Japan’s Most Wanted And Cyber Warfare [Sunday News]

by 11 Comments

We’re back from our winter break and at the start of 2012. Not only does this mean that I have to get used to writin 2012 instead of 2011, but it also means that our weekly news roundup is back! Here are some of the stories that caught our eyes during this past week:

A wanted poster for Aum fugitives

16-year Aum fugitive mum on life on run: One of Japan’s most wanted, a man belonging to the infamous Aum cult that carried out the deadly sarin gas attack in Tokyo, turned himself in last week, ending a nearly 20-year-long manhunt.

This leaves two more Aum fugitives on the run, although it’s unclear if they’ll ever be brought to justice. [via The Japan Times]

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Twitter's Fail Whale

Twitter meltdown as over 16,000 Tweets a second are made in Japan as people welcome New Year: We’ve already seen that the Japanese can push Twitter to the limit by breaking the record for Tweets per second during a Miyazaki movie, but they did it again at the stroke of midnight, January 1, 2012.

It’s somehow comforting to know that even in the new year, Twitter is still failing. [via The Telegraph]

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The cover for the anime Ghost in the Shell

Japan developing cyber weapon: report: While Japan’s constitution is famous for being the world’s first “pacifist” constitution, there’s apparently a a loophole for cyber warfare. The Japanese government is developing its own computer program to hunt down and neutralize cyber attacks.

Somehow, every single television show, movie, book, and video game ever made about autonomous computer programs hasn’t convinced the Japanese that this is a terrible, terrible idea. [via MSN]

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Tuna being sold at marketJapan tuna sale smashes record: Last week, a Tokyo fish market set a new record for selling a single bluefin tuna for over $700,000. For somebody who usually settles for a 50¢ can of tuna from the grocery store, I think that they might have overpaid. [via BBC]

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That wraps it up for this week in news, let me know in the comments if I might have missed any of your favorite stories from this last week!

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  • kuwagata

    700,000 US Dollars! Thats insane. Must have been a really special tuna! It’s good that fugitive turned himself in.

  • Foozlesprite

    Well, the tuna in question is “critically endangered,’ two endangerment levels from extinction.  Just like the Yangtze River Dolphin of China, which was basically eaten to extinction.  The rarer it is, the more people crave it to the point of smuggling and ridiculous prices, as the ivory trade, etc. have shown over the centuries.  That’s why it cost so frigging much…

  • http://twitter.com/Vall3y Guy Zisman

    Awesome post.

  • ジェームズ

    Definitely. My friend was actually lecturing me about this one night while we were out for sushi because I grabbed myself a tuna roll. >w<  So I can see why they paid so much, but damn. That -is- a hell of a lot of money. ._.

  • AbelSAyuri

    Oh Japan will they ever REALLY pay attention to their own shows and movies about technology and it turning on you. Now I don’t know what to prepare for first, the robots and their cyber takeover or those zombies

  • Anonymous

    So I read about the deadly sarin gas attack incident and look into it.  Apparently all the members are highly educated with medical backgrounds (takes brains to use Sarin, I know).  Just found it interesting that educated people of that level would want to harm people in the Tokyo train station.  There is more to this story than meets the eye. 

     You guys at Tofugu should do a story over it!

  • http://twitter.com/Folkmiza Izatt Folkman

    Awesome! I may be able to have my own NetNavi yet!

  • Kwok Leuih

    Hilarious article. But the question remains: How many years till we break seven digits for a tuna? 

  • http://twitter.com/emchococat emma smith

    Just cause someone is educated dos not make that person sane, or even humane in anyway…many psychopaths would be considered highly intelligent minus the crazy part of their brain. 

  • Anonymous

    I guess this line [Just found it interesting that educated people of that level would want to harm people in the Tokyo train station.]  stood out the most for you.  Aside from that comment, check out the history behind the attacks.

  • Kwok Leuih

    Wow, that is interesting indeed. I just checked out the article on Wikipedia after searching “sarin attacks wiki” on Google.  The attacks are all the more terrifying knowing that these people studied medicine, physics and artificial intelligence. Thanks, Paladin341!