A Shanghai court early Monday decided that four Rio Tinto (RTP) employees were guilty of accepting bribes and stealing state secrets.

According to reports, Australian national Stern Hu received 10 years in prison, Wang Yong received 14 years, Ge Minqiang was sentenced to eight years, and Liu Caikui was sentenced to seven years. There were also some fines for Hu associated with the charges. All four of the accused plead guilty to bribery, but argued the size of the bribes offered.

True entrepreneurs will go to any length to get their companies off the ground. And, they're known for accepting the consequences of the risks they take. Some businesses never make it to launch, never bring in a dime, never lead to that killer IPO. In even rarer cases, these adventures can put two people behind the defendants' table on charges of corporate espionage. Lan Lee, an American, and Yuefei Ge, a Chinese citizen, allegedly swiped computer chip blueprints and tried to gain Chinese government support for a startup using these illicit goods. Now, they could face up to 65 years on charges of corporate espionage.

R. Allen Stanford, accused Ponzi schemer, is about to get a new home. Following a fight at Joe Corley Detention Facility just north of Houston, Tex., a judge has ordered that he be moved to a facility in downtown Houston.

The order doesn't seem to be linked to the altercation that occurred last Thursday. Rather, it's to facilitate Stanford's meetings with his court-appointed attorney, Kent Schaffer.

Danny Pang was accused by federal regulators of defrauding investors of several hundred million dollars. The investors, however, will not realize the full extent of justice they would have preferred, as the 42-year-old financier died Saturday morning.

The police were called to Pang's home at 3:30 AM, and the financier was rushed to Hoag Hospital at Newport Beach, where he was later pronounced dead.

So far, the cause of death is unknown. Supervising Deputy Coroner Larry Eslinger has scheduled an autopsy for Sunday, though.

Albert Gonzalez is calling it quits. Accused of masterminding the largest identity theft in the United States ever, he has agreed to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. Separate charges filed in New Jersey, however, remain.

The 28 year-old faces 15 to 25 years in prison and will forfeit $1.65 million and a Miami condo (in addition to $1.1 million already seized). If the judge accepts the terms, this would be the longest sentence ever recorded for a hacking case.

The New York Times reports that former hedge fund manager and CNBC commentator Seth Tobias left quite a lurid tale before he allegedly drowned in his Jupiter, FL., pool in September. Tobias' wife has been accused of murdering her husband, while his brothers are the beneficiaries of a disputed will.

Before getting into the details, this story has a distant connection to BloggingStocks. After all, blogger and Mad Money Host Jim Cramer was Seth Tobias' boss at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). As Cramer said: "I don't understand why this hasn't ended up on CSI: Miami yet."

Here are the key details:

• Hedge fund and CNBC host. Tobias ran a $300 million hedge fund called Circle T out of offices near Palm Beach's Breaker's Hotel and was a commentator on CNBC's Kudlow & Company -- hosted by Larry Kudlow, a former cocaine addict and partner of Cramer's on CNBC who would be a good fit alongside Fox's Bill O'Reilly.
• Gay bar. Tobias was known to frequent a gay bar called Cupids in West Palm Beach where he met a go-go dancer named Tiger who "is blond and covered with tattoos that look like stripes."

MSNBC reports that General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) NBC Dateline was able to track 12 of 20 Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPods it left as bait for thieves.

About 110 million iPods have been sold since they were introduced. And people have been murdered for them. And many iPod owners have had them stolen. Moreover, as Dateline discovered, Apple could easily track the thieves and help reunite the owners with their stolen iPods. However, despite an average of five or six calls per customer service rep per day asking for help with stolen iPods, Apple has stayed out of this problem.

Dateline's Chris Hansen created a ruse to find out whether he could track stolen iPods. He left 20 lying around for thieves to steal in cities around the U.S. And when the thieves registered their stolen iPods so they could buy songs from iTunes, Hansen had them send their name, address and other contact information to Apple and Dateline. Hansen then drove to the thieves' houses in an RV to give them a fake prize. At that point he listened to their explanations of how they got their iPods, then showed them the incriminating video of them stealing the iPods.

It seems that no matter where I travel on the Internet these days, I run into another new warning about some evil Internet-borne threat that wants to invade my computer, rifle my bank records or expose my personal life in order to wreak havoc and inject trouble while accomplishing a complete withdrawal of my life savings. Thanks to a worthwhile investment in McAfee (NYSE:MFE) products, I have been safe, at least until now. But it seems that the times are changing in the arena of Internet crime. Actually, it's probably safer for me and other PC users now. We're not the desired targets any more. Now it seems that the criminals are more interested in going after the big guys. It's that old rule about deep pockets -- the more you have, the more someone else wants to get it.

Luckily enough, I came across a systems security suite that appear to have it all covered. Kaseya, McAfee and Singlefin, a St. Bernard Company (OTCBB:SBSW), have come together under the umbrella of Secure My Company, a monthly subscription service providing systems protection from the inside out. Given the fact that an emerging tactical attack on business is being mounted from the user side of business equipment, it is very important that companies monitor the dissemination of internal data to exterior destinations. Secure My Company has chosen their three focus providers to create a synergistic defense against data intrusions and theft from outside a company and from within.

Internet security is one game where you must be at least one step ahead of the competition, especially when you consider that the competition wants to bleed your funds or to just plain ruin you. We're not talking about business competition. We're talking about those individuals and organizations that operate strictly in defiance of the rules. They are criminals who will stop at nothing to gain access into what you have worked so hard to build. If you are personally in charge of your system or network security then you'd better be up to date. If someone else handles those details for you, then make sure that they're on the ball. Today's computer criminals aren't the hackers and virus writers that we've all become used to. We're dealing against a smooth, savvy and intelligent bunch. They only way they will respect you is if you demand that they will and that means keeping them locked out, for good.