Tag Archives: featured

Blog, Business Law, Civil Rights, Family, International, Legal News, Supreme Court

Disney Accused of Illegally Tracking Children Via Apps in New Lawsuit

A San Francisco mom says her child was illegally tracked while using the Disney Princess Palace Pets app.

Amanda Rushing, on behalf of her child referred to as “L.L.,” is suing The Walt Disney Company, Disney Electronic Content and others in a proposed class action filed Thursday in California federal court.

Rushing claims an advertising-specific software development kit is surreptitiously embedded in the code for the app, and that’s how Disney is collecting personal information and tracking online behavior.

“App developers and their SDK-providing partners can track children’s behavior while they play online games with their mobile devices by obtaining critical pieces of data from the mobile devices, including ‘persistent identifiers,’ typically a unique number linked to a specific mobile device,” writes attorney Michael Sobol in the complaint. “These persistent identifiers allow SDK providers to detect a child’s activity across multiple apps and platforms on the internet, and across different devices, effectively providing a full chronology of the child’s actions across devices and apps. This information is then sold to various third-parties who sell targeted online advertising.”

Full Read – http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/disney-accused-illegally-tracking-children-apps-new-lawsuit-1026881

Blog, Business Law, Criminal, International, Legal News, Military Laws, Organized Crime

AlphaBay, Hansa Shut, but Drug Dealers Flock to Dark Web DreamMarket

Two of the largest online black-market sites have been shuttered in a law enforcement crackdown, but drug dealers have moved in a hurry to a third “dark net” emporium, where listings of fentanyl and heroin have already spiked, according to analysts.

The newfound popularity of DreamMarket highlights the whack-a-mole challenges of policing drugs sold online even as government officials touted the the death of the other two sites, AlphaBay and Hansa.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Justice Department announced Thursday that AlphaBay — described as a major source of fentanyl and heroin that has been linked to overdose deaths — had been seized and closed down.

“This is likely one of the most important criminal investigations of the year — taking down the largest dark net marketplace in history,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The so-called dark net is a part of the Internet that can only be accessed by specialized software or hardware and contains clandestine websites not found through normal search engines.

Alphabay and Hansa advertised drugs, chemicals, counterfeit documents, weapon and computer malware among many other items and services, cloaking users in anonymity. Authorities said AlphaBay alone was responsible for at least a billion dollars worth of commerce, using bitcoin and other crypto-currencies.

AlphaBay’s suspected founder, Alexandre Caze, was arrested earlier this month in Thailand at the request of U.S. officials. A week later he was found dead in his cell.

As soon as authorities shut down AlphaBay, sellers began migrating to other sites, according to Kela Targeted Cyber Intelligence, a Tel Aviv company that specializes in monitoring the dark net.

Full Read  – http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alphabay-hansa-shut-drug-dealers-flock-dark-web-dreammarket-n785001?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Supreme Court

O.J. SIMPSON STERN & EMOTIONAL … at Parole Board Hearing

O.J. Simpson had no problem getting tough while addressing Nevada’s Parole Board Commissioners … but he was also overcome with emotion.

The NFL Hall of Famer was granted parole by unanimous decision Thursday but not before an intense hearing that also included some chuckles from the board.

The 70-year-old NFL Hall of Famer addressed Nevada’s Board of Parole Commissioners via video conference. The earliest he can be released from Lovelock Correctional Center is October 1.

He’s served 9 years of his 33 year prison sentence.

He was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman — and many legal experts feel his 33 year sentence was payback for the controversial murder trial verdict. That event, the board said, did not factor in its decision to grant parole.

Blog, Criminal, Legal News

Las Vegas lawyer indicted for allegedly giving cellphone to inmates

By David Ferrara Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 6, 2017 – 1:46 pm

Alexis Plunkett, a Las Vegas defense lawyer charged with improperly providing a cellphone to jail inmates, was indicted Thursday on a dozen felony charges.

Plunkett, 36, has said that she is in a relationship with one of the inmates, 26-year-old Andrew Arevalo, who also was indicted, and that she used the cellphone to make calls regarding bail, which she believed she was authorized to do.

Investigators reported that they have video of Plunkett and Arevalo kissing at least three times during afternoon and late-night visits at the Clark County Detention Center in downtown Las Vegas.

Arevalo, a documented member of the Surenos gang who goes by the nickname “Silent,” has felony convictions dating to 2009.

He was shot in the face during a 2014 shooting at Nevada’s High Desert State Prison that left another man dead. With Plunkett as his attorney, Arevalo sued the Nevada Department of Corrections and others, including the former director of prisons.

Earlier this year, Arevalo was arrested after police found him with guns, body armor and meth while driving a 2004 Chevy Avalanche owned by Rogelio Estrada, whom Plunkett also represented. Investigators said Plunkett provided her cellphone to both men at the jail.

Estrada faces similar charges but was not indicted Thursday.

Neither Plunkett nor her attorney, Michael Becker, could immediately be reached for comment.

Because there are multiple defendants, prosecutors decided to take the case to a grand jury after a lack of progress in negotiations, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Jay P. Raman. Details of the negotiations have not been made public.

Asked about the allegations against Plunkett, Nevada State Bar Counsel Stan Hunterton said: “That’s pending investigation, and I cannot comment.”

Full Read – https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/las-vegas-lawyer-indicted-for-allegedly-giving-cellphone-to-inmates/

Blog, Criminal, Legal News, Organized Crime

THE MAFIA IS TEAMING UP WITH NIGERIA’S ‘VIKING’ GANGSTERS TO RUN SEX RINGS IN SICILY

Mafia members in Sicily are teaming up with a Nigerian gang that uses machetes on its enemies and only accepts degree-qualified members, to run sex rings on the Italian island.

Police sources told The Times that members of the Vikings—a gang that sprung out of Nigerian universities in the 1980s and demands that members have no criminal record—have collaborated with the local Cosa Nostra, or the Sicilian Mafia in Ballaro, a town in Sicily, and were threatening to expand into the capital Palermo.

The groups have worked together on vice rings involving Nigerian women who have been trafficked to Italy as sex workers. Nigerian women began traveling to Italy in the 1980s to work as fruit pickers but soon turned to sex work, and an estimated 30,000 have since been trafficked from the West African country to work as prostitutes in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, The Guardian reported.

Read Full – http://www.newsweek.com/mafia-nigeria-migration-sex-work-trafficking-629627