The Bloomberg article cites a “person familiar with the matter” saying that the Securities and Exchange Commission brought in the FBI because criminal acts have been alleged. The news comes a day after HP CEO Meg Whitman charged that Autonomy executives mislead HP about the company’s finances, failed to disclose key information and otherwise behaved badly.  HP said it had referred the matter to the SEC in the US and the UK’s Serious Fraud office.

Former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch has categorically denied the charges and maintains that HP is using them as a smokescreen to disguise its poor fiscal results.  Deloitte had audited Autonomy for years and HP brought in KPMG to look at the books as well. Whitman said neither set of auditors found anything until someone “pointed them in the right direction.”  Lynch left HP in a hurry last May when the company reported dismal results related to Autonomy sales.

This is just the latest in a series of embarassments for HP. When the company, under former CEO Leo Apotheker, launched what was to have been a $10.3 billion buyout of Autonomy, the universal reaction was that the price was too high. Apotheker was ousted soon after the deal was completed and replaced by Whitman.

Whitman said the two HP execs — Apotheker and former Chief Strategy Officer Shane Robison — are both gone. However, she was on HP’s board at the time as was executive director Ray Lane.

 Feature photo courtesy  of Flickr user cliff1066™

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The company is called BlueToad, and it builds mobile apps for 6,000 publishers to display their content on mobile devices like Apple’s iOS devices. CEO Paul DeHart said his company compared the file released by the hackers and found a 98 percent match to UDIDs in its own databases, according to NBC’s report. The group published 1 million device IDs, but claimed to have stolen 12 million from the FBI.

DeHart also told the NYT that the 12 million number isn’t correct, and that the theft didn’t occur in March, another claim:

‘We decided to come forward to apologize to our customers, partners and the public in general that this got out there,’ Mr. DeHart said in an interview. ‘We face thousands of attacks every day that we’ve been successful at defending. This one happened to get through.’

Mr. DeHart said his company had contacted law enforcement, as well as Apple, to alert them to the breach and had hired an outside security firm to patch its systems. He said BlueToad had ‘nowhere near’ the 12 million identification numbers that the hackers claimed to have stolen.

Anonymous last week said that part of its aim in posting the UDIDs, besides to illustrate that the FBI might be tracking Americans’ cell phones, was to demonstrate that Apple’s use of the identifiers tied to specific devices, even while anonymized, was a dangerous idea. But even while it appears the group was lying, the point reminded us of the possible privacy invasion resulting from advertisers, app makers, Apple and possibly other organizations having a number that, with a bit of additional information, can reveal the identity of a device’s owner.

Apple denied handing over the UDIDs to law enforcement, but also noted that it intends to do away with the use of UDIDs in favor of a new solution in its next major mobile software update, which should be sometime in the next few weeks.

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Here’s what Apple told AllThingsD on Wednesday about the millions of device IDs in question:

‘The FBI has not requested this information from Apple, nor have we provided it to the FBI or any organization. Additionally, with iOS 6 we introduced a new set of APIs meant to replace the use of the UDID and will soon be banning the use of UDID.’

To back up a bit: On Tuesday a group associated with Anonymous posted a file online that contained 1 million Apple UDIDs, or ID numbers assigned to 1 million iOS devices. In a long note posted with the download link to the file, the group claimed it stole a file with 12 million Apple UDIDs from the laptop of an FBI agent in March. The group says it chose to post just 1 million of those to start with.

Then, later Tuesday the FBI issued a statement that it hadn’t found any evidence to back up the hackers’ story: “At this time there is no evidence indicating that an F.B.I. laptop was compromised or that the F.B.I. either sought or obtained this data.”

Anonymous said part of the plan of releasing the list of UDIDs was to highlight the danger of letting companies and advertisers (or law enforcement) know the potential identity of whereabouts of a device and its owner.

But if Apple didn’t hand over the UDIDs and the FBI didn’t have them, where did they come from? The hacking group has some more explaining to do — which, doubtless, it will.

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This week, the Justice Department posted a regulation that will allow all copyright holders — no matter how small — to download and use the logo. According to the FBI, the initiative was spurred by groups like independent film makers and sports leagues that have been clamoring to use the image:

The new rule is remarkable in that it places few limits on who can use the logo — which is familiar to most consumers who are forced to stare at it while waiting to watch a home movie. Under modern copyright law, a work doesn’t have to be registered to receive protection — the copyright springs to life as soon the work is created. That means everything from a blockbuster movie to a doodle on a napkin is copyrighted (and now eligible for the logo).

The Justice Department and the agency acknowledge that “widespread use of the APW Seal may “dilute” the value of the image and the FBI’s message” but claim that any potential logo-fatigue will be offset by “increasing the anti-piracy message across the board.”

The new rules coincides with increasingly aggressive tactics, such as wholesale domain name seizures, by the federal government to target intellectual property theft. This approach may appeal to copyright owners who are frustrated with the failure of anti-piracy laws like SOPA, but it may also prove short-sighted in the long term.

Criminal law is a heavy stick that should not be used casually. Most copyright vi0laters are not serious criminals like those the FBI typically confronts, but are instead ordinary people hoping to watch their favorite TV show. This plan to let anyone invoke the symbol of a heavily-armed law enforcement agency could ultimately undermine the overall legitimacy of copyright law.

The plan is also notable in that the FBI has aggressively challenged Wikipedia and others over the use of its logo. Federal criminal law forbids misuse of the logo but Wikipedia has maintained the law doesn’t apply to legitimate purposes like news reporting (as we have used it above).

A final regulation will be posted in the Federal Registry on Friday, according to Politico. The plan will be implemented by Executive Order which states that copyright owners (from bloggers to doodlers) can use it provided they download it from the FBI’s website and make sure it appears in a plain box border.

Here is a copy of the draft regulation:

FBI and Copyright
(Image by John Roman Images via Shutterstock)

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The messages came from @YourAnonNews, a source popular with hackers and tech journalists for its regular updates about hacking activities. In response to news of the arrests, the site said Anonymous would continue because it was an idea not a group.

The arrests were first related in a Fox (NSDQ: NWS) News report this morning that quoted an FBI official who said law enforcement officials in the US and UK were “chopping off the head” of hacking group LulzSec. Fox and other news outlets like Wired have portrayed the arrests as significant because they were based on information supplied by the group’s reported leader, an unemployed father living in a New York City housing project.

An indictment unsealed today accuses LulzSec and Anonymous of a “deliberate campaign of online destruction, intimidation and criminality.” It cited attacks against governments and businesses that led to loss of data and the the exposure of people’s personal information online (a practice known as “doxing”).

In response, the Anonymous Twitter site said “Love all, trust few, do harm to none” and downplayed the significance of the informant and the arrests. But this afternoon, it also retweeted a message proposing a “black fax” attack on the FBI along with a link to phone and fax numbers for the agency. Black faxes are a nuisance prank that tie up fax machines and drain them of toner.

The site this afternoon also warned members to beware of another as-yet unidentified informant described in the indictment.

The activities of Anonymous have become a source of growing popular interest in the last year, and the subject of books and documentaries.

Critics of the hackers portray them as nihilistic vandals while defenders say the tactics they use, like denial-of-service attacks, are akin to sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience.

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Solyndra's rooftop is covered in its panels

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is searching Solyndra’s headquarters this morning, though it declined to say what it’s looking for, according to local media reports, including the San Jose Mercury News and NBC Bay Area. The FBI is reportedly conducting the search as part of a joint investigation by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of Inspector General.

In case you haven’t been following Solyndra, here’s the back story: Solar panel maker Solyndra, based in Fremont, Calif., filed for bankruptcy two days ago and announced a suspension of manufacturing and a layoff of 1,100 workers last week. The company is now infamous for having drawn down most of a $535 million loan from the federal government, and raising $1 billion private financing, but it wasn’t able to compete with rivals with cheaper products and more financial heft.

The Office of Inspector General is the investigative arm of the DOE and regularly audits and otherwise looks into whether the DOE is doing a good job carrying out programs and spending public money. The FBI’s involvement likely has to do with the agency’s ability to execute search warrants for a government investigation, civil or criminal. Bringing the FBI in certainly indicates a higher level of scrutiny by the DOE to determine why Solyndra didn’t accomplish the goal it set out to achieve with the government loan.

In its bankruptcy filing earlier this week, Solyndra said it wanted to look for a buyer which would be able re-start manufacturing rather than having to sell the company assets to different buyers. During a bankruptcy court hearing yesterday, the company’s chief financial officer, W.G. Stover, indicated there might be two potential bidders, Bloomberg reported.

U.S. Justice Department attorney Matthew Troy then voiced concerns that a new buyer could move the technology and equipment out of the U.S., and that would violate the terms of a federal $535 million loan secured by Solyndra to build a new factory.

NBC sent us this video footage of the interview with the FBI outside of Solyndra’s headquarters:

View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com.

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It’s no secret that Apple has seen an incredible turnaround since Steve Jobs took back the CEO chair in more than a decade ago, going from a record-low stock price of $12.75 in June 1997 to its current price around $250. Apple is doing so well, in fact, that the FBI and FTC are collectively looking into at least three anti-trust suits against it.

Is Apple Too Successful?

The FTC has announced that it is looking into allegations that Apple is engaging in anticompetitive practices in the mobile ad space. Omar Hamoui, the CEO of AdMob, a popular mobile ad platform, claimed on his blog that Apple’s new developer terms will force developers to use Apple’s new mobile advertising platform, iAd, and not competitive advertising platforms like AdMob and other offerings. Hamoui went on to say that this constitutes “an artificial [barrier] to competition [that will] hurt users and developers and, in the long run, stall technological progress.”

When reading these allegations, it’s important to remember that AdMob was recently acquired by Google, which makes Android, a mobile OS that is one of the iPhone’s primary competitors. Curiously, the accusation comes only two weeks after the AdMob acquisition was finalized, which makes Hamoui sound less like the expert in mobile advertising that he is and more like a Google mouthpiece.

The criticism is also curious considering the current competitive landscape of the mobile ad industry. For Apple to be anticompetitive, it’s necessary that it have a monopoly which it’s abusing to the detriment of the industry. That Apple even has a monopoly is a hard case to make after today’s announcement that Android-based phones have overtaken iPhones in ad clicks, and that even those two leading platforms still trail significantly to the overall leading platform in ad clicks, Symbian. And Apple doesn’t even have a monopoly over the more general mobile space, with the iPhone holding only a 28 percent market share overall. That the iPhone’s market share is still three times that of Android’s nine percent makes this accusation sound less like a legitimate concern and more like sour grapes.

This most recent announcement comes on the heels of word of two other impending antitrust investigations against Apple. In May, the DOJ and FTC mentioned two other investigations of anticompetitive behavior: one in Apple’s music download business, where it holds 70 percent market share versus Wal-Mart and Amazon’s 12 percent each; and the other over Apple’s recently-announced policy on how iPhone and iPad apps must be built.

FBI Begins Own Investigations

And if that’s not enough to keep Apple busy, the FBI is also looking into the recent bungle that exposed the email addresses of 114,000 iPad owners using a security hole on AT&T’s network. Considering the circumstances, the FBI investigation should land entirely on AT&T’s side of the fence, but the FBI is being understandably tight-lipped about its work, so for now it’s impossible to know for sure. And with the recent leak of an iPhone prototype, Apple probably already has the FBI on speed dial, especially considering the recent rumor that evidence from the case has been taken to an FBI lab. But even if this investigation doesn’t involves Apple at all, it’s still another distraction to the company.

What Will Apple Do?

It’ll be interesting to see how all these investigations play out. With all the big announcements from WWDC, Apple must have anticipated some new legal allegations from anxious competitors. And of course, Apple is no stranger to antitrust litigation, having finished its most recent bout with Psystar only last November. Since Apple has surpassed Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable technology company, there’s no question that Apple has the means to defend itself against these claims, so ultimately, Apple’s decision will boil down to whether the suits are too much of a distraction, whether it thinks it can win, and the company’s general attitude toward being sued.