legal

Some government witnesses do only what they must to help. Others do everything they can. Hector Xavier Monsegur, who was known as "Sabu" in hacking circles, was the latter.

According to unsealed court documents released yesterday and obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Monsegur was "proactively" cooperating with theFBI, helping the government agency build its cases against alleged hackers. Monsegur's work with the government became an around-the-clock job, as he stayed up all night at times coaxing alleged hackers into conversations that were recorded and eventually used against them by the FBI.

Sabu's true … Read more

Government agencies have arrested several members of hacker group LulzSec, which has claimed responsibility for attacks on Sony Pictures and Fox's "X-Factor" reality series, charging them with crimes allegedly affecting more than 1 million victims.

Five of the arrested individuals are described as "core" members of the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec, while a sixth individual, who operated under a separate group called Antisec, was also arrested, the U.S. Attorney's office said today in a statement.

The arrests have likely put hackers on alert, even as tensions rise over future attacks. While law … Read more

Twitter has finally handed over user information for an ongoing criminal investigation indirectly related to an Occupy Boston protest.

Speaking to the Boston Globe in a statement published yesterday, Twitter spokesman Matt Graves said that the company has "provided information on a single user." That user is @pOisAnON, who the police say, is associated with the name "Guido Fawkes," Graves told the Globe.

The handover ends a bitter battle between Boston law enforcement and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) over whether the information should have been shared for the investigation. Law enforcement officials have argued … Read more

Microsoft has hired a new Washington lobbyist--an FTC lawyer who has sharply criticized some of Google's acquisitions on antitrust grounds.

The software giant told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that it hired Randall Long, an official at the FTC's Bureau of Competition. When he joins the software giant at the end of the month, Long will head up Microsoft's regulatory affairs division in Washington.

Long was involved in FTC reviews of Google's acquisitions of both DoubleClick and AdMob. According to the Journal's unnamed sources, Long was especially outspoken about Google's AdMob acquisition, saying that … Read more

Who would have thought a simple slide-to-unlock gesture would be so important?

Google last week saw a patent it filed for back in 2010 published that describes a manner in which users interact with a smartphone--or PC--to unlock the device and perform at least one command. According to the patent filing, the commands can be anything from placing a phone call to opening an application.

The publication is a key step in Google acquiring the patent, since it establishes full prior art for any other patent applications that might pop up worldwide.

Unlike typical unlocking mechanisms, which bring users back … Read more

China's customs authorities were recently asked to make a choice between Apple and one of their own country's companies. They chose Apple.

In an interview posted today by Reuters, Proview Technology, which is suing Apple over its use of the iPad name, said that it was told by Chinese customs that the popularity of devices like the iPhone and iPad is enough for the country to likely keep them on store shelves, regardless of what Proview wants.

"The customs have told us that it will be difficult to implement a ban because many Chinese consumers love Apple … Read more

Paul Ceglia's efforts to claim the billions of dollars from Facebook he says he is entitled to are starting to put a dent in his bank account.

The New York man, who claims that he has a contract with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg that entitles him to half of the social-networking giant's fortunes, was ordered today to reimburse Facebook $75,766.70 in attorneys' fees related to the case. The fees, ordered by federal Magistrate Leslie G. Foschio in Buffalo, N.Y., is in addition to the $5,000 contempt sanction Ceglia was ordered to pay last month … Read more

Apple filed a new lawsuit against Motorola Mobility today, targeting the company's patent licensing agreement with Qualcomm.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of California and first reported by Reuters, takes aim at Motorola for being in breach of a licensing agreement both companies have with Qualcomm for the use of the company's wireless patents.

One of the patents mentioned in the suit (PDF) is the same one used by Motorola in its lawsuit against Apple in Germany last month. In this new filing, Apple asks the court to prohibit Motorola from making that claim in its … Read more

Google has responded to Congress, defending its decision to make a controversial change to its privacy policy.

In a 13-page letter (document) to several Congress members, Google explained its decision for changing its privacy policy, and answered a host of questions posed by the lawmakers after the search giant announced its plans.

"Last week we heard from members of Congress about Google's plans to update our privacy policies by consolidating them into a single document on March 1," Google director of public policy Pablo Chavez wrote today in a blog post accompanying the letter. "Protecting people'… Read more