The group known as Anonymous said Saturday it hacked into some 70 mostly rural law enforcement websites in the United States, a data breach that at least one local police chief said leaked sensitive information about an ongoing investigation.

The loose-knit international hacking collective posted a cache of data to the Internet early Saturday, including emails stolen from officers, tips which appeared to come from members of the public, credit card numbers and other information.

Anonymous said it had stolen 10 gigabytes worth of data in retaliation for arrests of its sympathizers in the U.S. and Britain.

In a statement, Anonymous said it had leaked "a massive amount of confidential information that is sure to (embarrass), discredit and incriminate police officers across the U.S." The group said it hoped the disclosures would "demonstrate the inherently corrupt nature of law enforcement using their own words" and "disrupt and sabotage their ability to communicate and terrorize communities."

FACTS & FIGURES

While there have been high-profile computer hacks in the past, 2011 seemed to have a pretty consistent string of corporate and government cyber attacks that affected Sony, the CIA, Gmail and many more. Dailytech.com

Many federal agencies like the Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), NASA and the National Security Agency (NSA) are looking to hire hackers to help find holes in government security and to even launch offensive attacks when needed.

While the United States' intelligence computers are considered generally secure, a number of high-profile cyberattacks have also hit the Pentagon and other major defense contractors.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon had said that it would consider all options if the U.S. were hit by a cyber-attack, including a military response.

Coop Norway has announced it is to stop carrying 51 gaming brands and toys previously available to customers, after the horrific events in Oslo and on Utøya, including games CoD4: Modern Warfare and World of Warcraft – titles which the perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik claims to have actively played.

According to a report in Norwegian newspaper Rogalands Avis, Geir Inge Stokke, director of Coop Norway Retail, said the retail giant is temporarily removing the games out of "consideration for those affected," by last week's murders.

"The decision to remove the games was made around the time we realized the scope of the attack," he said. "Others are better suited than us, to point to the negative effects of games like these. At the moment it's [appropriate] for us to take them down. I wouldn't be surprised if others do the same.

"We have to think very carefully about when to bring these goods back. The economy involved is of no importance."

Breivik, the man behind the attacks, mentioned in his "manifesto" time playing WoW and even went so far as to describe Modern Warfare as a "training" tool in his "plan."

Games confirmed as being removed from shelves by Gamers Globe include:

• Homefront
  
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
  
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  
• Call of Duty: World at War
  
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
  
• Sniper: Ghost Warrior
  
• Counter-Strike: Source
  
• World of Warcraft
  

Toys that "look or function as weapons" have also been removed.

The German government has been criticized at home and around Europe for failing so far to pin down the cause of the outbreak that has stricken more than 2,700 people in 12 countries. All cases have been traced back to near Hamburg in northern Germany.

About one third of E.coli patients in the latest outbreak have developed a severe complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome affecting the blood, kidneys and nervous system."The E.coli and HUS outbreak in Germany is so severe that we have to react very quickly to announce these recommendations and we still can't give the all-clear," said Health Minister Daniel Bahr, referring to warnings not to eat certain raw vegetables, such as bean sprouts but also cucumbers, tomato and lettuce.

Criticism has focused on Germany hastily blaming imported Spanish cucumbers for the outbreak -- which it later withdrew -- and the lack of conclusive evidence that German-grown bean sprouts are indeed the source. Excessive bureaucracy at federal and state level has also been blamed for slow crisis response.

Bahr said federal and regional health and food safety bodies would undertake an "immediate evaluation" of how they cooperate in what has looks like the deadliest ever outbreak of E.coli.

The Robert Koch Institute, Germany's disease control body, reported an additional 318 E.coli-related cases on Wednesday and raised the death toll by three.

"There will be new cases and unfortunately we have to expect more deaths, but the number of new infections is dropping significantly," Bahr said.

Speaking at a news conference with EU health chief John Dalli and German health officials, Bahr said that a slowdown in the number of new infections was cause for "cautious optimism."

But he conceded that the source of the outbreak may never be positively identified, as scientists have warned.

EYE OF THE STORM

Analysis of samples from restaurants, canteens and kitchens which prepared food where patients ate has failed to yield conclusive evidence for the theory that organic sprouts from a farm in the state of Lower Saxony were to blame.

Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said officials were still tracking more cases linked to the bean sprout farm, where at least one worker is known to have contracted the bacteria and had to have part of her intestine removed in surgery.

Dalli said the European Commission was convinced that the German investigation into the cause of the outbreak was heading in the right direction and defended the decision to issue health warnings on some vegetables, despite the impact on farmers.

"The advice and information reported to the public domain can stand up to rigorous scrutiny," he said, adding that only once the outbreak is over should Germany start looking at reforms to its crisis management.

"It's very different in the eye of the crisis," he said.

"EPIDEMIC POLICE?"

With the critical spotlight on the German federal system which divides responsibility for crisis response between state and central authorities, Bahr rejected calls for a national "epidemic police" and called this a "typical German" response.

"This is not the right time, at the height of the outbreak, to talk about structural (reforms)," Bahr said, adding that authorities needed to see through their current mandates.

The EU faces compensation costs of more than 150 million euros ($220 million) for farmers hit by plummeting sales of raw vegetables, after Germany first blamed cucumbers from Spain and other salad vegetables, and then German bean sprouts.

The economic damage to Europe's farming industry -- with organic producers singled out for suspicion because they use manure rather than chemical fertiliser, putting crops more at risk of contamination -- could reach half a billion euros.

A German organic producers' association said it was not enough to compensate farmers for under a third of their losses.

Dalli advised Berlin to use the experience of countries which have dealt with E.coli outbreaks before.

The United States and Japan have had similar deadly outbreaks linked to sprouts while it was a Chinese laboratory that used DNA sequencing technology to identify this E.coli outbreak as a new and "highly infectious and toxic" strain.

Credit: Christiaan Hetzner and Jon Boyle