enforcement officials have charged 72 people for their alleged involvement in an online child pornography ring, the Department of Justice announced today.

Fifty-two of the people charged have already been arrested as part of the investigation, called Operation Delego, which the Justice Department launched in December 2009. So far, 13 of those 52 people have pleaded guilty and will serve terms ranging from 20 to 30 years in prison, the DOJ said. They will also face a lifetime of supervised release.

The individuals charged were allegedly members of Dreamboard, a private message board of more than 500 people … Read more

China crackdown on porn shutters 60,000 sites

China claims to be making progress in its fight against Internet pornography.

More than 60,000 Web sites were shut down and about 350 million pieces of pornographic and indecent content were eliminated from the Internet in 2010, the country's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Thursday.

Police investigated 2,197 cases involving 4,965 people suspected of disseminating pornography via the Internet or cell phone in violation of China law, according to the report. Of those suspects, 58 received jail sentences of five or more years, according to the report.

Wang Chen, head of the State Council Information Office, … Read more

Total eclipse of the moon

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Best Buy scraps its restocking fee policy

Google TV may not be ready for its closeup when the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show kicks off next month

The Privacy Bill of Rights aims to regulate companies' data collection practices

The U.K. government wants to make all pornography opt-in only

Google's PowerMeter can now track your home energy use via your home broadband if you have a PowerCost Monitor

TellMyGeo is the app version of "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

And don't miss tonight's lunar eclipse … Read more

The 404 724: Where we do it live with Russ Frushtick (podcast)

With only a few weeks left before the holidays, we're getting picky about the guest hosts while Wilson is out of town, so show veteran Russ Frushtick makes another appearance on the show and rounds up the year in video games with his top three picks for the holiday season. He also runs down his spoiler-free review of TRON: Legacy and chews some beef with Time Warner!

Forget about WikiLeaks, the FBI is apparently downplaying an internally leaked memo that warns field agents of Barbie Video Girl that features a video camera built into her necklace.

You're supposed to use it to record video from the doll's perspective and upload it to your computer, but the FBI is worried that deviants will use the technology to exploit young children. And although there haven't been any reported incidents relating to the new doll, the FBI still has no problem spreading the idea themselves.

We've all received gift cards for the holidays that we have no interest in using, but now online gift stores like Plastic Jungle, Cardpool, and Gift Card Rescue are letting consumers sell back their unused cards and buy new ones at a discount.

The amount of money you receive for a card depends on the popularity of the store, with in-demand retailers like Wal-Mart and Target going for up to 92 percent of the value. Less popular cards only get 80-85 percent, but it's still better than looking for $100 worth of merchandise to spend at Blockbuster.

Google has a new operating system called Chrome OS that will compete with Apple Mac OS and Microsoft Windows for a spot on your computer, but one of the interesting features is Cloud Print that you can use to access your home printer from any Chrome-powered smartphone or computer .

Cloud Print is a Web service, so it's easy to share printers with family and friends from anywhere in the world, and even set up private lists to block Spam. Google hopes that all devices will eventually support Cloud-based printing, and you can take it for a test-drive today by downloading Chrome at Google.com/chrome.

Much thanks to Russ Frushtick for waking up before noon to help us out on the show, and keep an ear out for another appearance on the Back to the Future Yuletide episode that will debut while we're away for the holiday!

Episode 724 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Report: NSA, Pentagon officials linked to child porn

Dozens of National Security Agency, DARPA, and other Pentagon officials purchased and downloaded child pornography over the Internet, according to a report in The Boston Globe on Friday.

The newspaper said it obtained more than 50 pages of documents revealing that the government workers identified in an internal probe included NSA contractors with top secret clearances, one of whom has fled the country and is believed to be hiding in Libya.

Another involved a person working at the supersecret National Reconnaissance Office, which operates the military's spy satellites, who was transferred to a field office and has not been … Read more

House votes to block Net porn on government PCs

A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives seemed straightforward enough: government computers must block viewing or downloading porn.

After all, a series of news reports have highlighted, in scandalous detail, how some financial regulators earning six-figure salaries were watching porn at work as Wall Street imploded. So, as it turns out, did employees of the National Science Foundation and the Interior Department--including ones who were supposed to be inspecting oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

But the exact wording of the legislation (PDF) that the House approved last week by a 239-to-182 vote could, civil libertarians … Read more

Vivid: Sony said no to PS3 porn streaming

Those looking to stream pornographic videos to their PlayStation 3 will be bummed to hear that that capability won't be coming to Sony's console. At least, that's what Vivid Video says.

Vivid, one of the world's largest pornography companies, recently approached Sony to see if the company would ink a deal allowing Vivid to stream its pornographic films to the PS3. But Sony wasn't interested, Vivid revealed in a recent interview.

"We started conversations with Sony, but they didn't lead anywhere," Vivid co-chairman Steven Hirsch told ComputerandVideogames (CVG). Hirsch revealed to CVG … Read more

Steve Jobs: If you want porn, get an Android

Pornography, like disappointment, is a hard thing to avoid.

As both production and access have become easier and cheaper, there seems an endless number of (free) opportunities to discreetly partake of the same scenes over and over again played by different actors with different surgical histories.

However, if the latest e-mail purportedly sent by Apple CEO Steve Jobs to a customer called Matthew Browning is, indeed, genuine, then Apple seems to be reaching for some moral high ground, which may or may not be virtual.

Browning wrote to Jobs because he was concerned that Apple was choosing to become something … Read more