The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history. A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.

Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation which aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content. Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host which states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material.

Mr Linford* said the attack's power would be strong enough to take down government internet infrastructure. If you aimed this at Downing Street they would be down instantly," he said. "They would be completely off the internet."

He added: "These attacks are peaking at 300 gb/s (gigabits per second). Normally when there are attacks against major banks, we're talking about 50 gb/s."

Not been noticing any slowdowns here.

+1, even in work earlier.

I've been migrated about 100 web sites between 2 datacentres over the last few days - oh it caused some fun .

If the web has been slow that has probably meant it has taken a lot longer than you planned?

Several of the sites that I visit, use Cloud Flare as their protection, and all were slow at best when they weren't completely off-line during the recent attack. Other than those I didn't notice any other problems while browsing.