The Howard County Sheriff's Department in Indiana discovered that Hightower, was a big fan of some "warlock and witches game", eventually piecing together that it was World of Warcraft.

The investigating deputy contacted Blizzard to see if they would help track him down, the Kokomo Perspective reports.

"They don't have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn't," Roberson told the Perspective. "It had been three or four months since I had sent the subpoena. I just put it in the back of my mind and went on to do other things. Then I finally got a response from them. They sent me a package of information. They were very cooperative. It was nice that they were that willing to provide information."

Blizzard provided the sheriff the suspect's IP address, account information and history, his billing address, and his online screen name and preferred server. Deputies then used the information to pinpoint Hightower's location in Canada.

Hightower, who was wanted on charges of dealing in a schedule III controlled substance and dealing in a schedule IV controlled substance, and two charges of dealing in marijuana, was picked up by Canadian authorities and will be returned to Howard County on Jan. 5.

While it's good to see Blizzard helping out law enforcement, it is a touch Big Brothery to hear just how much information they track and keep and are so willing to give away... even when not legally required to do so.

Long arm of law reaches into World of Warcraft [Kokomo Perspective, thanks Tim]

The 22-year-old woman told Joliet police that she was away from her house for about 30 minutes. When she returned and opened the door to her apartment a man ran out.

"The victim's Nintendo DS was on, and it appears the suspect had been playing it," Deputy Chief Mike Trafton told the News.

The woman's bedroom was ransacked and a "pink iPod Touch" was missing. The DS, however, was left behind.

What sort of game could have been so interesting that a burglar stopped in mid loot to play it, but then decided that not only was the game not worth stealing, but neither was the DS?

Intruder plays video games [The Herald News]

Police got a search warrant for Gilliam's home in the Bronx based off tracing info gathered by Microsoft and Gilliam's ISP. Seems he snatched an Xbox 360 - see? It's not so hard to specify the console in question - around Nov. 11, then hooked it up to play an online game (unspecified, but we'll forgive 'em). Evidently the console was reported stolen, and when law enforcement went back to Microsoft to ask if that machine had connected since the burglary, lo and behold it had. I'm assuming the monthlong intermission was to make sure everything followed search warrant and subpoena procedure.

When police cuffed Gilliam, they found loot from "about 200 car larcenies and a couple of burglaries," reports LoHud.com Consoles, mobile phones, GPS devices and other electronics were found in the trove. "We recovered so much, I just didn't know where to start," Pelham police Detective Rick Deer told LoHud.

Gilliam has the proverbial longer-than-one's-arm rap sheet. He was out on parole at the time of his arrest. He's looking at felony grand larceny charges.

Police Follow Xbox Trail to Suspect, Find Loot from 200 Thefts [LoHud.com via Hot Blooded Gaming]

Authorities say a 13-year-old Scottish boy was stabbed by his 55-year-old babysitter after he refused to stop playing his Xbox (original or 360, naturally, unspecified. I'm betting the latter.) While Isobel Mackenzie says the wee lad cut himself to get her in trouble, she did her case no favors by admitting to getting drunk before the incident. A three-day trial found her guilty and ...

She was ordered to do 300 hours' community service. Now, a seven-plus work weeks picking up busted condoms by the roadside is no picnic, but for stabbing a kid, that's a wow. Over here, Lord knows what sentence she'd have drawn.

While we're on this subject, can I rant about something else? Is it a law that cop reports don't specify what console or game people are playing when stupid stuff like this happens? Not that it changes the facts of the case any, but - soapbox here - I'd argue that this persistent generic treatment is one reason games are portrayed so trivially in these types of stories.

Drunken Woman Stabbed Boy, 13, in Row Over Xbox [Scotsman.com via Gizmodo]

Shortly after opening this morning an armed man entered the store, held the employee and a customer at gunpoint while waiting for a security timer on the store's safe to expire, stole a Wii and several games then shot the clerk in the leg as he made his escape.

Thankfully the employee - who was fully cooperative during the ordeal and did not in any way resist - was not seriously hurt.

Clerk Shot During Game Stop Robbery [WFTV]

The man, from Richmond Heights, Mo., "developed a relationship in April 2008," with the girl, from Sanger, Calif., writes the Associated Press. In September he pleaded guilty to having sex with her, and was sentenced today. Somehow, he managed to elude capture by NBC's Chris Hansen (pictured) and the To Catch a Predator Team.

Federal prosecutors say Edward Stout, 27, drove almost 30 hours nonstop from Missouri to Sanger, "where he engaged in sexual activity with the girl." Good God, what kind of pharmaceuticals did he have? After 30 hours of driving, I couldn't have sex with a croissant, much less a sentient being, for the next two days.

Stout was sentenced to more than a decade behind bars and then will have to register as a sex offender once he gets out.

Mo. Video Gamer Sentenced in Sanger Teen Sex Case [Associated Press, via HBG]

In 2007, 11,074 consoles - and that's all consoles and handhelds lumped together - were reported stolen to authorities. In 2008, that number roughly doubled, to 21,732. And in 2009, it roughly doubled again, rising to 42,615.

The increase comes despite an overall decline in other property crimes, and probably has everything to do with the economic woes afflicting the US during this time period.

"Criminals are rational", criminologist Larry J. Siegel told USA Today. "They steal things that have high value, are easily transportable and easily sold. The most expensive thing in my house is my refrigerator, but nobody is trying to steal my refrigerator."

Thieves load up on electronic loot [USA Today]

She has been notified about threats on seven occasions, and police have even visited her house a number of times. Ochiai has taken time off from her blog and put off announcement about publicity events as she dealt with these threats and the stress they have caused her.

Voice Actress Yurika Ochiai Reports Murder Threats [ANN] [Pic & Pic]

Cops in Sunrise, Fla. say the the father, Emanuel Lawrence, 30, was responsible for looking after the girl while her mother was at work. Unfortunately, after finishing a marathon game session at 6 a.m. he lay her on the bed beside him, rolled over in his sleep, and bad things commenced thereafter. Authorities accuse Lawrence of taking the baby to her crib and claiming she died in her sleep there to cover up the crime.

The police report says he smoked weed the previous afternoon which, if that lasts long enough to make a man oblivious to smothering his own daughter more than 12 hours later, holy cow. But it's not like "No, really, I was just tired from playing video games," is going to make him more sympathetic.

He's looking at aggravated manslaughter charges. It's all very sad.

Sunrise Man Arrested in Daughter's Suffocation Death [Miami Herald via Hot Blooded Gaming]

Four cops in a Detroit suburb overpowered a 43-year-old man who tried to return an Xbox without a receipt and, once rebuffed, got so PO'd he threatened to kill someone.

These days, "I'm gonna kill someone," are the magic words for a bigtime police response. When the dissatisfied customer left - to get something from his vehicle he said - police answered a 911 call and did something called "active shooter response," which means getting people the f—- out of the way and putting the perp up on the f—-ing wall. Which they did. After cuffing the guy, they only found a stun gun on him, whose possession is illegal in Michigan (at least, under these circumstances it was).

Dude faces a felony for the stun gun, plus a discon misdemeanor for, I guess, raising the ruckus and requiring cops to slam him over a counter.
Armed Cops Subdue Angry Shopper Denied Refund at Oakland Mall [Detroit Free Press, thanks Paul W.]

St. Louis news service KMOX News reports that two mean armed with a handgun held up the Maplewood GameStop in Maplewood Commons at about 10:30 this morning. Nobody was hurt and the robbers took only money from the store.

I'm trying to decide if the robbers were using a strategy or not. On the one hand, it's Cyber Monday — so there won't be as many people in the store to potentially foil the robbery. But on the other hand, all the money from Black Friday is probably gone from the store and safely in GameStop's bank account... so how much could they really make off with?

Either way, that's two people getting coal in their stockings this Christmas...

Masked men rob Maplewood video store [KMOX News - thanks, Jason!]

The parents were, the police replied. Authorities then showed up at the boy's house after he hung up, and after listening to the story, told him that his parents were within their rights to take away his game console as punishment.

The police also advised the boy to listen to his parents and stop wasting tax payers money. Well, don't know about that last one — but they should've told him that, too!

Authorities do not know why the boy was being punished. Yeah, why would any parent punish a child who would question their authority and then call 911?

Buffalo Grove boy dials 911 after parents take away his Xbox video game [Chicago Tribune via Obscure Store via Gizmodo]

"Bad guys are encrypting their stuff now, so we need a methodology of hacking on that to try to break passwords," Claude E. Davenport, an agent in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Cyber Crimes Center, told Joseph D. Szydlowski of the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire. "The Playstation 3 - its processing component - is perfect for large-scale library attacks."

Here's the deal. Under the Fourth Amendment, suspects in the U.S. are not required to give up passwords they use to secure their information. But the Fourth doesn't cover cops cracking their way into hardware they lawfully seize under a search warrant. That's where the power computing comes in.

In the past, they'd use a Tableau/Dell server combination running about $1,100. Then they realized they could get the same computing power out of a PS3 for a quarter of the cost, roughly. So they throw networked consoles at the problem, to unravel the nearly 282 trillion possibilities in a six-digit password.

"You take the ability of a single person to throw a few passwords at it a minute to a few million a second," Neil Condon, vice president of Public Affairs for AccessData Corp., told SHFW. Condon's company does investigations.

Here's the funny part. While Condon said that any current-gen console is capable of the same power, the PS3 is used because you can install Linux on it. Guess they're using the old PS3 Phats. Go Phat! Go!!

Federal Officers Use Video Game Console to Catch Child Pornographers [Scripps Howard Foundation Wire (subscription required) via Hot Blooded Gaming]

Cops in Meadville, Pa. say a man went into a Gamestop there at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, informed the clerk he had armed help out the door who'd start shooting if anyone called police, and so therefore start handing over the merch. I like that style. The hell with this finger-in-the-jacket-pocket shit. Just let your imaginary friend be your accomplice.

The guy made off with 100 copies of MW2, plus some other items for a total cash-and-prizes value of $6,900.

I'm not sure what surprises me the most, the ballsiness of the robber, or the fact a GameStop still had 100 copies of this 19 hours after its midnight release.

Also, please tell me the "other items" were some refurbed PS2s with balky DVD drives. Please.

Man Steals 100 Copies Of Popular Video Game From GameStop [WPXI-TV, Pittsburgh, via Destructoid]

The Naples, Fla. teen says two guys in a white pickup truck blocked his car as he tried to enter a gated community where his friend lives. Two guys, one with an assault rifle, the other with a pistol, jumped out, drove him to his stepfather's home in another gated community to steal some jewelry. Then it was off to Walmart with stepdad's credit card.

There, the victim says one of his captors demanded he buy him a shotgun. But it being past 8:30, the gun counter was closed. So the bandits said they'd settle for a PS3 Slim, which the victim bought. They then set him free, and he went running to the law.

Yeah, there's been one arrest, and it sounds like there's surveillance footage, but let's show a little skepticism here. If this is true, two dudes just went to a hell of a lot of trouble and are facing a whale of a stay in the joint to pull off the heist of a lifetime - a PS3 - before turning loose their rich captive. Kidnapping, plus a gun crime doesn't just get pled down to loud muffler and disorderly conduct because you netted $300 in merch. Plus there's the matter of the suspect's fingerprints not being found inside the house.

That doesn't stop WBBH-TV. Be sure to watch that video. I don't know East Naples or Immokalee from Muncie, Indiana but it sounds like the reporter's reminding us both places are the H-double-O-D hood. And remember, "Jane," (if that's your real name) you're not safe anywhere, even behind rich people gates. Another shining example of local news teaching you to hate and fear your world.

Teen Accused of Kidnapping Teen at Gunpoint, Forces Him to Buy Playstation 3 [Naples Daily News via Hot Blooded Gaming]

Granted these may be Mario and Luigi lookalikes, given that the robbery and beatdown took place on Halloween night at a Great Kills, NY gas station, not in some Mushroom Kingdom borough. According to police reports, the dressed up duo assaulted and robbed the 48-year-old taxi driver after an altercation inside the cab.

A third man dressed in a tuxedo, who we'll presume was Toad in formal attire, is also being sought.

Wanted in Halloween assault: Not so Super Mario and his brother Luigi in cabbie beatdown [NY Daily News - thanks, Will & Chrismoke!]

All of them, whose names aren't being published because they were working undercover, got nastygrams and retraining. Nobody lost their job, which probably is fair. It was embarrassing as hell to the Polk County (Fla.) Drug Task Force but, despite the pleading of the kingpin's lawyer-mans, their conduct did not invalidate the search.

Caught in the blast: six detectives, a deputy, and four sergeants. The detectives got "a letter of retraining" (i.e.: Don't do that again, dammit) and "two hours of retraining." The supervising sergeants got a "letter of guidance" (i.e. Please, dammit, don't do that again) and "four hours of retraining." Retraining? Like what, how to put better spin on the Wiimote?

The Lakeland Ledger has the full story at the link.

Polk Officers Disciplined in Wii Bowling Incident [Lakeland, Fla. Ledger]

As we posted previously, announced that it and 54 software game companies were filing a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against companies that import "R4 Revolution"-type devices, using the Unfair Competition Prevention Law as the legal grounding.

According to Nintendo, such devices hurts the growth of the entire game industry and steps must be taken regarding the legality of R4 carts. It's important to note that this legal injunction is for Japan only.

Nintendo is asking for the cease of marketing, sales and importation of these Chinese-made devices. The R4 allows easy software piracy by fitting right into the DS's cartridge slot. Data is stored on a Micro SD and downloaded from websites via a flash drive, and the R4 has a small slot that the Micro SD card goes into.

In addition to the suit, Nintendo launched a website devoted to collecting information about R4 sellers. "It's getting increasingly difficult to track down R4 sellers as day by day they get more ingenious, flourishing online and complicating matters," said Nintendo in a written statement. Because of this, Nintendo is calling on the strength of the masses to eradicate the sale of these devices.

The website Nintendo has set up has an anonymous form that can be filled out. Selectable choices include retail stores, internet shops, online auctions selling R4 devices. Another choice includes "game software uploads" - or those sites or individuals making DS games available online. There's also spaces for dates and time, a box for details and another box for the shop's address or home page.

Today, Nintendo announces that the information collected by this website has been "extremely useful".

"We would like to say that the information we have collected from so many individuals has been extremely useful and offer our sincere gratitude for everyone's cooperation." Nintendo goes on to say that with the cooperation of all, the legality of this issue will be concretely resolved.

[Pic]

According to sources, Kato sent a letter of apology to one of the victims, writing, ''My crime deserves death."

The Japanese legal system does have the death penalty.

Defendant in Akihabara rampage sends letter of apology [Kyodo]

It all started with a Craigslist post, as many seedy stories these days do. Last Thursday a listing popped up for a Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundle, nearly two weeks before the eagerly anticipated game was supposed to hit store shelves. Activision hired Dallas private investigation firm IPCybercriume.com to track down the sale. A little investigative Facebook work later and the firm uncovered two men who had stolen a crate of the bundles from the back room at a video game retailer. They turned the criminals over to the store's loss prevention department, but that was only the beginning.

On the 30th of October, Activision directed IPCybercrime to an individual going by the handle cedelamo" and "cdelamo815," who had posted on an Xbox 360 ISO site requesting donations to buy one of the bundles so he could duplicate Modern Warfare 2. The investigators checked the email address used in the posts against Facebook users, which led them to a site offering console mods. From there they brokered a deal, acquired the culprit's cell phone number, and tracked him down at the address they had acquired through Facebook.

The investigators identified the culprit as 18-year-old Christian Del Amo, a modder known for selling hacked Xbox 360 hard drives filled with pirated games. IPCybercrime turned the investigation over to the Miami-Dade police department, which purchased a copy of Modern Warfare 2 from Del Amo, arrested the runner who had delivered the disc, who then led him directly to the Del Amo home, where the pirate was arrested.

"It all happened very fast," said Rob Holmes, owner of IPCybercrime. "If these guys get their stuff out, then they can do some major damage to sales and spoil it for everybody. We plug leaks every day, but this was one of the biggest ones of the year."

While the investigation didn't do much to curb the piracy already plaguing Modern Warfare 2, it is an excellent example of the lengths that publishers will go to in order to protect their property, as well as being proof that no matter how well you think you covered your tracks, they're probably not covered.

Hit up the link below for the full story.

How investigators tracked down a Modern Warfare 2 cyber pirate [VentureBeat]