Jeepers, it's irritating enough having the US government goons on your back, talking about dicing up your carefully-wrought empire, without having to endure humiliation at the hands of two small-town teenagers and their £700 (€889) PC (at least it wasn't an iMac). But yes, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has had his credit-card details hacked (apparently) by two Welsh 18-year-olds, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The two were arrested for allegedly cracking into nine ecommerce sites and stealing details of 26,000 creditcard holders. The two worked under the name Curador - Welsh for "custodian" - and posted the card details to NBCi, a Net news subsidiary of US broadcaster NBC. One of the two calls himself the "saint of ecommerce"' and said he just wanted to expose security weaknesses in many e-commerce sites.