Communications Technology

It has no capital, no airport and only 1400 people who call it home, but the tiny isle of Tokelau has become the cyber crime centre of the world.

A new report by an international group tackling internet scams has confirmed that Tokelau, a New Zealand territory, has more malicious registrations under its .tk domain name than any other domain except .com.

These fraudulent web addresses are used for phishing, where emails are sent to random web addresses in an attempt to steal banking information and other personal details.

Tokelau sold its domain name to a Dutch company, BV Dot TK, which provides the domain free worldwide, making it an easy target for scammers.

“By offering free domain names, .tk has become the third largest country code top-level domain after Germany’s .de and Great Britain’s .uk,” The Anti-Phishing Working Group wrote in its latest global report, released at a technology conference in Malaysia this week.

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Salman Khan from California agreed to tutor his younger cousin, Nadia, in maths remotely using tablet technology.

“I thought these video lessons would be a good supplement. Nadia started improving significantly and more family wanted to see them, so I put them on YouTube. Others started to randomly access them and it just went from there.” says Khan.

Five years, 2000 video lessons, and 41 million views on YouTube later, Khan is on target for his mission of “providing a world-class education to anyone, anywhere” - with one faculty member.

Khan has university degrees in mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering, and an MBA from Harvard Business School - but no formal teaching qualifications.

Last year he caught the attention of Bill Gates (who uses the videos personally to “remind myself of things”, and for his children) and Google - who have provided funding, enabling Khan to leave his job as a hedge fund analyst and concentrate on the Khan Academy.

He now has a small team developing user-paced exercises “allowing the Khan Academy to become the free classroom for the world”.

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YouTube is launching a movie rental service in a partnership with Hollywood film giants including Sony and Warner Brothers, to rival Netflix and Apple’s iTunes.

The world’s most popular short-form video website will expand into streaming big-name, full-length blockbusters in May, according to reports. Under the premium movie-on-demand service, film lovers will be able to stream new releases for as little as $2, though prices will differ for each movie.

Three of the six major film studios - Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers and Universal - have reportedly agreed licensing terms with the Google-owned video giant. Paramount, Fox and Disney have not yet committed to the plan, it is understood. The service is expected to be limited to the US for the foreseeable future.

A spokeswoman for YouTube declined to comment.

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