Police have arrested two men in the UK in connection with online attacks performed by LulzSec and Anonymous. The men, aged 20 and 24, were arrested yesterday by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service's Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) and are accused of conspiring to commit offences under the Computer Misuse Act of 1990. Police have searched the homes of one of the men and seized computers for further examination.

The arrests came as part of a coordinated investigation involving the FBI, South Yorkshire Police, and other law enforcement agencies around the world into the activities of Anonymous and LulzSec. Police say that these latest arrests were made in connection with offenses conducted by the "Kayla" online identity.

"Kayla," who has long claimed to be a "16 year-old girl," had a prominent role in the HBGary hacks earlier this year. Specifically, "Kayla" claimed to be responsible for the social engineering of Jussi Jaakonaho, which gave the Anonymous attackers root access to a server owned and operated by Greg Hoglund, the owner and CEO of security company HBGary.

On Tuesday this week, two men aged 17 and 22 were arrested, both 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 program or data held in a computer or to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of such data under the Criminal Law Act 1977. Another two, Christopher Weatherhead, aged 20, and Ashley Rhodes, 26, were charged with the same offense on Thursday. The four are due to have a bail hearing on 7th September. A 16-year-old male was also arrested.

The 14 people arrested in July by the FBI for conspiring to perform denial of service attacks against PayPal had their first court appearance yesterday, with "not guilty" pleas being entered for all 14. CNET reports that the court was anticipating protests and demonstrations similar to those that occurred recently in San Francisco, but they did not materialize. Anonymous has been particularly vocal in its online calls to free one of the 14, 20 year-old student Mercedes Haefer.