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22-03-2012 19:57 They're back. The FBI's Lulzsec promises hijinks on April Fool's Day. On Saturday, the supposed hacktivist group infiltrated -- and we can presume created -- by the US government released a YouTube video promising more mayhem. "Lulzsec will start targeting governments, corporations, agencies, and quite possibly the people watching this video. We are here for the lulz, the fame, the anarchy, and the people," the video proclaimed. Targeting "the people watching this video" -- mostly average people who have nothing to do with the government or large corporations -- appears to be the next step in an ambitious psyop designed to manufacture consensus for government regulation of the internet. Lulzsec may not get the chance, if we can believe the hype. A couple weeks ago, sister organization Anonymous (also rumored to be a government creation) said it would not just take down a few government and corporate websites, but the entire internet. It plans to do this on March 31st using something called DNS amplification. DNS, or Domain Name System, is sort of like the White Pages of the internet. It is used every time you type a website address in your browser. Anonymous plans to attack the DNS servers. Here's an in-depth explanation of how DNS works and how Anonymous supposedly plans to attack it and disable the internet. In the past, Anonymous responded to things like the Pirate Bay and Megaupload takedowns by the government and SOPA and PIPA, but has morphed into what the ...

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Anonymous Promises to Take Down The Internet: Kurt Nimmo

When Apple's new iPad went on sale this month, it effectively raised the speed limit for a new generation of Internet users. Its 4G wireless telecom technology is as much as 10 times faster than many corporate networks over which it will communicate.

That capability puts upward pressure on consumer expectations for just how fast data should move, and may well tax many existing data centers.

The higher bar is, however, good news for companies that make the gear and systems enabling corporate and telecom networks to keep pace. Those include stalwart gear makers such as Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO - News) and Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ:RVBD - News). Revenue and earnings growth for some players has been north of 20% in recent quarters.

The need for such equipment has soared as notepads and smartphones press the boundaries of broadband communications. Networking equipment a basic element of data center construction is critical for companies, including telecom carriers, attempting to manage rising tides of information being pushed through Internet pipes and wireless networks.

The move to cloud computing services which allow companies to store and access data over the Internet is also a factor, says Rohit Mehra, an analyst for technology researcher IDC.

The next five years are likely to see continued rapid expansion of large- and medium-sized data centers, Mehra says, to support cloud-type services.

"It's already quite big," he said, "but this train isn't stopping anytime soon.

The momentum helped lift the Computer-Networking group in February into the top 50 industries tracked by IBD. The group ranked No. 32 Friday, after starting the year with a No. 108 ranking.

1. Business Cisco is the group giant. The company's business reaches into all corners of computer networking ranging from Ethernet switches and routers to Web videoconferencing systems.

Another leader, Riverbed, is the top provider of wide area networks or WAN's that push data across states and continents. Polycom (NASDAQ:PLCM - News), a leading provider of unified communications, competes with Cisco in the Web videoconferencing market.

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The Internet's New Speed Limit

22-03-2012 18:46 NetChoice a coalition that includes big internet companies from Facebook to eBay released a list of the ten worst proposed internet regulations across the country. The list contains laws pertaining to everything from online dating to advertizing revenues. Check out some of our highlights. Twitter: twitter.com http://www.facebook.com

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Worst Proposed Internet laws of 2012 - Video

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Internet service providers told communications regulators on Thursday that they will do more to alert customers whose computers have been taken over by criminal hackers' robot networks, or botnets, and help them get rid of the malicious software.

Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O), CenturyLink (CTL.N) and some small Internet service providers, or ISPs, already contact customers whose computers have software surreptitiously installed so they are roped into botnets, a collection of affected computers.

A single hacker can remotely control thousands of machines, using them to send spam aimed at stealing personal or financial data.

Policymakers are eager to get industry more involved in policing botnets and preventing security problems from slowing the growth of the Internet market, worth about $8 trillion a year.

But most ISPs do not warn customers whose computers are in botnets because the effort is expensive and some customers may regard the monitoring as a violation of their privacy.

Following a firm push from the Federal Communications Commission, eight large ISPs in an industry working group told the FCC on Thursday that they would not only work to detect botnets on their networks, but would also help affected customers find resources to clean up their computers.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the working group had identified "smart, practical, voluntary solutions that are consistent with these principles, will materially improve our cybersecurity."

The companies announced two other steps on Thursday.

They also said they would implement a more secure version of the website naming system, called DNSSEC, to prevent thieves from posing as a bank, for example, by using a similar domain name to steal money from its customers.

They also pledged to take steps to ensure that Web traffic goes through the shortest and most reliable routes. The goal would be to prevent a repeat of a 2010 incident in which some 15 percent of Internet traffic was diverted through Chinese servers for about 18 minutes.

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FCC, Internet providers pledge anti-botnet effort

After hearing all that talk about Pinterest as the social network for ladies, we wondered what kind of stuff men did on the Internet, especially since we found out there's a whole male sharing culture happening on here. We've heard before that "women rule the Internet," which makes sense in a stereotypical sort of way, with all of their online shopping and, now, wedding planning. But after doing a little exploring, we found lots of men and lots of things for them to do here on this here Web. It's just a different kind of Web.

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General, overall Internet usage is split pretty evenly between our two genders, with the scale tipping slightly in favor of ladies. The most recent statistics we found via Quantcast had men making up 49 percent of web users, and women 51 percent. Once the respective gender's boot up the Internet, however, they have different habits. Women like to socialize, the conventional wisdom goes. A 2009 Pew survey found 50 percent of women had ever used social networks, compared to 42 percent of gents. And, more recent Comscore datafound ladies spend 16.3 percent of their time on social networks, compared to guys, who only devote 11.7 percent of their Internet time to that.

RELATED: What Everyone Can Learn From the BBC's New Social Media Guide

But, a closer look found men like socializing, too. Even though guys spend fewer hours Facebooking than women, the XY gender still devotes more of its Internet time social networking than any other online activity, according to that same Comscore data. They might not be pinning wedding dresses on Pinterest or uploading photos on Facebook -- women do a lot more of that than men, found Harvard research -- but they're there. Where is there, you might ask? Using Quantcastdata forTumblr,Twitterand Facebook,information from Comscore for Pinterest, and stats provided to us by Reddit and Gentlemint, we put together this gender breakdown of the social Web. We understand that "third party stats are always needing of large grains of salt," as Reddit's Erik Martin told us. But, each of the social networks declined to provide us with their own data. Using the data we could get our hands on, this is where the men are at:

RELATED: A Newbie's Guide to Pinterest

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Based on our knowledge of the general feel of these sites, having spent many hours persuing them, as well as the demographic breakdown (see chart below), we've put together a guy's guide to sharing on the Interwebs. (Gentlemint, as a brand new site, did not have this type of data available.)

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The Manliest Things on the Internet