A Heist Unfit for Hollywood

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,682552,00.html

Last Saturday in Berlin, a heist of epic proportions took place. Four men, a machete, a pistol, and 250,000 Euros. That's right, four dudes ran into a "big poker tournament in the center of Berlin" with a gun and a haggard machete and stole all the cash. While making off with a pile of dough, almost $340,000 in USD, these poor criminals didn't really wow their audience or portray their superb planning as well as they should have, as police at the scene described the robbery as "chaotic and amateurish." They also apparently left behind a mountain of evidence, including being filmed by many of the people attending the tournament, and one of the guys was tackled by a security guard before he could even escape. In their defense, though, the timing was very good: The whole robbery only took five minutes, and had they waited just a little bit longer, the money would have been in a safe and out of their grasp. Also, the private security who was guarding the cash was unarmed. Holding heists is harder these days with improved security measures and electronic locks and the such, so these four masterminds at least get an A for effort.

This was easily my favorite current event to read for German yet. When I imagine a heist, I imagine some grand bank with patrons in Gucci clothes withdrawing thousands of dollars, then a squad of guys in jumpsuits or uniform busting in with automatic rifles and taking the place down. These guys did it with a pistol and a freaking machete that you could probably buy at a flea market or Home Depot. If nothing else, they have my respect for scraping together enough weapons to take advantage of the security flaw on such short notice. I'm sure they will all be caught very soon though, especially if one of their buddies got tackled and arrested before they even got to the getaway car... or bike or whatever they had. And it would have been so much cooler had they dressed up like the heist in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Criminals Steal Account Numbers Using One-Cent Transfers

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,681030,00.html

In Germany (as well as America), it is common practice to simply pay bills online: you go to your bank's website, click a couple buttons, and boom, you're done. Money is taken into and out of bank accounts every moment of every day, and scammers have found a new way to exploit this convenience once again. The newest scam on German interwebs is for a scammer to take a few Euros (remember, one Euro is still 100 cents) and attempt to transfer one cent to any number of randomly-generated account numbers. Most of these generated numbers come back as nonexistent, of course, but when a transfer does manage to go through, the scammer knows he's hit a big, fat paycheck. They use the account numbers that they have acquired and start making withdrawals. Sometimes the scammer will simply wipe the account, but smarter scammers only take a little bit at a time. The online banking system does not have a checkpoint to see whether the person making the withdrawal is actually the account holder, so the responsibility of finding out if someone is sapping your account is the solely that of the account holder.

Shocking as this all is, it is my understanding that we're safe from this type of scam in the US. The way this scam works is through a loophole in a German law that passed last year, which helps money travel faster because "banks are no longer required to check if the name and account number on a transfer slip match." In short, the criminal can just make up a name and take money with little risk on their part. Fortunately for consumers, one can cancel a fraudulent transfer up to 13 months after it happens, so as long as they keep close tabs on their bank records, they will more than likely be safe. This doesn't bode so well for the average Joe (or maybe it's Josef in Germany) who doesn't religiously watch their online banking, however. Despite this not being a problem in America yet, I think the moral of the story is that we should all keep our hard-earned dough under constant surveillance, because a good scammer can find ways to steal that dough in ways we would have never thought of before.

A German Library for the 21st Century

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,676591,00.html

"So it goes, day after day, at the Munich Digitization Center of the Bavarian State Library."

This is the statement the author uses to explain a technological work of genius. What the Munich Digitization Center is aiming to do is to convert thousands of books, movies, images and audio recordings from their original form to exact digital copies, to be accessed on the internet. A machine does this for books by scanning a page, inserting a thin wedge between the next pages, then using a quick puff of air to flip the page, it repeats the process - at over 1200 pages per hour. The German company says it wants to compete with Google's service, Google Books, and accumulate sources from over 30,000 libraries across the world. The group hopes to have their service online for trial testing by 2011, where a person can find any number of artifacts pertaining to their search; for example, a search of Beethoven would produce books on Beethoven, samples of his music, images of his original handwritten sheet music, and even movies based on his life. So far, Google has digitized over 10 million books, with Munich Digitization Center at only 45,000. The MDC hope their service will extend to fragile ancient tomes and other works that Google does not offer, and plans to link the site with a public wiki and places to buy copies and tickets to events pertaining to the search as well.

I think it's very exciting to see a resource this valuable come to light. One website where you could get all of that information would make writing research papers so much easier, and no having to go to the library or buy the book or any of that crap? I would absolutely love it. That said, I had no idea Google Books even existed, so I might be looking into that for my future papers, especially if their claim at having over 10 million books is true. Also, I like the fact that they brought up the point that making digital copies of books would save a little bit of face in fires or accidents where books are ruined or lost. Countless copies of irreplaceable books have been lost throughout history, and a digital database as circular as the internet would truly help in maintaining the longevity of ancient books. In any case, I truly hope this idea comes to be, because I could definitely use the help.

The Will to Survive in a Disaster Zone

Since the disaster in Haiti, people are struggling to support themselves and their families in the face of this great adversity. Whether it's a shopkeeper gouging customers for the scarce supply of water, a looter taking whatever he can find, or a rescue officer working tirelessly trying to save and reunite other families, people are clamoring for supplies and money to help rebuild their lives. Even the upper crust of society in Haiti has been dramatically humbled; with the falling of the capital building and medicines still days off, each and every human in Haiti is bearing his or her own cross. The city is in desperate need of fuel, food, and water, and much of the city is covered in red dots which signify fallen buildings. In light of all of this, though, people are still working diligently to find survivors and relief groups are bringing in supplies as best as possible.

It's very disturbing to see an already-poor nation being crippled so mercilessly by an earthquake. For the past week I haven't heard anything but bad reports coming from Haiti, and now they're almost out of gasoline on top of all of that. It really makes you appreciate the commodities we have at this very second, and it tears my heart out that people you never hear from to begin with are being ravaged by yet another natural disaster. Fortunately, though, there are ways to help. Many churches and charities are running food drives right now, and I know you can text a number set up by the Red Cross to donate $10 to the Haitian relief fund. It's not much, but it's a start to rebuilding a city that didn't have much to begin with.

'I See a Giant Monopoly Developing That's Reminiscent of Microsoft'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,671426,00.html

This article follows an interview between Spiegel and the German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger is a conservative leader who addresses one central issue: privacy. Spiegel first asks her of her opinion on Google's rampant growth and use of technologies such as Google Earth and Google Street View, to which she replies with definite distaste. She goes on to say, "I have a hedge as a noise and visual barrier. If the images go beyond that, it will not be unproblematic, from a legal standpoint." The second issue Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger addresses is the proposed use of full-body scanners as another airport security measure. Her main concern with these is the fact that they should "no longer make the body visible, but should only image potential threat areas," and also be tested more stringently to ensure that no health risks could result from use of these full-body scanners. Overall, she agrees with the notion that airport security should be tighter, but fears Germans will be stripped of their privacy in the dawning of this new impenetrable security. Likewise, she acknowledges Google's ambition to grow and stick to their company motto of "Don't Be Evil," but fears they are quickly doing just that and attempting to monopolize the world.

I agree with many of the notions that Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger brought up, including not making sacrifices to people's humanity to ensure they won't explode something without the government's explicit permission. The world is becoming more and more like the Orwell's 1984 every year, and it should be a legitimate concern. At the same time, I feel it's silly to worry that people might look at the top of your house with Google Earth or see your front yard with Street View. As a matter of fact, I've seen images of crimes being caught clear as daylight on Google Street View, so it's definitely not all bad (www.failblog.org has a picture of a guy pointing a gun at a little kid on Google Street View). What I'm basically trying to say is that we need to have a concern for our own safety and privacy and to scrutinize every new invention to ensure it will only help in the long run, but we can't be so paranoid as to look at every street light and postbox with undying suspicion.

This Is the First Post In a Series of Many.

As I regain consciousness on the cold floor of an industrial freezer, the only thing I can collect is that I need to find an article to write about from a German news source. It is in my best interest to find an article on entertainment or technology, as to get an A in the class without reading too many asinine quotes from sissies about the environment. With this intelligence, it is my hope to compare German culture with American, to discover more about German viewpoints on popular subjects (especially politics), and to hopefully learn a few new things about Germany in general.