Will Full Tilt Poker players left in the lurch after the Department of Justice shut the site down finally be getting their money back? It would seem that the answer is yes, but when exactly has not been determined quite yet, according to this Verge report. Back in April 2011 the Department of Justice shut the site down, alleging that Full Tilt Poker and two other gambling sites had circumvented U.S. laws by disguising payments from U.S.

A former executive from GameStop's Texas division has been sentenced to 51 months in prison for embezzling $1.7 million from the company by setting up a shell company, according to an announcement by the U.S. Attorney's Office. Frank Christopher Olivera, the now former Vice President of corporate communications and public affairs at GameStop Texas was convicted this week.

This amusing video takes something Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News about a year ago related to the government's use of drones for domestic surveillance within the borders of the United States by showing him how it could be done in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The video is the product of the fine folks at Coffee with Games (which incidentally are two of my favorite things).

Ars Technica is reporting that the anonymous source that tried to sell an alleged Microsoft "Durango" development kit via EBay claims that he has been raided by the FBI and local law enforcement. Oops, that's what happens when you try to sell something you probably shouldn't on EBay. But beyond that, he leaked information about the new system ahead of Microsoft's official announcement which is expected to happen later this year.

The United States government has weighed in on the Jammie Thomas-Rasset v. Capitol Records file-sharing case, siding with the RIAA and the recording industry and asking the U.S. Supreme Court to deny Thomas-Rasset the Writ of Certiorari she seeks. The case is the longest running file-sharing case to date, and the first to be heard by the Supreme Court (previously the Court refused to hear two cases related to file-sharing damages).

Two U.S. lawmakers have asked federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice to answer a series of questions about the prosecution of Reddit co-founder and internet activist Aaron Swartz. In a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD) want to DOJ to explain why federal prosecutors sought up to 50 years in prison and $1 million in fines for Swartz, who committed suicide prior to his trial. Swartz was arrested in 2011 for downloading 4.8 million documents from the academic archive JSTOR.

House lawmakers are criticizing federal prosecutors involved with the Aaron Swartz case, who killed himself in New York City after the U.S. Government refused to give the internet activist a plea deal. Earlier in the week the Justice Department officially dropped the case. Lawmakers blasted prosecutors for pushing aggressive hacking charges against Swartz, and vowed to look into the details of the case.

Megaupload co-founder Kim Dotcom has launched a teaser site for "Mega" at Me.ga. Dotcom says that the placeholder site is already getting millions of hits despite offering very little to visitors beyond information on how it will work when it launches. Kim Dotcom claims that Mega will use encryption methods that make it so that only those users who are uploading something know what it is. By hiding what users are uploading, Dotcom hopes to avoid the long arm of U.S. law enforcement.

A new United Nations report calls for internet surveillance in the name of fighting terrorism, reports C|Net. The report points out the lack of international agreements on the retention of data, and concerns about open Wi-Fi networks in places like airports, cafes and libraries that are likely prime spots for terrorists and cyber terrorists chatter.

Two weeks ago New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security revealed that the government had illegally spied on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. Specifically he said in his report that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) carried out illegal surveillance on Dotcom, because the agency is only allowed to carry out that kind of action against foreign targets. When the news became public, New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key apologized to Dotcom.

After the parties involved in the Megaupload case failed on multiple occasions to negotiate some way to relinquish legitimate and legal data to Megaupload users left in the lurch, a Federal judge has agreed to hold a hearing on the matter. The one caveat is that the parties involved must come up with a format and the judge has not set a definitive date. Still it's forward motion in a situation that has been stalled by trade groups like the MPAA and the U.S. government.

The battle over returning legitimate files and data stored on Megaupload's servers has hit a brick wall leaving anyone who made the mistake of storing important data there uncertain about whether they will ever get it back. Megaupload’s 1103 servers are gathering dust at Carpathia Hosting in the United States and Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken tells TorrentFreak that, despite best efforts, efforts are stalled.

At the beginning of this year as law enforcement agencies in New Zealand, the U.S., and Hong Kong worked together to shut down Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's file-sharing empire, it seized just about every asset the charismatic NZ resident owned - including all of his money. This naturally made it tough for Dotcom to pay his legal fees.

But a judgment today by the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand will give Dotcom some relief.

Twenty-year-old Raynaldo Rivera has been arrested by the FBI for his part in various cyber attacks as part of the Lulz Security hacking group. The FBI alleges that Rivera took part in hacking operations against on Sony Pictures in May and June of 2011. They further claim that he worked with Cody Kretsinger, another LulzSec member who pled guilty to hacking charges in April of this year.

The FBI is cracking down on several sites this week that it says have engaged in facilitating Android app piracy. The Department of Justice has seized and locked down the applanet.net, appbucket.net, and snappzmarket.com domains and placed a warning on the sites in question.

If the U.S. government thought they were going to skate right through the New Zealand Courts to bring Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom to America to face charges, they might have figured out that there are a few cracks in their plans.

On Monday we reported that the MPAA and the RIAA recommended to Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel that the United States government do more to combat online piracy like they did with Megaupload. Today Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom offers his two cents on the MPAA's and RIAA's recommendations and goes so far as to say that these trade groups have "corrupted the government."

When the Obama Administration's Copyright Czar Victoria Espinel sent out a request for comments on future strategies related to copyright enforcement, it came as no shock when trade groups representing the interests of the movie and music industry asked that a major P2P site be taken down.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has launched a song online attacking U.S. President Barack Obama and urging supporters not to vote for him in November. The song and video on YouTube is called "Mr President" and offers dire warnings to U.S. voters about the President such as "don't vote for those who would take us back in time."

In another line from the song he says"what about free speech Mr President, what happened to change Mr President." 

The legal team representing Megaupload (founder Kim Dotcom and others associated with the file-sharing and storage site) has submitted a response to the U.S. government’s argument that Megaupload should face prosecution in the U.S. despite not having a physical address in the country. They are accusing the Department of Justice of trying to make up their own rules to keep the criminal case alive when the case should be dismissed. Earlier this month lawyers for Megaupload asked the court to do just that because U.S.