As London returns to normal following the riots last week, the police are busy rounding up those who participated in the violence and disorder, with technology aiding in any way it can.

Sneak was particularly pleased to see one oik get his comeuppance thanks to a nifty bit of open source software installed on a Macbook Pro which was stolen from an information security worker/hacker called Greg Martin.

The hapless moron was tracked by the software from Prey Project so that once he logged on to the device with a new user account and started browsing, it was only a matter of time before swift, sweet justice was delivered.

The clincher was when he logged into Facebook, enabling Martin to see his name, location and stupid drunken photos.

Soon the boys in blue (the Met, not the Smurfs, just to be clear) were on their way to the looter's lair and before you could say "Steve Jobs" the device was returned to its owner.

Aw, Sneak loves a happy ending.

Sneak's never been invited to a party on Facebook, partly because he's only got four friends on the site, one being his mother and the other three being fellow bloggers he met at a Pets.com investors meeting in 2000 when no-one else turned up.

However, he certainly wished he lived in Hamburg on Friday after a girl accidentally invited everybody in the region to her birthday party. This meant that 15,000 invitations were sent, and 1,500 gleefully turned up to rock their socks off.

The police were there too - invited by the girl's parents when they discovered the mob heading for their door - and they had to make 11 arrests for a variety of reasons, including, most worryingly, violating explosives laws, Reuters reported.

A police spokesman, Mirko Steiber, also displayed a worrying interpretation of the word 'peaceful' in his post-party assesment.

"It was by and large a peaceful party. There were some fires set alight, some acts of violence and with considerable alcohol consumption there was some property damage," he said.

Fire, violence, property damage, violated explosive laws ... and for the Hamburg boys in blue this was a peaceful party?!

Perhaps Sneak's glad he wasn't invited, and instead sat around bemoaning that stupid £25,000 investment in an online pet boutique he made all those years ago. Still, Groupon, that looks a sure thing, right?

News that all tweets emanating from Westminser Abbey during the Royal Wedding on Friday are to be blocked by police has turned out to be false.

Yahoo News reported that "event organisers arranged for signal-blocking technology to be installed at Westminster Abbey", fearing that guests would tweet info ahead of the service.

Quite what risk an over zealous tweeter could pose is uncertain, although a more understandable concern could be the prospect of unattended mobiles going off during the service.

"HELLO? I'M IN THE ABBEY! WHAT? NO, IT'S RUBBISH." That kind of thing.

It seems this is a moot point now, though, after the Met police confirmed to our sister site The INQUIRER that the story is complete rubbish.

That aside, Ofcom has also confirmed that putting in place signal jamming technology would be illegal, so it's unlikely that such plans ever existed.

Quite where Yahoo conjured the story from is unclear, given that April Fool's Day was long ago.

Maybe the clue lies in the fact that the story was written by Yahoo's LA-based sports correspondent. We've heard the cutbacks are bad at Yahoo, but we didn't think it extended to this kind of editorial multi-tasking ...

Law enforcement agencies across the world must be thankful for Twitter and Facebook as they have helped capture some of the planet's more dim-witted villains by letting them brag of their exploits online.

Four more such criminals that won't be bothering Moriarty for notoriety anytime soon were captured this week after they updated their Facebook statuses with none-too-subtle references to their escapades, according to The Telegraph.

"I'm rich," one wrote, which must have been a shock to his followers who presumably knew him as a poor man. Another made the bizarre boast: "Wipe my teeth with hundreds." Is that how they imagine the rich live? Sneak can assure them it's not.

The timing of these updates was, well, timely, as it came just after raid on Bank of Commerce in Houston, Texas in which two men stole around £50,000.

Two other men who worked in the bank were also arrested, hinting that perhaps it was an inside job.

Perhaps one updated his status to read: "We woz robbed today ;-)," or something equally eye-brow raising for the authorities to work out the four-piece puzzle.

Facebook and Twitter seem to like their new-found role as law enforcers too. Both have blue and white motifs similar to most police forces across the world.

Criminals, take note.