However, one security professional did speak with TechEye under anonymity. "Hackers are far cleverer than heads of states, government bodies and companies," the source said. "No matter how much security is in place, if Anonymous wants to take you down, it will.

"Do I agree with this attack? They do have a point about privacy," the source said.

The ICO itself refused to speak beyond issuing a generic statement:

“Access to the ICO website has been disrupted over the past few days. We believe this is due to a distributed denial of service attack. The website itself has not been damaged, but people have been unable to access it. We provide a public facing website which contains no sensitive information.

 “We regret this disruption to our service; however we are pleased that our website is now available.”

It added that given the material differences between the network measured access line speed and the throughput speeds consumers were likely to receive, the Code of Practice also required that ISPs explain that the actual throughput speed received would be influenced by a number of factors.  

TalkTalk said it provided people with a link on its site that explained how it estimated speed. It also claimed that the speed checker results were based on the methodology set out in the Code of Practice, which was based on the standard distribution of access line speeds shown across their network but limited to between the 20th and 80th percentiles.  

It said it had ensured it gave consumers a clear picture with its speed checker, which "was qualified, with the prominent statement that the speed was an estimated one as well as the text "Your estimated speed range is ...", for that reason."

However, it did admit that  it could implement changes to improve the consumer experience in relation to the speed checker.

The ASA said TalkTalk didn't go far enough to explain these speeds and differences - and that the ad was misleading.

It ruled that the ad must not appear again in its current form and also told TalkTalk it must ensure its speed checker results were more clearly qualified in the future.  

It also told the company to ensure it was in a position to provide evidence to substantiate the impression that was likely to be taken from its future advertising.

Last week it was discovered that if you asked Siri what the best phone ever is, it would tell you that it was the Nokia Lumia 900.

Siri was taking information from Wolfram Alpha, which had determined that the Lumia 900 was the best smartphone by looking at customer reviews.

Now, it is nothing but the truth and the sort of thing that Apple users need to be continuously reminded of. But it was a bit of an own goal for the cargo cult which has made a name for itself by peddling sizzle and not steak.

Apple rushed to fix "the problem" and if you ask Siri what the best phone is in the world it will confirm your previous programming that you have not wasted money on your iPhone.

Asking Siri what the best smartphone is results in such answers as: "You're holding it" and "Wait... there are other phones?"

It seems that Apple has decided that rather than present information about technology in a fair and balanced way, it is simply going to use it to fling advertising at you. It is to be expected, but still.

As you might expect, Nokia was furious. A spokesperson said that Apple claimed Siri was an intelligent system that's there to help. If Apple does not like the answer they override the software. 

Byron Sonne, the so-called "G20 geek", lost his marriage when his wife Kristen Peterson ended the couple's eight-year marriage while Sonne was in jail.

Sonne is a hacker who was a big name in the cyber security industry. He was arrested on June 22, 2010, as the first high-profile detention of the chaotic G20 weekend.

According to the Star, he was charged with mischief, weapons possession and intimidating justice officials. But by the time the case reached trial, most of the charges were dropped.

It turned out that the weapon was a potato cannon and the other charges were chucked out.

Sonne was left with four counts of possessing explosive materials and one count of "counseling the commission of mischief."

According to the prosecution, Sonne had all the necessary ingredients to build a homemade bomb and was encouraging people, through social media, to disrupt the G20.

He had not assembled any explosive devices and police found neither bomb-making plans nor a detonator.

The prosecution claimed that since he had all the ingredients to build a bomb and was criticising the G20 through his Twitter and Flickr accounts he must have been planning to kill people.

Sonne admitted to having materials that could be made into an explosive, but said he hadn't combined them and hadn't intended to.

Justice Nancy Spies said that the Crown could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Sonne was guilty of any offence.

Out of all those arrested during the G20, Sonne was the least likely to be a terrorist.

The potentially explosive chemicals he possessed had household uses and others were part of his model rocketry hobby.

Sonne said he had published photos of the $9.4 million security fence, surveillance cameras and pictures of police officers.

Some of his headlines would not have endeared him to the police. They included disparaging headlines such as "bacon on wheels" and "stationary bacon".

But that is not a reason to arrest someone for being a terrorist - and opposing bail for two years.

Sonne said that his job was testing the vulnerabilities in online security systems and he could see flaws in the G20's security.

Other evidence suggested that Sonne was intentionally provoking police to test the limits of civil liberties. 

The bill, which was sponsored by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, aimed to force ISPs to hand over any data that police wanted.

It was famous for Toews telling the world and its dog that if they did not back it, they supported child pornographers.

Federal and provincial privacy commissioners strongly objected to the bill as an unjustified violation of privacy rights.

It appears that it was Toews' child pornographers comment which killed the bill as it showed the law to be just pretty nasty and silly.

According to the Globe and Mail, the government backed down, declaring the bill needed further study, and nothing happened.

House Leader Peter Van Loan decided to send C-30 to the public safety committee first, where it is supposed to be extensively revised, before returning to the House for a second and third reading.

But before it can do that, it has to be debated for at least five hours and that requires it to be booked in for a day's shouting. So far it has not turned up on the booking list.

The Conservatives could send C-30 to the public safety committee in the autumn. But it would take months to rewrite the bill, and then weeks to get it through the second and third reading, which is unlikely to happen. 

The Taiwanese company has not been doing very well lately and needs to turn around sales in what used to be its largest market.

Sadly, it looks like Apple is using its narrow victory against HTC in a patent lawsuit in December to keep the company out of the market.

HTC said in a statement that the US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a US Customs review of shipments that is required after an International Trade Commission exclusion order.

The ruling said that HTC phones with the disputed technology would be banned from entering the US from 19 April. What is frustrating for HTC is that the new phones have a work around which does not require Apple's blessing. However, the shipments still require inspection and this has delayed everything.

Some shipments of the One X model had reached the US before the ban date, enabling the model's launch, but further shipments are being delayed.

The EVO 4G LTE, which was supposed to be launched on Friday, will also be delayed.

HTC said it believes it is "in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with customs to secure approval".

Still, it is all pretty bad news for HTC which needs to see things improve fast.

Some analysts are warning that HTC's problems could get worse. It was expected that general exclusion order from the patent infringement referred only to old HTC models, but there are some indications that all models could be at risk. 

The US is good at collective fear. It was founded by those who feared Catholics, whipped up by a fear of witches, then a fear of paying tea tax. Later on there was a fear of communists, then terrorists.

Now a security study by Unisys said that more Americans want the presidential candidates to focus on protecting the government and the electrical grid against hackers than fighting terrorist groups.

The good thing about a fear of hackers is that you do not have to suffer from extreme security arrangements at airports.

The Unisys study said that more than 74 percent wanted better protection of government computer systems against hackers and criminals.

Over 73 percent thought it was better to protect the US electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against computer or terrorist attacks.

The survey, based off a random phone survey of 1,000 households in America, asked: "How important is it for a candidate to emphasise the following issues in the upcoming 2012 presidential election?" - along with a set of questions about how worried Americans were about other security threats, such as identity theft and online fraud.

Unisys did not mention how may Americans wanted to see US presidents deal with witchcraft and Catholics, so we guess the Land of the Free has evolved a bit. 

General Motors has decided Facebook's ads had little impact on consumers and it would be better off doing something else with the $40 million it spends.  Desperate Housewife in the 4.30 at Derby would seem to be a safer bet. 

Facebook, which is about to have a huge IPO, needs the announcement by GM like a hole in the head.

GM is the third-largest advertiser in the United States, and is starting to show some doubts about whether advertising on Facebook works better than traditional media.

Analysts are saying that while Facebook looks likely that it will be one of the most important ad-supported media properties, it's not certain marketers can prove it works.

GM said it will still have Facebook pages, which cost nothing to create and for which it pays no fees, to market its cars.

Ford at least is OK with Facebook. It told Reuters that it was committed to advertising on Facebook and is boosting its spending.

The company spends a fifth of its marketing budget on digital and social media.

John Battelle, chairman of the Internet advertising network Federated Media, told Reuters that Facebook needed to build relationships with major advertisers.

It might need to come up with customised advertising offerings, even though such efforts would likely be less profitable than traditional display or pay-per-click advertising. 

Talking to an insecurity conference in London yesterday, Hammond fears that somehow someone is going to develop an EMP weapon, which produces a surge of electromagnetic radiation and knock out the country's electronics.

The response to these weapons has to go beyond conventional military means, Hammond warned. We think he means prayer.

He thinks that if EMP is weaponised, the so-called "E-bomb" could generate surges in voltage and current inside electronic equipment, burning out microchips and circuitry.

It would be as bad as a natural disaster such as the 1859 Carrington Event.

He said that one of the challenges the UK faced, particularly at a time of limited resources, is to make the case for spending on defence and security solutions that cannot readily be seen by the public. Nukes of course can be seen by the public we guess.

Avi Schnurr, the chief executive officer of the US Electric Infrastructure and Security Council (EIS) and a White House adviser on the issue, told The Telegraph that the Western Powers were beginning to realise that all its "societal eggs" are in one "fragile electric basket", and it is not sufficiently protecting itself.

Because there is nothing worse than a good kick in the electric basket. However, neither Schnurr nor Hammond could say who actually would develop such a weapon or would be interested in using it.

The Chinese could cause the West to collapse in a matter of seconds. Russia has other problems and is just as vulnerable as the rest of the world. Terrorists are a long way from making an EMP bomb.

So, on the whole, we would have thought that Hammond would have some better things to worry about. 

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, it is not quite the same thing as a Dalek transmat but it is getting closer to similar technology.

It is more what the boffins call "quantum entanglement", whereby two particles act as one system despite being separate. In other words the photon transmits its quantum state to another photon, which becomes a clone of the original.

The Chinese were not really interested in getting a human from a spaceship to the surface of a planet either. What they are looking for is something which can provide instant data transfers. It is also a lot more secure because the data doesn't travel through physical space, and therefore is much harder to be hacked or intercepted. Unless it is caught by Schroedinger's cat in which case it can be expected to be tortured for hours before hiding under the sofa.

The paper published by researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai said that the research is an important step towards a global quantum network.

The engineers claim to have overcome the interference problems that have blighted the networks. They used a 1.3 watt laser to ensure the beam connecting the twin photons stayed on target.

Using this technique, the team was able to "teleport" more than 1,100 photons across a lake in China, smashing the previous record of 16km, which was set by a different group of Chinese researchers in 2010.