Police in Spain say they have arrested three members of online activist gathering Anonymous, who were allegedly involved in attacking Sony’s PlayStation Network, among other targets.

According to the official Twitter account of the country’s national force, the arrests follow an alleged plot to attack Spain’s Central Electoral Board website. The force has posted a screenshot of IRC chatlogs supposedly detailing plans to attack websites including the police’s own site.

The police claim that the detainees aren’t just have-a-go script kiddies, stating that they “have the capacity to make decisions and direct attacks,” and were also involved in a recent attack on the PlayStation Network, as well as action against the governments of Egypt; Chile; Iran; Colombia and Chile, among other targets. (UPDATE: To clarify, this particular hack is believed to be one in which Anonymous-related files were found on Sony servers, not the LulzSec hack which led to the network being offline for several weeks.)

The arrests, in the cities of Barcelona, Alicante and Almeria, follow a recent declaration from NATO that Anonymous is considered a threat which would be “infiltrated” and “persecuted.” The online collective’s response warned NATO “Do not make the mistake of believing you can behead a headless snake. If you slice off one head of Hydra, ten more heads will grow in its place. If you cut down one Anon, ten more will join us purely out of anger at your trampling of dissent.”

It seems that we’re in for many more clashes between the powers that be and online activists and hackers, as the profile of such groups seems to increase with each passing week.

UPDATE: The Spanish police Twitter account has posted this image of an officer posing with one of Anonymous’ famous ‘V for Vendetta’ masks at a press conference today. It’s not clear if this was seized during the arrests or not, but he clearly looks pleased with himself.

With a new API and the promise of a move beyond the iPhone around the corner, photo sharing app Instagram‘s popularity shows no sign of waning.

As its community develops, both through the app itself and third-party apps, one thing that’s been missing until now is somewhere for beginners to get to grips with it all. A site out of Spain aims to solve that problem by becoming something of a cross between a ‘Beginner’s Guide’ and a community hub for its biggest fans.

Instagramers has been launched by Philippe Gonzalez as a side project away from his job producing apps for TV station. It’s a useful ‘first stop’ for anyone interested in everything from how users are putting hashtags to work on the photos to best practice for boosting your popularity on the service.

There are spotlights on difference photography techniques and interviews with users, as well as articles about photography-related apps. In short, it’s a love letter to Instagram squeezed into a WordPress template.

Available in English and Spanish, this is essentially a blog. However, Gonzalez wants the site be become a hub for Instagram users by helping them meet up in real life and by promoting user groups around the world.

To some, Instagram is just “That app that makes pictures look rubbish”, but to others it’s an obsession. If you’re in the latter group, it’s well worth keeping you eye on Instagramers.

File sharing just became legal in Spain, changing the rules on what is legal, and what is fair.

In a court ruling that will surely shake the Spanish and European legal scene for years to come, a Spanish judge has today declared not only that sites containing links to copyrighted information are legal, but that torrenting copyrighted information for non-profit reasons is also inside of the law.

If you think that we are in some way confused, or kidding, here is a quote from the judge in question:

“P2P networks are mere conduits for the transmission of data between Internet users, and on this basis they do not infringe rights protected by Intellectual Property laws”

It is hard to confuse what that means. Provided that the sharer of the information is not profiting (garnering any revenues whatsoever), off of the transfer, then the action is legal now in Spain according to this new precedent.

Also, the same judge has ruled that websites such as elrincondejesus are perfectly legal, as there is no law on the books saying otherwise. Put together, websites can host torrents, citizens can download them, and torrent the files legally, provided that no one is making a profit along the way.

How long will this last? Time will tell, but happily for Spanish users of Bittorrent, today they are safe.

Via our friends at TorrentFreak.

Last month we brought you newsof Finland’s intention to make broadband a legal right for its five million population.

Now Spain is following suit and from 2011, Telecom companies that are part of Spain’s “universal service” system will have to make broadband available at a “reasonable” price to everyone, including people living in rural parts of the country where it would normally be expensive to do so, Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian said in a statement on Tuesday.

Until now, the “universal service” has only guaranteed internet via telephone line, fixed telephone, directory service and telephone booths.

Consumer group FACUA said it welcomed that broadband internet would finally be a right but said the speed was insufficient and the measure should be introduced before 2011.

Never happy these consumer groups.