• SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Last Update on March 11, 2010 03:14 EST

IN THE NEWS: A CASE OF THE .XXX

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- A virtual red-light district for the Internet -- a good thing or a bad thing? A global Internet oversight agency is taking up the discussion again. There's been talk recently about setting up a ".xxx" domain name for those who want to view porn online. Those in favor of the idea say that can let those who like such material have a place to seek it -- while keeping children and teens from doing the same. Opponents say it opens the way to legitimize porn sites. The idea has been rejected three times since 2000. But the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is likely to take up the issue again when it meets this week in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

IN THE NEWS: BOTNET MAY NOT HAVE BEEN CONQUERED

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- It's said nature abhors a vacuum. And apparently so do botnets. The takedown of an Internet provider that helped spread a chunk of malware was thought to have cut off criminals from millions of PCs under their control. But the victory seems to be short-lived. Less than a day after the service was unplugged from the Internet, security researchers say it's back on line. And now that it's up and running again, criminals are reconnecting with their hijacked machines. Cisco Systems says as many as 25 percent of the world's computers infected with the "ZeuS" malware were unavailable to controllers because of the takedown. The malware is mostly used to swipe online banking usernames and passwords.

ON THE WEB: MSN GETS ANOTHER MAKEOVER

CYBERSPACE (AP) -- MSN has seen more makeovers and facelifts than an aging Hollywood starlet. And it's getting another one. Microsoft is rolling out the new design for its MSN Web portal. Gone are the blue background and the blocks of text links. Instead the site has more white space -- and fewer categories to flip through. The goal for Microsoft is to get more Web surfers using its Bing search engine. Microsoft lags behind Google and Yahoo in the search engine world.

On the 'Net:

MSN site: http://www.msn.com