Mozilla is responding to challenges from browser rivals Apple, Microsoft and Google by reviving private browsing mode features in Firefox.

The approach has been considered before but was sidelined in the run-up to the release of Firefox 3.0. However, the inclusion of similar privacy protecting features in Apple’s Safari and, more recently Google Chrome and IE 8 beta 2, has revived interest in the approach and spurred a decision to incorporate the technology in the first beta of Firefox 3.1, due out next month. The decision was made at a meeting of Mozilla developers on Tuesday.

Private browsing, more memorably described as ‘porn mode’, makes it easier to hide a user’s surfing from others using the same machine. A history of sites visited in this mode is not recorded and cookies are purged at the end of a session. In addition, content isn’t cached and passwords entered won’t be autosaved.

Hackers have mounted an attack on the Large Hadron Collider, raising concerns about the security of the biggest experiment in the world as it passes an important new milestone.

The scientists behind the £4.4bn atom smasher had already received threatening emails and been besieged by telephone calls from worried members of the public concerned by speculation that the machine could trigger a black hole to swallow the earth, or earthquakes and tsunamis, despite endless reassurances to the contrary from the likes of Prof Stephen Hawking.

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The message in Greek that the hackers displayed. Click to enlarge

Now it has emerged that, as the first particles were circulating in the machine near Geneva, a Greek group had hacked into the facility and displayed a page with the headline “GST: Greek Security Team.”

The people responsible signed off: “We are 2600 - dont mess with us. (sic)”

The website - cmsmon.cern.ch - can no longer be accessed by the public as a result of the attack.

Scientists working at Cern, the organisation that runs the vast smasher, were worried about what the hackers could do because they were “one step away” from the computer control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine, a vast magnet that weighs 12,500 tons, measuring around 21 metres in length and 15 metres wide/high.

If they had hacked into a second computer network, they could have turned off parts of the vast detector and, said the insider, “it is hard enough to make these things work if no one is messing with it.”

Fortunately, only one file was damaged but one of the scientists firing off emails as the CMS team fought off the hackers said it was a “scary experience”.

Scientists in Pisa, Italy claim to have set a new world record for the fastest wireless data transmission. They report that during an uninterrupted 12-hour experiment, they were able to achieve throughput speeds above 1.2 Terabits per second; which they say beats the previous wireless data transmission speed record of 160 Gigabits per second by Korean scientists. The researchers claim that speeds of this magnitude can typically only be achieved using fiber optics.

Cybercriminals are getting more and more business-like. The latest examples involve a tool that automates the creation of fake YouTube Web sites that can be used to deliver malware and password-cracking services for sale.

Panda Security said it has uncovered a tool circulating in underground hacking forums, dubbed YTFakeCreator, that enables anyone to easily create a fake YouTube page that surreptitiously installs a Trojan, virus, or adware on a visitor’s computer, said Ryan Sherstobitoff, chief corporate evangelist of Panda Security.

The tool does not spread the video link on its own. An attacker must distribute it via e-mail, FTP, IRC channels, peer-to-peer file-sharing networks or CD.

Once a visitor arrives at the page, a fake error message appears saying that the video can’t be played because an important software component, such as a codec or Flash update, is missing. The visitor is prompted to download the software and the malware is installed.