Anonymous intercepts call between FBI and Scotland Yard discussing Anonymous

It’s the sort of gamesmanship that keeps readers turning the pages in a spy novel. The FBI says that Anonymous, the loose-knit collective of global hackers, intercepted a highly sensitive call between American cybercrime experts and their counterparts at Scotland Yard discussing, what else, Anonymous.

“The FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now,” Anonymous teased in a Twitter message.

The 15 minute recording was released … Continue Reading

Megaupload kingpin Kim Dotcom denied bail in New Zealand

Larger-than-life Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was denied bail in a New Zealand court on Wednesday morning after his hearing was delayed Monday.

Dotcom (pictured) and several other Megaupload employees were named in a 72-page indictment issued last Thursday by the Department of Justice. The indictment against Megaupload alleges it is connected to a vast criminal enterprise that has caused more than $500 million in harm to copyright owners. If convicted, the company and its executives … Continue Reading

FBI shuts down Megaupload 24 hours after Swizz Beatz revealed as CEO

Federal prosecuters have shut down popular file-sharing site Megaupload.com and charged its founders with a number of felonies, according to a statement by the Department of Justice and the FBI.

The DOJ indictment alleges that a vast criminal enterprise led by Kim Dotcom has caused more than $500 million in harm to copyright owners, while generating more than $175 million in criminal proceeds. Dotcom founded Megaupload Limited, and has vigoursly defended Megaupload as a legitimate … Continue Reading

Hitachi & LG plead guilty to price fixing, accept $21M fine

Hitachi-LG Data Storage, an entity owned by Hitachi and LG, has admitted to 15 criminal counts related to price fixing on components for consumer electronics devices.

The judge in the case sentenced the guilty parties to a $21.1 million fine.

The two companies’ joint venture has been under investigation for the past several years due to concerns about price-fixing collusion on optical disk drives — that is, drives for DVD players, CD players and Blu-ray … Continue Reading

Crimesourcing and how data criminals are like startup employees

“Organized crime is exactly that – organized,” said Marc Goodman at this week’s O’Reilly Strata conference, “especially in the field of cyber crime.”

Goodman knows a thing or two about crime. He started off as an LAPD streetcop before starting the service’s first Internet crime unit in the mid-1990s. After spending a decade working with Interpol he founded the Future Crimes Institute to track how criminals use technology.

Cybercrime is already an agile, globalised and … Continue Reading

Forget piracy, U.S. government is going after Bitcoin

Not satisfied with eliminating digital piracy from the world, two U.S. senators want to crack down on Bitcoin, an open-source digital currency.

Senators Charles Schumer and Joe Manchin are pressing officials to take action against Bitcoin, which Gawker recently claimed is being used on underground black markets to purchase illegal drugs. The senators expressed their concerns in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart, Reuters reports.

Unlike other … Continue Reading

Tennessee just made it illegal to share your Netflix account

Sharing the user name and password of any streaming media account is now considered against the law in Tennessee, according to a web entertainment theft bill signed into law yesterday by state Governor Bill Haslam.

The bill makes it a crime for anyone other than account holders to log into services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Rdio, or Rhapsody. It also empowers streaming media companies that identify illegal sharing to contact law enforcement authorities to press … Continue Reading