Because they disabled cell phone service at four of their stations to prevent a planned protest from happening, one of the websites belonging to San Francisco’s BART transit system got hacked on Sunday, courtesy of Anonymous.

“By (cutting cell service), you have not only threatened your citizens’ safety, you have also performed an act of censorship. By doing this, you have angered Anonymous.”

The hacked website showed a page featuring the Anonymous logo above two crossed swords, all on a black background. In addition to the silly defacing, Anonymous also stole internal documents and the user database of MyBART.gov (containing the emails and phone numbers of hundreds of people), which they then posted online.

“We apologize to any citizen that has his information published, but you should go to BART and ask them why your information wasn’t secure with them. Also do not worry, probably the only information that will be abused from this database is that of BART employees.”

Indeed, taking one of the agency’s websites down for a few hours and releasing the personal information of hundreds of innocent people really made for some great justice. /sarcasm

I really, really, want to like Anonymous, but they keep doing shit like this…

If Anonymous really wanted to do something useful for society, they would have figured out a way to turn cell phone service back on after BART shut it down. That is, if they’re as smart as they claim to be. Defacing a website and leaking the personal info of its users is just plain stupid and doesn’t do anyone any good.

via CNN

Up until yesterday, everyone thought the London looters were all young people with no jobs and no hopes for a better future. But as details emerged from courtrooms, it turned out those expectations were wrong.

Many of the looters were past their twenties and most of them had decent jobs. Among the ones getting extra attention from the media are a teaching assistant, a lifeguard, a postal worker, an organic chef, a charity worker, a millionaire’s daughter and an 11-year-old boy. In addition, contrary to the expectations of many, most of the looters were white.

So what made these good people do bad deeds? This lecture by Philip Zimbardo explains some of the possible causes. Start watching from the ~11th minute if you want to skip the introduction. I know it’s a long clip, but it’s worth watching as it offers the best explanation of the situation.

This video is guaranteed to make thousands upon thousands of Portal 2 geeks orgasm in excitement.

And to make it even better, the Wheatley puppet was made by a member of the female species who is neither morbidly obese nor a psychopath.

Following the wave of riots that rocked London over the weekend, an unnamed police officer told the London Evening Standard that video game Grand Theft Auto is to blame for all of it. He probably believes video games invented the idea of riots.

These are bad people who did this. Kids out of control. When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they’re playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves.

This one’s for you, motherf**er unnamed police officer. You may not love GTA, but GTA is never gonna give you up, let you down, or desert you.