As a safeguard, the FCC would also be required to protect legitimate communications by conducting tests, approving equipment and laying out specific rules about when and where signals could be blocked. As you might expect, the issue of inmates using mobile phones to conduct nefarious business has become a problem over the last few years. The House still needs to approve the bill — but it seems like a no-brainer to me. I mean, think about all the time officers would save when they don’t have to hunt for mobile phones being smuggled in by carrier pigeons, R/C helicopters and buttholes. [WSJ via Phone Scoop via CrunchGear]

Eriksson, whose story reaches Mark Sanford levels of ridiculous, is famous for crashing a rare Ferrari, escaping at least one prison sentence, possibly having a movie made about him, leading some sort of mafia in Sweden in the 1990s and making a product nobody ever wanted, ever. Referred to in his native Sweden as “Fat Stefan,” because he’s fat, Eriksson will serve 18 months in prison for his multitude of mafia and gadget-related crimes. Eriksson is a hilarious dirtbag the likes of which we rarely see in the tech world and he’ll be missed, at least theoretically, maybe. [The Local via Engadget, photo credit AP]

Prisoners at Spector’s new forced California residence are permitted certain objects, often musical instruments or personal mementos. Spector requested an iPod and a TV, though interestingly not any musical instruments; his wife says he’s not likely to want to jam with the other prisoners. We’d love to get a look at Spector’s iPod, as long as it’s away from Spector himself. The dude is more than a little creepy. [NME, thanks Brian Ashcraft!]

Michael Anderson Godwin was a murderer. He was awaiting South Carolina’s electric chair in 1989 when he decided to fix his TV set while sitting on his cell’s metal toilet. You can probably see where this is going.

Being on death row is lonely, so having a TV is important to your sanity. Godwin’s was on the fritz, so he decided to multitask by trying to fix it while using the commode.

The last stupid decision of his life was to bite down on an exposed wire in the plugged-in TV while sitting on the metal toilet. He was electrocuted instantly, making his own kind of electric chair and saving the state the trouble.

Machines Behaving Deadly: A week exploring the sometimes difficult relationship between man and technology.

Simply put, it’s a 20-pound ball attached to a shackle with a study timer that can be set for up to four hours. When the time has elapsed, the shackle will unlock. And no, this is not a concept—it actually exists. In fact, you can purchase one for around $US115. Needless to say, you might have a Study Ball of your own after Child Protective Services gets wind of this. [Curiosite via FayerWayer via Newlaunches]

Prison officials believe that the cargo in question was most likely drugs or a mobile phone, but a thorough search of the premises came up empty. Apparently, this “ghost chopper” and its payload disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived.

I’ll admit, that’s pretty ingenious—but it shouldn’t have worked. The chopper was picked up on CCTV cameras the night before, so they should have been looking for it. For their sake, I can only hope that the cargo was drugs or a mobile phone and not some sort of weapon. [Daily Mail]

At that point, it appears that Huang got herself a lawyer and demanded that Asus pay the equivalent of $US5 million US dollars in compensation. If they did not comply, she threatened to break the news of their shady support practices to the media. In March of 2006, Asus had both Huang and her lawyer arrested for extortion. Nearly a year later, she was released after the powers-that-be determined that the evidence against her was inadequate.

Now, Huang is suing Asus again—this time for defamation, selling defected products and false accusation. She has even set up a website detailing Asus’ offenses against their customers. It certainly appears that both parties are not free from blame here, so I highly doubt that she will be successful with the lawsuit. Either way, the whole situation is pretty frighting. [Danwei via Boing Boing Gadgets and Asus315]

Apparently so. Weezy’s “Tha Carter III,” Usher’s “Here I Stand” and Mariah Carey’s “E=MC2″ are all among Pack Central’s current best selling tapes. If you’re man enough to rock the new Mariah Carey on cassette in the slammer, my hat’s off to you–I only feel comfortable singling you out from the safe confines of the internet.

Anyway, CDs are apparently too easy to splinter into a shiv (for disciplining the dude who laughed at your Mariah tapes), and the company even has to remove the metal screws from their tapes before shipping them out to get by the screeners (you guys make a good point below, though–I guess the cassette shivs are not as worrisome). The guy who keeps all those 20-year-old Walkmen in operating condition must be swimming in bartered cigarettes. [NYTimes, image tapedeck.org]

Genilson Lins da Silva was arrested an thrown in prison after being sentenced to 28 years for robbery and murder. However, it appears that some of the prisons in Brazil aren’t as bad as they are made out to be considering the fact that a plasma TV, refrigerator, gym equipment, two .38-calibre pistols and $173,000 in cash was recently discovered in da Silva’s cell. The items were uncovered during a raid that was part of a statewide crackdown on drug trafficking, and they are now investigating how he managed to live the high life while being incarcerated. Uh…bribes maybe?[Star Telegram]