In the 1985 Robert Zemeckis film, Back to the Future, main character Marty McFly discusses a failed circuit with the Doc and says, “What do you mean, Doc, all the best stuff is made in Japan.” Apparently, some of the worst now comes from Japan as well.

Cyber crime has reached new levels in the Asian country which, according to the national police agency, set a record in 2009 with 6,690 incidents; an increase of nearly six percent over 2008. Worse yet, the number of reported cyber crimes in Japan has more than doubled since 2005.

Leading the cyber crime issue is child pornography with 507 new cases last year. While international efforts have been undertaken to put a stop to this and other abuses of children, the Japanese underground has managed to thwart the authorities. Like cyber crime in general, child pornography cases have doubled.

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His call coincides with the arrest in Spain of three of the alleged ringleaders running one of the world's biggest networks of zombie computers.

They allegedly stole credit card data, online banking passwords and account information for social networking sites from more than 12.5 million computers.

The botnet spread into some of the biggest global companies, government agencies and more than 40 major banks, including more than 100 cases of virus infection in Australia.

Professor Bill Caelli from the Queensland University of Technology's Information Security Institute says if some of the world's biggest companies cannot protect against threats like this, home computer users do not have a chance.

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Identity crime is on the rise as criminals become cyber savvy and fish around on social networking sites for personal information, experts say.

Already the cost of identity crime is put at up to $200 million a year in New Zealand. Facebook, Bebo and Twitter continue to gain popularity but having weak passwords and posting personal information make the sites easy prey for criminals.

Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff said recent reports suggested a huge increase in social networking sites being used for identity fraud.

If someone got enough personal information, including your name, address, date of birth, bank account number or employment details, they could apply for a credit card or loan in your name, she said. "Your personal information has value – don't let someone else profit from it."

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Microsoft Corp. launched a novel legal assault to take down a global network of PCs suspected of spreading spam and harmful computer code, adding what the company believes could become a potent weapon in the battle against cyber criminals.

But security experts say it isn't yet clear how effective Microsoft's approach will be, while online rights groups warn that the activities of innocent computer users could be inadvertently disrupted.

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European Union antitrust regulators are looking into complaints filed by three online companies against Google that may lead to a formal investigation into the search-engine giant's business practices. The European Commission, tasked with ensuring that companies do not abuse any dominant position in the 27-country EU, can fine firms up to 10 per cent of their revenues for violations. The commission's decade-long antitrust battle with Microsoft cost the software company at least euros 1.67 billion in fines.

One key result will be seen next month when European users are automatically offered a choice of browsers to replace Microsoft Internet Explorer.Commission officials emphasized Wednesday that its inquiry was at an early stage and that they were awaiting replies to a letter issued in the first week of February.

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The Chinese government came out swinging yesterday against allegations the cyber attacks that led Google to threaten to pull out of the world's most populous nation originated in one of China's top universities and at a little-known vocational school with suspected links to the military.

"Reports that these (attacks) came from Chinese schools are groundless, and accusations of Chinese government involvement are irresponsible and out of ulterior motives," a Foreign Affairs spokesman told reporters.

Qin Gang said China has laws against hacking that are strictly enforced.His words came as reports leaked out that Google is preparing to resume talks about its future with Beijing, which were interrupted for the lunar new year holiday.

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Forty-three per cent of the 2,100 businesses surveyed, as part of computer security firm Symantec’s ‘State of the Enterprise Security Report’, all lost confidential or proprietary data during 2009.

The report, which was published today, also found that 75 per cent of the businesses polled all experienced some type of cyber crime in the last 12 months.

Cyber crime, for the purposes of the study, was defined as offences committed via the internet, using a computer or mobile device, to disrupt a business usually for financial gain. Spam emails, fake anti-virus pop-ups and computer hacking are main ways perpetrators are infiltrating businesses’ systems to do wrong.

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has just issued an order granting google the right to buy and sell electricity. SlashGear reports that this is primarily so that Google can better buy up power for their data centers and other operations.

Google Energy is the subsidiary that will handle the energy dealing. Could you one day get your power from the same company that provides your search utility? Would that be a good thing, or a terrifying step on the road to a Google-dominated globe? Only time, and Google's seemingly unquenchable ambition, will tell.

The House or Representatives on Tuesday passed the Cyber Crimes Bill without amendments. The bill when enacted will give law enforcers greater powers to prosecute persons who hack into computer programmes with criminal intent.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding who piloted the bill in Parliament, said provisions have been made for a special committee to be established to review the cyber crimes law every three years.

In addition, he said calls from some Parliamentarians for the legal draughts-men to redefine computers in the legislation will not be heeded.

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Yahoo has finally opened a new giant data centre that will eventually become the company's biggest. The 180,000 sq ft facility was opened in a ceremony attended by Yahoo founder Jerry Yang and local politicians. The opening is just the first phase of development, with two further phases to come, meaning the centre is at less than half capacity at the moment.

Server racks in the facility will eventually house 100,000 servers, to be looked over by 50 staff. As part of the deal to build it, Yahoo has also constructed an additional data and call centre, creating another 200 jobs. A number of the internet's biggest names have recently announced or completed construction of important data centres.

Facebook revealed that it will be building its own facility in Oregon while HP will be opening a data centre in the north-east of England. More giant data centres can be expected to be built over the coming years as the popularity of cloud computing, where masses of information and services are stored centrally, becomes more popular.