Hacktivists from the online group Anonymous have turned their attention to Yemen as part of their battle for greater net freedoms.
The website of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has become inaccessible as Yemenis stage anti-government protests.
It follows attacks on the websites of Egypt's ruling party and ministry of information this week.
Last month Anonymous shut down some Tunisian websites, including the government's official site.
Anonymous's move into Middle East politics has alarmed security experts, who warn people against jumping on the bandwagon.
"If you participate in these attacks, you are knowingly engaging in a cyber crime," said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant for security firm Sophos.
Web freedoms
"If you aren't prepared to go and throw rocks, then maybe you should think again about clogging up websites with traffic," he added.
There have been five arrests in UK and the FBI launched raids across the US in connection with the Wikileaks cyber attacks, which saw members of Anonymous targeting firms which had withdrawn services from the whistle-blowing site.
Anonymous claims that it wants to uphold web freedoms around the world but as such attacks increase, it could have knock-on effect of governments seeking to make it harder to remain anonymous online, thinks Mr Cluley.
"If there was no ability for anonymity, we would all be the losers," he said.
3 February 2011Last updated at 04:29 ETBy Maggie ShielsTechnology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
Google has unveiled an operating system for tablet computers aimed at ramping up the competition with Apple's iPad.
More than 15 million iPads have been sold since Apple launched the gadget in 2010.
The latest version of Google's Android OS is called Honeycomb and it has been specifically optimised for tablets.
The features include the ability to buy applications from a computer, buy features inside the app, video chat and improved graphics.
"This is a serious investment of years of design and engineering to really nail the experience for a larger screen," Hugo Barra, Google's director of products for mobile, told BBC News.
"This is not a large phone - we wanted tablets running Honeycomb to not just be bigger but also to be better."
Motorola will be the first to bring a product running Honeycomb to market. Its Xoom device is due to go on sale this month, although a release date and price have not yet been revealed.
"Honeycomb brings Google closer to parity with Apple and underlines the battle between these two titans," said Ben Parr, co-editor of technology news site Mashable.
"Google has its strengths especially in the cloud, with their open source platform and integration with other Google products like Gmail and Google docs," he said. "But Apple has the design edge and a vast number of apps as well as a new iPad expected in the next couple of months."
'Big win'
Google's announcement of a web-based version of the Android market is one that is seen as long overdue.
This now means that users can browse and buy apps directly from the web. Previously users had to purchase through the Android market directly from the device making it difficult to find, download and buy apps.
Thanks to the cloud, users can send apps directly to any Android device with just a few clicks of their mouse.
"There's no wires, no synching with computers - none of that nonsense. Everything is connected," said Chris Yerga, Android engineering director.
Technology blog TechCrunch called the webstore a "big win" for developers.
"It lowers the hurdle you have to go through to buy an app," said Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch.
"If you are bored online, I can imagine a lot of people heading to the webstore and clicking on five apps before they have really thought about it."
Making money
Google also unveiled in-app purchasing, a new feature to let developers make money by selling virtual goods and upgrades in their apps to consumers.
Convincing developers to back Android is seen as key to drawing in more customers.
So far Android has more than 100,000 apps in its store, while more than 300,000 have been created for Apple's iOS.
At the launch of Honeycomb at Google's California headquarters a number of developers showcased apps designed specifically using the new operating system.
CNN presented a new tablet optimised app while Disney said it would be joining the webstore with three apps including a version of the music rhythm game Tap Tap Revenge.
Disney's head of mobile Bart Decrem said there had been more than 50 million downloads of Tap Tap Revenge on the iPhone alone.
"We have been waiting for in-app purchases and for Android to get to this stage. This really represents a general maturing of the platform and it's a really important one," said Mr Decrem.
'Best foot forward'
Unlike Apple, Google does not make its own devices but gives its operating system to manufacturers for nothing. That approach has served it well in the smartphone market.
To date there are around 145 devices running on Android, including a handful of tablets.
Google said it would be up to hardware sellers when users would see Honeycomb appear in more tablets.
Motorola will be first out of the gate but LG and T-Mobile are expected to follow close behind with their upcoming G-Slate tablet.
"We've put our best foot forward and now it's up to the ecosystem, the manufacturers, to make it flourish," said Google's Mr Barra.
He said some of the features in Honeycomb would find their way on to Android smartphones when that is updated.
But will Honeycomb help Google slay Apple, which has a new iPad out in the coming months?
That depends, says Ina Fried, senior editor of AllThingsD and the Mobilized blog.
"It's a combination of what's the speed, what's the price of the device, what type of apps will be available and when.
"This is about other people's products competing with the iPad. Clearly Google is putting a lot of resources into Android and with this first entry it's going to be a fun thing to watch," Ms Fried told BBC News.
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John Bumgarner from US Cyber Consequences Unit on current threats
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The world needs cyber war "Rules of Engagement" to cope with potentially devastating cyber weapons, Russian and US experts will tell world leaders at a security conference on Friday.
The cyber proposal, seen exclusively by Newsnight, comes from the influential EastWest Institute in New York.
It describes "rendering the Geneva and Hague conventions in cyberspace".
Cyber security is on the agenda at the annual Munich Security Conference for the first time this year.
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Those attending the conference include UK Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
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The logic behind the move is that in the intermingled world of cyberspace, we may need to protect zones that run facilities such as hospitals or schools.
The draft document also calls for a fresh definition of "nation state", with new "territories" and players in cyberspace beyond government - such as multinationals, NGOs and citizens.
The proposal also says that ambiguity about what constitutes cyber conflict is delaying international policy to deal with it, and that perhaps the idea of "peace" or "war" is too simple in the internet age when the world could find itself in a third, "other than war", mode.
Pinpointing attackers
The US-Russian team point out that discriminating between military and civilian targets is more difficult in cyberspace, and may require protected, marked, domain names.
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They say cyber weapons have attributes not previously seen with traditional weapons, nor considered during the development of the current Laws of War: "Cyber weapons can deliver, in the blink of an eye, wild viral behaviours that are easily reproduced and transferred, while lacking target discrimination."
Well-placed British government sources say they do not see a need for new international "treaties" for cyberspace, but do concede that there are areas that need discussion, especially on attribution.
The nature of cyber space, with its ease of anonymity and use of proxies, makes the attribution of any attack very difficult. This raises the question of proportionality:
"How strongly should a state respond to an attack when you do not know who did it, where they did it from or what the intention was? In conventional military terms these questions are easier to answer - not so in the cyber world," these sources pointed out to Newsnight.
John Bumgarner, research director for security technology at the US Cyber Consequences Unit, spoke to Newsnight about the kind of threats which exist:
"There's things out there that right now that exist that the general public really doesn't know about - stealthy type technologies that can be embedded into systems that can run that you'll never see. Those things already exist."
He said that capabilities which currently exist include turning off power grids, disrupting water supplies and manufacturing systems.
Business agenda
Others, however, say that talk of all out cyber "war" is hype, though useful to defence companies looking for new ways to make money.
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Nevertheless, there are almost daily reports now of cyber incidents, most recently that Stock Exchanges in Britain and the US were seeking help from the security services after discovering they were victims of attempted cyber attacks.
"There's quite a lot in it, but they're also extensively hyped," according to Professor Peter Sommer of the London School of Economics, who wrote a recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on cyber security.
"In terms of the involvement of the big military companies, you have to realise that they are finding it extremely difficult to sell big, heavy equipment of the sort they are used to because the type of wars that we're involved in tend to be against insurgents.
"And so they are desperately looking for new product areas - and the obvious product area, they think, is cyber warfare - I'm not so sure about that."
And yet, "utterly dependent" is how one well-placed government source describes our relationship with cyberspace.
The message is blunt. Ensuring security in cyberspace is vital to our national security, our well being and our prosperity: "Without it we can't have the economy we aspire to."
And if that is not enough, the UK government also believes it is vital to maintaining our values as a democracy.
Real-time attack data
The government is therefore embarking on an ambitious project to forge what it calls a new "dialogue" between the state and commercial companies, for mutual benefit.
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After all, some 80% of our critical national infrastructure is owned and run by the private sector, and that is before you take account of the tangle of undersea fibre-optic cables that carry over 90% of our internet traffic, with all the physical vulnerabilities to terrorist attack that implies.
At the new Cyber Security Operations Centre at GCHQ, the UK's electronic intelligence agency in Cheltenham, the eventual aim is for real-time, open exchange of data from companies about how and when they are suffering attacks on their IT systems from cyberspace.
This should give the government early-warning of cyber attacks that could bring down critical national infrastructure. In return, the commercial sector can expect expertise on-tap.
This builds on existing trusted relationships with energy and water companies, but will extend to other sectors, such as food distribution, finance and transport.
The idea was mooted by Iain Lobban, director of GCHQ, in a rare speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) last October.
A substantial chunk of the �650m allocated to cyber security in the subsequent Strategic Defence and Security Review is now heading in that direction.
Watch Susan Watts' full report on the threat posed by cyber warfare on Newsnight on Thursday 3 February 2011 at 10.30pm on BBC Two, then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.
Mobile phone firm Vodafone has accused the Egyptian authorities of using its network to send unattributed text messages supporting the government.
Vodafone was told to switch off services last week when protests against President Hosni Mubarak began.
But the authorities then ordered Vodafone to switch the network back on, in order to send messages under Egypt's emergency laws, the firm said.
In a statement, Vodafone described the messages as "unacceptable".
"These messages are not scripted by any of the mobile network operators and we do not have the ability to respond to the authorities on their content."
Likely cost
The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that the government clampdown on internet services may have cost the Egyptian economy as much as $18m (�11m) a day or $90m in total.
The impact of the communications block could be even greater, as it would be "much more difficult in the future to attract foreign companies and assure them that the networks will remain reliable", said the OECD in a statement.
In another development, the credit ratings agency Fitch has downgraded the Egypt's debt grade by one notch to BB from BB+, citing the consequences of the continuing political unrest on the economy.
The country's debt grade has already been downgraded by two other ratings agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's.
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