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UK Arrest Over Xbox Live and Playstation Network Outages
An anonymous reader writes Neowin.net is reporting the arrest of one Vincent Omari, a UK citizen [see also this Daily Mail story from a few days ago mentioning Omari], in the Christmas Day DDoS attacks on Sony's PSN and Microsoft's XBL systems: "In documents sent to Neowin, Vinnie Omari has been accused of 'hacking of the Playstation Network and Xbox Live systems over the Christmas Period'... While this is the first arrest related to the recent service disruptions, it may not be the last... In further conversations with those who are familiar with the investigation and the arrest, Omari believes that the police will not find anything of substance on his computers. His alleged crime is that he helped coordinate the DDOS attack on the service."
No, missuse of a computer system is a criminal offence. And yes, there was effectively destruction of property, and you heard of it.
You can protest outside of a business, but if you are physically stopping people from entering the building the answer is yes you can be arrested. Protesting is making your feelings known, not forcing your will on them.
iRepairIT - iPhone, Mac, & PC Repair
Well there's your problem.
Britain - and many other countries - have laws that say you can't DDoS.
The U.S. has similar laws;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
As for the hypothetical McDonald's case - they can most certainly call the cops on you and have the cops escort you away from the premises if you're actually stopping them from entering the store, and not just trying to persuade them not to. This also applies in the U.S. You can picket - but you can't block the entry. UK law is a bit more strict and you can probably easily slip into the "disturbing the peace" clause. It is the UK after all.
Whether or not you feel that you'd be made a spectacle out of is probably dependent on whether or not this would make the headlines around the world; because the arrest of this guy wasn't exactly with a pre-planned media circus to get a bunch of paparazzi try and take pictures while they shot gas grenades through the windows, busted down the doors with semi-automatics and then triumphantly led him outside with a bag over his head proclaiming "ladies and gentlemen, we got him".
Instead, they got a warrant for his arrest, they arrested him, reported on that arrest as they would any other, and oh hey look at that - he's already released on bail. Yawn.