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A roundup of the latest high-tech news from The Associated Press:

• Internet naming agency revists ‘xxx’ domain

NAIROBI, Kenya – A global Internet oversight agency is reopening discussions about whether to create a ".xxx" domain name as an online red-light district where porn sites can set up shop away from the wandering eyes of children and teenagers.

Parents would be able to use the system to help block access to porn sites, though because its use would be voluntary, the ".xxx" suffix wouldn’t keep such content entirely away from minors. Religious and other anti-porn groups worry that ".xxx" would legitimize porn sites, and the proposal has already been rejected three times since 2000.

But the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the allocation of Internet addresses globally, may revive ICM Registry LLC’s bid yet again as ICANN meets this week in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

Last month, responding to complaints from ICM, an outside panel questioned ICANN’s grounds for the latest rejection in 2007. As a result, board members have been weighing the matter ahead of formal consideration of the ".xxx" bid on Friday, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom said in an interview.

Beckstrom said he was not able to give details of those discussions for legal reasons, and he could not say when ICANN may reach a decision.

Stuart Lawley, ICM’s chief executive, said he has been the victim of a process that he considered far from open and nondiscriminatory.

• Huge ‘botnet’ is taken down but is revived

SAN JOSE, Calif. – The sudden takedown of an Internet provider thought to be helping spread one of the most promiscuous pieces of malicious software out there appears to have cut off criminals from potentially millions of personal computers under their control.

But the victory was short-lived. Less than a day after a service known as “AS Troyak” was unplugged from the Internet, security researchers said Wednesday it apparently had found a way to get back online, and criminals were reconnecting with their unmoored machines.

The drama initially raised hopes of a sharp drop-off in fraud, because criminals could no longer communicate with many computers infected with a type of malware known as “ZeuS,” which is mostly used to steal online banking usernames and passwords. Hundreds of criminal operations around the world use the malware.

It’s unknown how many computers are infected with ZeuS, but it’s estimated to be in the millions. Cisco Systems Inc. said as many as 25 percent of the world’s ZeuS-infected machines were unplugged from the massive “botnet” overnight with the takedown of AS Troyak.

Botnets are networks of infected PCs that behave like criminals’ remote-control robots. They steal identities en masse and are used to attack Web sites.

But instead of a slam-dunk victory, the incident wound up highlighting the whiplash pace at which criminals can resurrect their illicit businesses after what should have been a devastating setback.

RSA, the security division of EMC Corp., said dozens of malicious servers that criminals used to spread ZeuS were connected to the Internet by AS Troyak. The service inexplicably went dark Tuesday, severing the ties between criminals and ZeuS-infected machines under their control.

It’s not publicly known who pulled the plug. It could have been law enforcement, security researchers, or even the criminals themselves if they decided to move their operations to other servers.

Shutting down malware operations is a constant cat-and-mouse game.

• Google to digitize old books from Rome, Florence

ROME — Google says it will scan up to 1 million old books in national libraries in Rome and Florence, including works by astronomer Galileo Galilei, in what’s being described as the first deal of its kind.

Officials from Google and Italian culture officials said Wednesday the project is the first time Google Books and a culture ministry have had such a partnership.

Culture Ministry official Mario Resca says the deal will help save the books’ content forever.

Resca said the 1966 Florence flood ruined thousands of books in the Tuscan city’s library. He said digitizing books from before 1868 will help spread Italian culture throughout the world.

Google will cover the costs of the scanning of the books, all of them out-of-copyright Italian works, including 19th-century literature and 18th-century scientific volumes.