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Notorious cybercrime forum Darkode, frequented by Lizard Squad and other hacking groups, has been taken offline in a coordinated international law enforcement clampdown across 20 countries.

The site has been seized by authorities, which now displays a notice of the clampdown from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in conjunction with Europol and 17 other international law enforcement agencies including the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).

Coinciding with the seizure, 28 people were and arrested on Tuesday under charges of cybercrime offences by the joint cyber operation in countries including Israel, Germany, the UK, Sweden, Denmark, India and Romania, where 16 individuals were arrested, according to reports. The action brought the total of arrests under the operation to 70 across 20 countries.

The NCA confirmed that a 26-year-old man from Coventry was arrested on Tuesday by West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit and released on bail. Police in Scotland also raided an address in Paisley. The NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit had coordinated five previous arrests in relation to the site from around the UK, including four British nationals.

Steven Laval, senior investigating officer at the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said: “Despite the exclusive nature of Darkode and the technical skills of its users, this action shows once again that we can identify and pursue those we believe are seeking to offend through an apparently secure online environment, far removed from their victims.”

It is understood that the FBI’s Pennsylvania field office led the operation, seizing the site.

Black market

Darkode’s forum has been used by cybercriminals as a black market to trade stolen data, credit card information, email addresses, hacking tools and information on bugs and vulnerabilities used to coordinate attacks on companies, agencies and governments.

Established in 2007, Darkode operated as a place to sell hacking tools. It was an invitation-only site, closed off from the outside world and hosted on so-called “bulletproof” web servers that resist law enforcement action.

Security researchers began taking an interest in 2011, leading to the site’s administrators clamping down on access. An internet relay chat server was set up, which was then used by hacking group Lizard Squad, who were responsible for a variety of cyberattacks on Sony, Microsoft, Taylor Swift and others.

According to reports in Brazil, an investigation into hackers in the country was opened in March this year by Federal Police in conjunction with the FBI, leading to the arrest of several people and seizure of the site’s equipment.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

This article was written by Samuel Gibbs from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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Amazon Studios director Roy Price thinks that “writing stuff down is the old way.”

Price, who is in charge of Amazon’s original shows like “Transparent” and “Mozart in the Jungle,” tells Hollywood Reporter that he developed those and other shows with pictures on Pinterest, instead of with words.

“I have notions for the show, but I don’t write anything down,” Price says. “Get a hundred pictures that really capture it and put them on Pinterest and you don’t have to pitch — you can just show people.”

It seems to be working: “Transparent” made history earlier this year when it won a Golden Globe for the best TV comedy and crowning Amazon as the first online streaming service ever to take home a prize. That prize prompted CEO Jeff Bezos to decalre that Amazon is also the first company to use a Golden Globe to sell toilet paper. 

The production house spent more than $100 million on original video content in Q3 of 2014 alone, a cost it justifies with the “sell more toilet paper” idea.

Amazon hopes that having a slew of great original shows will convince more people to sign up for its $99-a-year membership service, Amazon Prime. The more Prime members, the better: Subscribers spend more than double on the site than non-members do. 

Bezos told Hollywood Reporter that when Amazon Studios plans its content, he encourages the team to take risks:

One way you can think about TV is you can say, “I want to make something that millions and millions of people are going to watch.” If that’s your starting point, you paint yourself into a corner and you often end up with homogenized, uninteresting content. If you say, “Let’s hire the world’s greatest storytellers. Let’s encourage them to take risks,” then you’re going to end up with a remarkable story, and remarkable stories always find an audience.

SEE ALSO: Add this to our list of ways you didn’t know you could use Pinterest

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A Fitbit can tell you if you’re getting enough steps during the day. But it can’t warn you when the smog outside is so heavy that those steps might do more harm than good.

The Tzoa tracker, a small wearable device that can be attached to clothing and bags, wants to be the personal health you never knew you needed, giving up-to-the-minute data on air quality, light and UV ray exposure, humidity, and atmospheric pressure.

As air pollution in urban areas continues to get worse, especially in developing countries, these kinds of devices will only get more common — and more useful.

Kevin Hart, the co-founder and CEO of Tzoa, first came up with the idea while working at a hazardous waste site. His employer gave him a respirator, but Hart had no idea what he was being exposed to. 

Creating an air quality tracker that can evaluate pollution both indoors and outdoors was his way of tackling the problem and empowering those around him.

Here’s how the $100 Tzoa tracker calculates air quality: the device contains a small fan that brings in air particles, which then pass through a laser beam that measures the number of particles contained within. It can distinguish between PM2.5 particles, which are small and especially harmful to the lungs, and PM10 particles, like mold and pollen, that trigger allergies. 

An accompanying app tells users whether the air around them is dirty or clean, using personal data as well as crowdsourced information from the Tzoa community.

Hundreds of people have bought Tzoa trackers from the company’s recent Indiegogo campaign. The device goes on sale to the public in late 2015.

This isn’t the only air quality tracker out there, but Hart believes that Tzoa is unique because of the relevant data it provides. “Other indoor air quality devices exist, and they do a good job of taking VOCs, CO2, carbon monoxide, and air quality metrics, but we’re doing a bigger picture,” he says. “We’re saying, ‘Here’s an indoor environmental monitor that has the most important air quality metric: particulate matter.'”

Sometimes, too much information is a bad thing — there’s only so much you can do if the air is thick with air pollution and you have to go outside anyway, or if your rented apartment contains dangerous amounts of particles. 

But if you do have the option of taking the subway instead of walking to work, or fixing a nagging mold problem at the house, Tzoa might be worth a look.

SEE ALSO: The pollution outside your office window affects your work in a big way

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Fast food chains — dubbed Quick Service Restaurants — have started embracing apps that let customers order ahead of time and pick up in-store. In part, it’s about convenience but it’s also about helping these retailers drive revenues higher.

Recently, Taco Bell launched a mobile order-ahead app that allows customers to purchase food from the app and pick it up without waiting in line. The app has seen significant early success — with higher average order sales boosting total revenues.

In new research from BI Intelligence, we look at how fast-food chains are leveraging mobile order-ahead to attract more customers, intensify loyalty, ease payment friction, and drive additional incremental revenues. 

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Here are some of the key takeaways: 

• Quick-service restaurants are increasingly offering mobile order-ahead apps that allow consumers to make orders remotely and pick up what they’ve ordered in store. The apps offer consumers convenience and retailers the opportunity to drive higher revenues. 
• Taco Bell’s early success with its order-ahead app gives other chains a blueprint for launching these apps. Taco Bell recently launched a mobile order-ahead app that has been downloaded 2 million times in the first four months, and 3 out of 4 Taco Bell chains processed a mobile order on the app’s first day. Other chains with these apps include Pizza Hut and Chipotle.
• Mobile order-ahead can drive higher average order values. Taco Bell’s app orders are 20% higher on average compared to in-store because consumers are more likely to add toppings to their orders or send in group orders via the app.
• Other types of apps have already shown success within the food and beverage industry. Seamless/GrubHub has already had phenomenal success in the $9 billion online ordering market. And the Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts mobile in-store payments apps have proven that consumers will use their phones for brick-and-mortar purchases given attractive incentives like loyalty programs.  
• While mobile order-ahead offers a substantial opportunity to restaurants, it also comes with risks. A successful mobile order-ahead program could have a substantial impact on the dynamics of a brick-and-mortar restaurant’s operations. If order flow is not managed properly, this could create an unpleasant in-store experience and reduced sales.

In full, the report: 

• Charts out the total US sales of quick-service restaurants to quantify the mobile ordering opportunity
• Conducts a case study of Taco Bell’s mobile order-ahead app, including an analysis of its average order values on both mobile and in-store
• Provides overviews of the other QSRs venturing into mobile ordering along with its predecessors
• Identifies the risks associated with implementing a mobile ordering program

To access the full report from BI Intelligence, sign up for a 14-day trial here. Members also gain access to new in-depth reports, hundreds of charts and datasets, as well as daily newsletters on the digital industry.

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Many event organizers find that social media is a crucial component in their toolbox.

A recent infographic from event management company Maximillion shows that 75 percent of the 1,500 event organizers they surveyed said that social media is very important to their efforts.

Readers: Does social media help you draw in a crowd for an event?