Police raid homes of ‘YouTube Racers’

January 3rd, 2008

‘Riders told they face having their homes raided and bikes confiscated if they post clips of speeding bikes on the web’

Riders who post clips of themselves speeding on the internet face having their homes raided and computer equipment and even motorcycles seized police have warned.

They say that are monitoring film sharing sites such as YouTube and will leave no stone unturned in the search for culprits.

The warming came after a clip emerged of a motorcyclist hitting an indicated 180mph.

The clip on the website LiveLeak.com appears to show a Kawasaki ZX-10 at 110mph over he national speed limit on a dual carriageway in Buckihghamshire. It is thought to be the most serous speeding offence ever recorded on UK roads.

The rider overtakes one car with 170mph on the clock and wheelies past others at over 140mph. It has been viewed more than 112,000 times.

The police warning came after officers raided the home of a man who posted a 176mph clip on the same site.

[…]

He denies being the rider.

He said, “I had it on a CD that was given to me with other motorcycle clips on it. After seeing clips on Liveleak.com I thought I would share it.”

His home was searched after he volunteered to cooperate with a police investigation.

[…]

South Yorkshire Police said, “As part of the investigation we traced the person who had uploaded the footage on the internet and siezed the computer for examination.”

[…]

Last year a man whose home had been searched by police over yet another clip told MCN he felt he had been treated like a peadophile or murderer.

John Parrott said police had told him to either admit to being the rider in the clip or, “We rip your house apart, seize your computer, your motorcycle, and your video camera.”

[…]

Motorcycle News

I’m not going to type any more of this article, it is SO OUTRAGEOUS it is dirtying my hands transcribing it.

The police cannot raid a person’s house because they upload a clip of someone speeding; uploaded clips do not constitute sufficient evidence that the uploader was the speeder.

Its almost as if the police are running under one set of laws and the public are running under another. Do the police have such a light caseload that they can actually spend time ‘monitoring’ YouTube and LiveLeak for speeding offences? I can scarcely believe the words as printed.

There is no speed limit in Germany. The same sort of speeds on a German road would not raise an eyebrow, but here, people are THREATENED by the police; not after being caught speeding, but because they have FILM OF MOTORCYCLES SPEEDING IN THEIR POSSESSION. It is totally absurd that there should be speed limits on any highway anyway; are German drivers better than drivers from other countries ones? Use the googles and read for yourself.

In any case, this is not about wether or not speeding is good or bad; this is about the rules of evidence, the rule of law and the police making up the law as they go along.

Here are two clips of the police doing just that; making up bespoke law on the spot to suit their mood. In that case, the cameraman knew his rights. This guy knew his rights, but was arrested anyway.

The police do an amazing job. There are countries in the world where you cannot just pick up the phone, call the police and then five minutes later they turn up to help you. They should be paid more money, and have better perks. The majority of the police are decent people, doing a hard job with an intact sense of duty. They are harassed, put in danger, sometimes killed, vilified and disrespected by all sides as thanks. What is entirely wrong is that they are used badly by the state, made to enforce laws that are at best petty and at worse completely insane. It is a waste of their time, and a part of the reason I am sure, many of them act like they are completely ga-ga.

What they should not be doing, is making things WORSE by engaging in stunts like this ‘YouTube Racer’ farce.

MAJOR UPDATE

CNN says:

China limits Internet video to state-controlled companies

HONG KONG, China (AP) — China has moved to restrict videos online, allowing only state-controlled sites to post any — including those shared by users — and requiring Internet providers to delete and report a variety of content.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the new rules would affect YouTube and other providers that host Web sites based in other countries that are accessible from China.

A spokesman for San Bruno, California-based YouTube said the restrictions “could be a cause for concern, depending on the interpretation.”

Tudou.com, which claims to be China’s largest video sharing Web site, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

The new regulations, which take effect on January 31, were approved by both the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Information Industry and were described on their Web sites Thursday.

Under the new policy, Web sites that provide video programming or allow users to upload video must have a permit and be either state-owned or state-controlled.

The majority of Internet video providers in China are private, according to an explanation of the regulations posted on Chinafilm.com, which is run by the state-run China Film Group.

Video that involves national secrets, hurts the reputation of China, disrupts social stability or promotes pornography will be banned. Providers must delete and report such content.

“Those who provide Internet video services should insist on serving the people, serve socialism … and abide by the moral code of socialism,” the rules say.

The permits are subject to renewal every three years and operators who commit “major” violations may be banned from providing online video programming for five years.

Adhering to the new rules could be daunting for YouTube, where about 10 hours of online video covering a wide range of topics is uploaded to the site every minute.

The video-sharing site, which is owned by Google Inc., already faces allegations that it should do more to block the distribution of clips that infringe on copyrights.

None of YouTube’s video-hosting computers is in China, but the government there could still block access to the site from within China.

YouTube hopes the rules won’t cut it off from the rapidly growing number of Chinese residents with Internet access, spokesman Ricardo Reyes said.

“We believe that the Chinese government fully recognizes the enormous value of online video and will not enforce the regulations in a way that could deprive the Chinese people of its benefits and potential for business and economic development, education and culture, communication, and entertainment,” Reyes said.

China ranks as the world’s second largest Internet market with a total audience of about 164 million, including people who surf the Web from public computers, according to the research firm comScore Inc.

Only the United States, with about 182 million Internet users, boasts a larger online audience.

YouTube says people around the world watch more than 200 million videos on its site each day. It declined to specify how much of its traffic comes from China.

[…]

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/03/china.internet.video.ap/index.html

I am not for or against what the Chinese do in their own country; that is their business, and good luck to them. What that country does, if it were to apply to me however, is another matter, and any government that emulates them in a country where I have interests is pure evil.

This YouTube Racer / motorcycle story is yet another sign that US/UK is desperate to move to a Chinese style of government, where they simply ban anything they do not understand, do not like, or think is a threat to their absolute power.

And today on El Reg, there is a story saying that UK wants to outlaw “Hacker Tools”:

By John Leyden
The Register
2nd January 2008

The UK government has published guidelines for the application of a law that makes it illegal to create or distribute so-called “hacking tools”.

The controversial measure is among amendments to the Computer Misuse Act included in the Police and Justice Act 2006. However, the ban along with measures to increase the maximum penalty for hacking offences to ten years and make denial of service offences clearly illegal, are still not in force and probably won’t be until May 2008 in order not to create overlap with the Serious Crime Bill, currently making its way through the House of Commons.

A revamp of the UK’s outdated computer crime laws is long overdue. However, provisions to ban the development, ownership and distribution of so-called “hacker tools” draw sharp criticism from industry. Critics point out that many of these tools are used by system administrators and security consultants quite legitimately to probe for vulnerabilities in corporate systems.

The distinctions between, for example, a password cracker and a password recovery tool, or a utility designed to run denial of service attacks and one designed to stress-test a network, are subtle. The problem is that anything from nmap through wireshark to perl can be used for both legitimate and illicit purposes, in much the same way that a hammer can be used for putting up shelving or breaking into a car.

[…]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/02/hacker_toll_ban_guidance/

This is the same inept, computer illiterate and incompetent government that lost two DVDRs of of peoples personal and sensitive data. The first image that poops into their minds when you use the word ‘web on computers’ is a TV screen with cobwebs all over it.

But I digress.

China is trying to make water run up a waterfall; once they are on the internets, and everyone has a mobile phone, there is going to come a point where viral propagation will make it impossible to stop information flowing. They might be able to execute a couple of people for being seeders or introducers, but once the idea is out, they can never get it back. Trying to control video sites like this is simply absurd, and will do nothing to stop the flow of information that will eventually topple that country’s leaders – that is the tactical error they are making, if their aim is to maximize the amount of time they are able to stay in control as a group.

As for Britain, their government is already universally despised by anyone with a single brain-cell, which is the majority of the country. They are despised precisely because of measures like the one above, and the countless other betrayals and interferences that they have initiated, Chinese style, on this beautiful island.

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