Author: Cyrus Farivar

An alleged British hacker who has criminal charges pending in three American federal districts is preparing to petition a Suffolk County, United Kingdom court to compel the National Crime Agency (NCA) to return his encrypted seized computers and storage devices.

The BBC reported Friday that Lauri Love “will petition Bury St Edmunds magistrates for the return of his property,” on March 12, adding that “the BBC understands that the NCA has been unable to decrypt some of the files and does not want to return the computers and media devices until Mr Love helps them to decrypt them.”

Love, who was arrested in the UK in October 2013 and was released on bail in July 2014, did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. The NCA is the rough British equivalent to the FBI.

In a significant boost for 23andMe, the Food and Drug Administration has allowed the direct-to-consumer genetics Silicon Valley startup to use its kit to test for a serious genetic disorder known as Bloom Syndrome.

In November 2013, the FDA ordered 23andMe to stop marketing and selling its kits as a way to test for genetic health information. This marks the first time the FDA has allowed for a home “carrier screening” genetic test. (Ars examined the state of direct-to-consumer genetic testing in April 2014.) Since the 2013 ban, 23andMe customers could only use the service as a way to find out more about their genealogy.

According to the National Institutes of Health, Bloom Syndrome “is an inherited disorder characterized by short stature, sun-sensitive skin changes, an increased risk of cancer, and other health problems.”

One of the largest local police departments in the American South has revised its surveillance applications to judges, making its judicial requests to use cell-site simulators much more explicit for the first time.

According to the Charlotte Observer, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) in North Carolina has “revised court papers that judges review before granting officers permission to track phones, in an effort to ‘improve the effectiveness of the process and provide greater transparency.’”

The CMPD did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment and a copy of the new applications.

Within hours of Ross Ulbricht’s conviction for having created the Silk Road underground drug website, a few users of a copycat site lamented (Tor link) the site’s demise due to what they characterized as its founder’s foolishness and lack of operational security.

Evolution, or “Evo,” as its users have dubbed it, is likely the largest still-operating successor site to Silk Road. Ars was unable to find or load discussion forums on other similar sites, like Green Road or Agora. As of this writing, Evo has more than 30,000 listings for drugs, weapons, and more.

One Evo user, writing under the handle HashishUK, said: