Cyberspace is bigger than you imagined.

IS the Internet infinite? If you laid it end to end, would it stretch further than an anorak could measure?

Whatever it is, it's big, right? In fact, it's bigger than you think - a survey by Princeton's NEC Research Institute reveals that only a sixth of all websites are found by search engines.

That's down from a third in a similar survey last year, showing that search engines just can't keep up.

It is now estimated that, on average, it takes six months for a search engine to find and log a new website for access.

Top of the list of 11 search engines tested was Northern Light, with 16 per cent - but this is a great deal less than the 34 per cent scored by last year's top search engine, Hotbot.

The survey also revealed that there are now more than 800 million searchable pages on the Internet.

CAPRICE made a bit of cyberspace history yesterday by launching BT 's multimedia payphone, bringing the World Wide Web to the high street.

The first of 1000 Multiphones was launched at London's Waterloo Station, the rest are to be in place by March 2000.

Using a 12-inch touch screen - which is the only real difference to a normal payphone - users will be able to surf the Internet, shop, check for e-mails and get information, as well as making a normal telephone call at the same time.

Charges for Internet use will be 10p per minute, but with a minimum charge of pounds 1.

Many services, however, will also be free, such as access to train time tables, local area maps, news and sport information. The Multiphones also have the potential to be used as a videophone, with the first of these to be installed in the Millennium Dome.

THE most prolific Net use of late has been in the release of viruses, which seem to be setting themselves up as the curse of the 21st century.

We've had Melissa and her sisters and now, like the sequel to a particularly offensive horror movie, we have the announcement of a new version of the infamous Back Orifice virus.

A Trojan horse virus - ie. one that piggy-backs into your system in an otherwise innocent program - BO2K is excitedly awaited by hackers, crackers and sick wackos everywhere.

Called Back Orifice 2000, it has been developed by an underground group known as Cult Of The Dead Cow and is expected to be distributed through the Net during the next week.

The name is a play on Microsoft's Back Office system, but Back Orifice makes any infected computer wide open to crackers, who can watch what happens on the victim's screen and can edit and delete files stored within that computer, all without the owner knowing.

Back Orifice 2000 is expected to have many similar features and will infect computers running Windows 95, 98 or NT.

Don't say you haven't been warned.