Police investigating alleged computer hacking charge student

Peter Gibson, a 22 year-old from Hartlepool, was arrested by officers investigating activities by hacking group 'Anonymous', the MPS said. Anonymous has been linked with distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks against companies such as eBay, Visa and PayPal.

DDOS attacks typically involve hackers using malware-infected computers to bombard a website with such large amounts of traffic that it ceases to function.

"Gibson ... has ... been charged with conspiracy to do an unauthorised act in relation to a computer, with intent to impair the operation of any computer or prevent or hinder access to any programme or data held in a computer or to impair the operation of any such programme or the reliability of such data - contrary to Sec 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977," an MPS statement said.

The Criminal Law Act states that individuals are guilty of conspiring to commit an offence if they carry out actions "in accordance with their intentions" that they had agreed with others that "will necessarily amount to or involve the commission of any offence or offences by one or more of the parties to the agreement, or would do so but for the existence of facts which render the commission of the offence or any of the offences impossible".

Under the Computer Misuse Act a person can be fined and imprisoned if they are found guilty of any unauthorised act with intent to impair the operation of any computer, prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer, impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data, or enabling those acts to be done.

Gibson is due to appear in court on 7 September, the MPS said.