Jail

Geek Out

Deep Inside Prison’s Dark And Tangled Economy

5:00AM October 28, 2011 | Brent Rose

A movie-goer’s concept of prison economy is likely that it’s a cigarette-fuelled barter system. That may be part of it, but it only scratches the surface. The truth is a violent world of sex, drugs and… postage stamps? More »


Geek Out

Yes, Prisoners Carry iPhones In Their Arses

6:00AM October 27, 2011 | Brent Rose

If you think the mobile phone explosion of recent years has somehow been kept at bay by prison walls, you would be greatly mistaken. Technology, like water, permeates every crack. Today on Lockdown, we’re talking phones in jail. More »


Geek Out

The Many Insane Flavours Of Improvised Prison Weapons

11:46AM October 26, 2011 | Brent Rose

Heading to the place where a prison’s homicide evidence is kept, you might expect to see a few sharpened objects — maybe a bludgeon or two. You would be underprepared. More »


Gadgets

Technology In America’s Most Notorious Prison

8:00AM October 25, 2011 | Brent Rose

Do prison inmates surf the internet? Do they have gadgets? Do they make gadgets? Do they make weapons? Where do they get their porn and booze? More »


Geek Out

The DIY Wizards Of San Quentin Prison

4:00AM October 25, 2011 | Brent Rose

Prison Hacks are the big house’s answer to Gizmodo’s homemod. Prison is designed to be uncomfortable — it’s prison, after all. But even incarceration can’t lock up the spirit of human ingenuity. What prisoners do with extremely limited resources is incredible. More »


Geek Out

Smuggling Phones Into Prison With Toy RC Helicopter Is A Great Idea If You Don’t Crash

4:40AM September 27, 2011 | Casey Chan

We’ve seen a million and one clever ways to smuggle a mobile phone into a prison before. Hidden inside buttholes, baked into bread and even shot over with a bow and arrow but flying in a phone with a RC helicopter into the prison might be the most tech-savvy way yet. Too bad it crashed. More »


Mobile

Prisoners Don’t Like To Put iPhones Up Their Arses

8:40AM September 9, 2011 | Jesus Diaz

According to a Folsom Prison guard, the iPhone is not a very popular smuggled-in phone among convicts. It’s hard to smuggle it inside the prison because “they take too much… real estate.” More »


Online

California Booting Inmates Off Facebook

9:40AM August 10, 2011 | Sam Biddle

If there’s anything worse than being in a California state correctional facility, it’s not being able to check if you’ve been tagged in any photos lately. This dual fate of horror is now a reality for CA inmates, NBC reports. More »


News

Hackers Could Help Prisoners Escape

12:20AM August 10, 2011 | Kat Hannaford

Another scary finding from the DefCon hackers’ conference: Prisoners could escape from their jails, if hackers decided to lend a hand and hack into the prison’s security systems. More »


News

Prison Inmate Bails Himself Out Of Jail With Just A Phone

11:20PM August 1, 2011 | Kwame Opam

Well, it’s not exactly hacking your way out of prison, but it still worked. Ingenious Florida jailbird Larry Stone found a little glitch in his prison’s phone system that let him scam enough money to post bail. Oh, Florida. More »