THE HYPOCRITICAL BULLIES from Apple not only sue Linux these days [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; they also use the private armies of Sisvel and the police. This is arguably an illegal army whose existence led to legal action over a year ago. We wrote about this in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12].

Word on the street has it that Apple, Siemens and Sisvel were all kvetching over patent infringements made by an unnamed company exhibiting at last week's show, and within an hour or so of the fuzz showing up, the whole thing was stripped and a hefty fine (€10,000) was levied. Unfortunately, the exact details of who was violating what remains clouded in mystery, but for whatever reason, we get the feeling that something extremely similar will be going down in Hannover next year. We blame KIRFers determination.

WHAT DO YOU get when you cross Apple, Siemens and Sisvel with the German police at CeBIT? Raids of course, with lots of police, lawyers, and people stripping booths clean of everything electronic.

Walking around Hall 17 at CeBIT a few hours ago, there were several German police walking hurriedly through the crowd, talking into walkie-talkies. Where police are agitated, stories are likely to be found. Sure enough, when the police got to their destination, there were about 15 more of their colleagues surrounding a 5 by 10 meter booth of a netbook and e-reader manufacturer who explicitly asked not to be identified.

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