Friday, September 2, 2011

Suspected hackers arrested in UK

Four men have been arrested in separate parts of the UK by police investigating the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec.

The suspects - from Doncaster, Warminster, Northampton and London - are being questioned by Scotland Yard's e-Crime unit.

Their arrests are part of a wider operation involving UK law enforcement and the FBI.

At the same time, 14 suspected members of Anonymous appeared in a US court.

Authorities around the world have been rounding up suspects following a wave of attacks by both groups on major corporations and government institutions.

Amazon, PayPal, the CIA, US Senate and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency have all suffered either intrusions or denial of service attacks, designed to take their websites offline.

Mass arrests

In the latest round of British arrests, police detained 20-year-old Christopher Weatherhead from Northampton and 26-year-old Ashley Rhodes from Kennington, near London.

The pair are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on 7 September.

Detectives also arrested a 24-year-old man from Doncaster, and a 20-year-old from Wiltshire for conspiring to commit offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

In the United States, a mass court appearance saw 14 suspected Anonymous members appear before a judge in San Jose, California.

All of them denied being involved in a denial of service attack on PayPal's website in December 2010.

Anonymous had publicly declared its intent to target both PayPal and Amazon for, what the group perceived as, their complicity in isolating whistle blowing website Wikileaks.

Following the leaking of confidential US State Department memos, PayPal stopped processing donations to Wikileaks, while Amazon kicked the site off its web hosting service.



Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Video games get classical concert

Final Fantasy, Angry Birds and Enemy Zero <!-- Empty - Wide embedded hyper -->

Music featured in video games ranging from Angry Birds to Mario Bros is set to feature in a classical concert.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is playing more than 20 songs as part of a music festival in the city.

Two of this year's most hotly-anticipated games series, Battlefield and Call of Duty, will also be among the play list.

By going as far back as titles like Tetris the concert is tracing the history of music in gaming.

The festival's director Andrew Missingham says music plays an essential role in the gaming experience.

He said: "Video games from Heavenly Sword to Little Big Planet are taken to the next level by music."

Having recorded music in the past for blockbuster films like The Lord of the Rings trilogy the orchestra might be more suited to Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda.

Tongue-in-cheek

Andrew Skeet was asked to compose the concert for the LPO.

"I was recording, by coincidence, a score for a film based on a video game called Ghost Recon when I got a call from the London Philharmonic," he revealed.

"I thought, 'We've got to go a little bit on the nostalgia front but also find the best bits of music.'

"The slightly darker ones like Advent Rising, it's quite romantic but dark romantic, so I like that.

"I love the ones to work on that are a bit different to the originals because they're a bit more fun.

"But then I loved doing Tetris and Angry Birds because they're completely new versions and a little bit tongue-in-cheek."

The full list of video games included in the concert is:

  • Advent Rising
  • Elder Scrolls
  • CoD Main Menu Theme
  • CoD Modern War 2: Theme
  • Legend of Zelda
  • Mario Bros Theme
  • Little Big Planet
  • Splinter Cell
  • Battlefield 3
  • Final Fantasy
  • Metal Gear Solid
  • Dead Space
  • Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
  • World of Warcraft
  • Halo 3
  • Blood Stone 007
  • Grand Theft Auto
  • Bioshock
  • Mass Effect
  • Fallout 3
  • Tetris
  • Super Mario
  • Angry Birds
  • Enemy Zero

Follow our technology reporter Dan Whitworth on Twitter



Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Schmidt rates Jobs as &#39;best&#39; CEO

Steve Jobs was "probably the best" company boss in 50 or 100 years, said Google chairman Eric Schmidt.

Mr Schmidt, a former Apple board member, handed down the praise in an interview at a technology conference.

He said Mr Jobs deserved the praise because he built Apple into a powerful corporation not once, but twice.

The assessment puts Mr Jobs ahead of other American industry giants such as oil magnate John D Rockefeller and car maker Henry Ford.

Ongoing health problems forced Steve Jobs to resign as Apple chief executive on 24 August. He continues to serve as the company's chairman.

World leader

The resignation ended a 15 year stint at the head of Apple which saw Mr Jobs turn it into the most valuable company in the US by stock market valuation, ahead of oil giant Exxon.

Mr Jobs' first term as head of Apple lasted from the late 1970s when the company was founded until 1985. During that time he drove Apple to become a significant force in the home computer industry.

He resigned after losing a boardroom battle over the future of the company.

In 1997, Steve Jobs returned as CEO and launched the iMac range of personal computers.

Since then he has introduced the iPod, iPad and iPhone, all of which have redefined their respective markets, as well as making huge amounts of money for Apple.

Mr Schmidt made his comments during an on-stage interview at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference.



Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials