Law and Order

Jules Yap (a pseudonym) created the IKEAHackers website in 2006 for the purpose of gathering together all the cool "hacks" of IKEA furniture she had seen around the Internet. The ideas range from simply adding decorations to make a piece look unique to major revamps that require "power tools and lots of ingenuity."

Yesterday, Yap told her following that she had "a bit of bad news"—IKEA's trademark lawyers sent her a "cease and desist" letter that was causing her to give up the domain name.

Russian police on Tuesday said they arrested two hackers supposedly responsible for "hijacking" Apple products via Find My iPhone, locking owners out until they pay a ransom to regain access.

According to a statement from Directorate K, the Russian Interior Ministry's cyber crime arm, the alleged hackers could face up to two years in jail if found guilty of perpetrating the hijackings, reports Re/code.

Verizon today demanded that "Netflix immediately cease and desist" its practice of telling customers that Verizon is to blame for network quality problems that affect streaming video.

This week, Netflix customer Yuri Victor tweeted a screenshot of a message he got from Netflix that said, "The Verizon network is crowded right now. Adjusting video for smoother playback..." It turns out Netflix has been providing these messages to customers of multiple ISPs for a month.

Tough new penalties for computer hackers who jeopardise national security may come into effect in Britain under measures introduced in the Queen's Speech overnight.

The UK Government wants life sentences to be imposed on hackers that sabotage computer networks and cause deadly civil unrest through cutting off food distribution, telecommunications networks or energy supplies, under a new Serious Crime Bill.

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde was arrested in Southern Sweden on Saturday, Reuters reported. Sunde was convicted of aiding copyright infringement in 2009 and was sentenced to a year in prison, plus a fine. That year of jail time was reduced to eight months, but in 2012 Sunde failed to appear at the Swedish prison where he was to be incarcerated, and he has been wanted by Interpol ever since.

 LulzSec hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur -- aka "Sabu" -- may walk out of court a free man on Tuesday.

In a memo filed this week in a US district court, prior to Monsegur's scheduled sentencing on May 27, government attorneys say that because of his "extremely valuable and productive" work as an informant for law enforcement, Monsegur should be spared a long prison term.

Do you really know how your various friends, relations, acquaintances, and hangers-on plan to use your Internet connection when they drop by and ask for "the Wi-Fi password"? Unlikely—and yet anything that they do illegally through your home network can bring cops to your door with search warrants, asking tough questions about child pornography.

Over 100 people in the United States and around the world have been charged following an international effort to crack down on the remote access malware, Blackshades.

The coordinated crackdown involved 18 countries, including Australia, Canada and the UK. According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), over 90 arrests were made and 300 searches undertaken globally. Subsequent reports indicate that more than 100 people have been charged in the crackdown.

A 16-year-old boy from Ottawa has been arrested by Canadian authorities on suspicion of making prank calls known as swatting.

Swatting is the term used for pranks in which the prankster calls emergency services with a fake story, in many cases bomb threats or hostage situations. These types of pranks are becoming more and more common.

Facebook and Zynga have defeated class-action lawsuits accusing the companies of civil wiretapping allegations connected to advertising practices.

The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals, in a joint opinion filed last week on the two lawsuits [PDF], ruled the advertising practices at issue did not involve wiretapping. The San Francisco-based appeals court, however, reinstated allegations that Facebook violated its terms of service for its users, which now number about 1.2 billion.