The head of of the GCHQ believes that distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks could be eliminated completely if internet service providers (ISPs) were to completely rewrite their software and its code.

The technical director of GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre, Ian Levy, is already preparing to engage in talks with ISPs, such as BT, over how they could be the key to ending DDoS attacks. After the cyber attacks that occurred as a result of the Mirai malware were made public, GCHQ made it a priority to prevent further attacks that could be launched using the same measures.

A new cybersecurity law has been passed in China which will give the country even more control over the Internet and will require foreign companies to store their data locally.

The National People's Congress Standing Committee passed the new law on Monday, causing a great deal of concern amongst human rights groups and foreign businesses. China already limits access to the Internet through its own online security system known in the west as "the Great Firewall" but this new cybersecurity law will allow the country to further censor and control the internet.

Black Friday is just around the corner, and while shoppers may be looking forward to making big savings the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has issued a warning to online retailers about price-fixing.

The consumer body has not revealed which retailers it has written to, but it says that "a number of online companies" have received letters. It's part of a campaign to make it clear to companies selling online that "discussing and agreeing price levels with competitors is illegal, and can result in serious penalties".

Tesco Bank has taken the extraordinary measure of temporarily halting online transactions after thousands of customers experienced criminal activity in their accounts over the weekend. The move also means that customers are unable to use contactless payments.

Customers were alerted over the weekend via text message after suspicious activity was noticed in numerous accounts. Some have found that hundreds of pounds have gone missing from their accounts, but it is not clear whether the problem stems from a direct hack of Tesco Bank, or if a retailer suffered a security breach.

Having recently said that it will show different search results to mobile and desktop users, Google now has another search related announcement. Reacting to the fact that most searches are conducted from mobile devices, search results will be ranked according to sites' mobile content.

Google says that it has "begun experiments to make [its] index mobile-first", and it's a move that essentially says that mobile searchers are more important than the rest. In light of the recent splitting of mobile and desktop indexing, the announcement is hardly a bolt out of the blue, but it's still something that many site owners will need to take action about.

A couple of months after joining forces with Pinterest, Instapaper has announced that the premium version of its web bookmarking and syncing service is now completely free of charge.

Ditching the subscription fee does not mean that users will be inundated with ads, however. The company says that it is now far better financed, and can therefore afford to deliver an ad-free experience to everyone.

Online advertising is a divisive issue, and one that sees many people turning to ad blockers to improve their online experience. The biggest name in the business is Adblock Plus which has come under fire in recent months for its Acceptable Ads program that allows certain ads to be whitelisted.

The company behind Adblock Plus, Eyeo, today published an extraordinary blog post in which it attacks "crazy accusations" made about it and its program. Introduced in the format of an election-style fact checker, the post from Ben Williams drips with barely disguised fury at what are described as "slants, spins and downright lies".

It was supposed to be a feature that allowed more efficient versions of websites to be delivered to people running out of battery power.

But the Battery Status API built into Firefox was also found to be problematic from a privacy point of view after it was discovered that visitors' battery levels could be used to track them online. In response to this the API is being pulled from Firefox.

Facebook, it is said -- much like Big Brother -- is watching you. Privacy groups have long warned about the potential for information shared on the social network to be misused, and now an insurance company is planning to make use of the status updates customers post to determine the type of drivers they are.

The controversial move finds Admiral Insurance using an algorithm to analyze the posts of new drivers in a bid to determine the type of people they are. By linking 'likes', writing style and other factors, Admiral believes the system -- called firstcarquote -- can be used to accurately assess how safe a driver someone is.

With the tagline "the science is clear, the future is not", the climate change documentary Before The Flood wears its heart on its sleeve. With Martin Scorsese as executive producer, and featuring none other than Leonardo DiCaprio, the film paints a bleak picture of man's effect on the environment.

Before The Flood was produced by the National Geographic Channel, and received a cinema release on October 21. But the documentary is seen as being so important, it is also being made available to stream for free to bring it to as wide an audience as possible.

It's that time of year again when the pumpkins are glowing, the kids are out trick or treating, and things start to go bump in the night. To celebrate Halloween 2016, Google has launched a new game as today's doodle.

You're invited to go ghostbusting. You must help your feline companion to defeat ghouls and ghost with a little spellcasting -- with a doodly twist, of course.

There is just over a week to go until the most important US election in living memory is over. On 8 November voters will hit booths to indicate their preference for Trump, Clinton, or one of the various independents. Facebook is getting in on the action, looking to let users know about the candidates and to encourage voting.

While the new Facebook feature lets you vote for candidates by favoriting them on the new site, the social network is quick to point out that this is not online voting -- votes placed on the site will not count towards the election proper. So what’s the point?

Twitter's decision to shut down Vine disappointed many people, but there was some reassurance that while it is not going to be possible to create any more Vines, existing ones will be saved on the website for the foreseeable future.

Recognizing the potential for things to change, GIPHY has announced that it is actively developing a tool that will make it possible to further safeguard the future of your favorite Vines. The animated GIF company is working on a tool that will convert Vines into GIFs. "Long live the loop!" exclaims the company.

Hillary Clinton may have thought the dust had settled and she was on the home straight to defeating Trump, but the ugly matter of her emails has reared its head again. Today the FBI announces that it is reopening its probe of the presidential candidate, citing the discovery of further emails "that appear pertinent to the investigation".

The emails in question were discovered during an unrelated investigation. No details of what this investigation relates to have been revealed, but the announcement by the FBI comes as a blow to Clinton so late in the election campaign.

The internet has posed a serious problem for movie and television studios for many years now. Usually it is pirated copies of movies and shows that are cause for concern, but for the likes of the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, it's the dreaded spoiler that needs to be tamed.

Spoilers tend to be a problem on Facebook and other social media the night after a big show has aired, as those yet to watch the show don’t want to have the plot ruined. In the case of season 7 of Game of Thrones however -- not due to air until the middle of next year -- the problem is that the entire plot has leaked to Reddit.