Over the long weekend, the servers of the Internet TV site Revision3.com were brought down by what is called a "denial-of-service" attack (DoS)—one of the most common methods used to disrupt the operations of a Web site or server by flooding it with an overload of simultaneous connections. These attacks are not uncommon, but in a fascinating blog post written by Revision3's CEO Jim Louderback today, he reveals that the source of this particular attack was not a pimply basement hacker with a grudge, but a major anti-piracy organization called MediaDefender whose clients include all the major entertainment companies and the RIAA. The hitch? Revision3 is a perfectly legitimate business that does not deal in pirated content.

Ben Heckendorn’s game-console creations, from a portable Atari 2600 to a pocket-sized Nintendo 64, are famous in the modder world. But he may have topped himself with his Xbox 360 Elite laptop.

To shoehorn a full 360 into the 2.25-by-16-by-12-inch case and keep it playable, Heckendorn had to install fans and speakers and redo the internal layout of the machine several times. He then rewired the console to output the video to the 17-inch LCD display, on which he mounted an Xbox Live Vision camera for online multiplayer games.