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PLUS: Kryptos solution up for auction; Canadian parliament springs a leak; Fake crypto lawyers; And more Infosec In Brief New York State is suing bank-owned peer-to-peer payment app Zelle, claiming that the banks behind it knew fraud was rampant on the platform but allowed scammers to conduct business with impunity....

The non-profit has a new look but still stands up for the open web interview The Mozilla Foundation has changed its look, but its goals remain the same - supporting an internet that's open and inclusive, and that prioritizes the interests of people over corporations....

Handy tool for when only a dedicated device will do hands on Timekettle's lightweight T1 interpreter has received the AI treatment and will now perform offline translations. But unless you have deep enough pockets, both figuratively and literally, for another device and a frequent need for translation, it's not for you....

'Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,' one tells The Reg Feature Bill Gates, an Arizona election official and former Maricopa County supervisor, says that the death threats started shortly after the 2020 presidential election....

These ten features would make users more productive OPINION From desktop alerts begging you to sign up for Xbox Game Pass to a second-chance out-of-the-box experience that insists you need Microsoft 365, Windows has a hard time taking "no" for an answer. The operating system's corporate parent isn't a good listener either, festooning the OS with useless features no one asked for....

Precogs replaced by profiling and postcode data... and 'AI'. What could wrong? Lots, say privacy campaigners The UK government has unveiled a scheme to use AI to "help police catch criminals before they strike."...

Nowhere to hide Codeberg, a Berlin-based code hosting community, is struggling to cope with a deluge of AI bots that can now bypass previously effective defenses....

AI will take your salary in capex before it can take your job Oracle issued layoff notices for more than 300 people in Washington State and California this week, according to state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings in those states....

Is that a JuicyPotato on your network? A suspected Chinese-government-backed cyber crew recently broke into a Taiwanese web hosting provider to steal credentials and plant backdoors for long-term access, using a mix of open-source and custom software tools, Cisco Talos reports....

Could tinkering with a site's code to hide ads count as infringement? A recent ruling by the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has reopened the possibility that using ad blocking software could violate copyright law in Germany....

When one GPU translates into three to five of the fastest switch ports money can buy, can you blame them? Nvidia is expected to ship somewhere north of 5 million Blackwell GPUs in 2025. But before those GPUs can train the next GPT, Gemini, or Llama, they need to be networked - and that's quickly becoming big business for Ethernet switch vendors like Cisco, Arista, HPE ... and Nvidia itself....

A large and unfortunate mistake in the kernel development management process is underway comment The first release candidate of Linux 6.17 is out, without any bcachefs changes... but not for any technical reasons. This is bad....

Switchzilla's summer of perfect 10s Cisco has issued a patch for a maximum-severity bug in its Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to inject arbitrary shell commands on vulnerable systems....

You have until Thursday August 21 to respond if you do NASA's plans to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon have moved on - the agency has now put out a Request For Information (RFI) to gauge industry interest in the project....

Sam Altman, busily planning to spend "trillions" more on datacenters, admitted yesterday that AI is a bit inflated Sam Altman admitted we're in the midst of an AI bubble Thursday, but don't let that fool you: He still intends to rule over whatever's left after it bursts....

TeejeeTech takes Trixie, adds considerably more polish, yet comes in lighter Teejeetech turns its attention from Ubuntu to its progenitor. The result is a refined and attractive spin of Debian with Xfce....

Online Services price changes start November 1, aligning with Microsoft.com rates and eliminating programmatic discounts Microsoft is updating its pricing approach for Online Services in Enterprise Agreements in the name of consistency and transparency, but could leave some customers paying more....

A tiny model trained on trillions of tokens, ready for specialized tasks Google has unveiled a pint-sized new addition to its "open" large language model lineup: Gemma 3 270M....

Who knew zero-days could be so useful to highway speedsters? The lingering effects of a cyberattack on the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands are preventing it from reactivating speed cameras across the country....

Or, more? Eventually, AI companies will stop selling their services as a loss leader, and then the AI "cost-savings" will disappear like dew on a hot summer morning Bosses throughout the world love the idea of using AI to replace employees. They can talk all they want about how much more efficient everyone will be with AI, but the truth is if they can fire staffers, their bottom line looks better, their stock price goes up, and the CEO makes a ton more money....

London-based multinational takes customer portal and Voice API platform offline as 'protective measure' following breach Updated Multinational telco Colt Technology Services says a "cyber incident" is to blame for its customer portal and other services being down for a number of days....

Government: 'Trust us, it'll be different this time' Feature The UK government has gone all-in on AI. More than 50 years after Harold Wilson gave his famous "White heat of technology" speech, this is the hot new thing. An AI Strategy has been released. Datacenters are planned. Steps to strengthen AI supply chains are being formulated. And of course, the public sector will lead by example in AI usage....

System prompt engineering turns benign AI assistants into 'investigator' and 'detective' roles that bypass privacy guardrails A team of boffins is warning that AI chatbots built on large language models (LLM) can be tuned into malicious agents to autonomously harvest users' personal data, even by attackers with "minimal technical expertise", thanks to "system prompt" customization tools from OpenAI and others....

Somebody built a very sick network in the bowels of a hospital On Call Few make it to Friday without some end-of-week blues, which The Register always treats with a fresh dose of On Call - the reader-contributed column that recounts your stories of tech support contusions....

As 9 billion MoU sparks debate about value for money, it's time to have your say Register debate series It's a lot of money, 9 billion ($12 billion). Especially for a government which finds itself - for whatever reason - in a fiscal dead end....

Next: Modular datacenters ready to host rack-scale systems, to meet endless demand Manufacturer to the stars Foxconn is building so many AI servers that they're now bringing in more cash than consumer electronics - even counting the colossal quantity of iPhones it creates for Apple....

Sees AI costs rising but not certain revenue will match them Chinese web giant Tencent doesn't mind if Washington doesn't let it buy more American GPUs, because it already has all the chips it needs....

iBiz shifts data to iPhone in patent workaround Apple will deliver a software update for recent US Apple Watch models to reimplement the ability to measure blood oxygen levels, a process known as pulse oximetry....

Some custom malware, some legit software tools At least a dozen ransomware gangs have incorporated kernel-level EDR killers into their malware arsenal, allowing them to bypass almost every major endpoint security tool on the market, escalate privileges, and ultimately steal and encrypt data before extorting victims into paying a ransom....

Chinese AI model dev still plans to use homegrown silicon for inferencing Unhelpful Huawei AI chips are reportedly why Chinese model dev DeepSeek's next-gen LLMs are taking so long....

Pilots may soon have to compete against frakking toasters for the title of Top Gun That autonomous fighter jet from DARPA is so 2023 that the agency is already well into a bid to give future combat jets autonomy for multi-ship missions over the horizon....

Government and police employee credentials sold at bargain-basement prices on underground forums Criminals are selling access to FBI and other law enforcement and government email accounts to other criminals via dark web marketplaces for as little as $40....

Datacenter giant looks for energy sources outside the grid Updated Equinix is doing deals with alternative energy providers to support the needs of its datacenters globally, including nuclear options and fuel cell deployments, as the AI fad continues to push a bit barn build boom....

Researchers had to notify over 100 vendors of flaw that builds on 2023's Rapid Reset with neat twist past usual mitigations Security researchers Gal Bar Nahum, Anat Bremler-Barr, and Yaniv Harel have published details of a "common design flaw" in implementations of the HyperText Transfer Protocol 2 (HTTP/2) allowing those with ill intent to create "massive Denial of Service attacks"....

The agency offered some tips for operational technology environments, where attacks are rising CISA is urging companies with operational technology environments to set a better cybersecurity posture, and not just by adopting some new best practices and purchasing some new software....

Lessons of Windows 8 unlearned as software giant gives users what it thinks they need COMMENT Microsoft Windows and Devices boss, Pavan Davuluri, has shed light on plans for the flagship OS. Voice, touch, and pen control will all be part of a multimodal future, alongside a raft of inevitable AI features....

Turkish exchange is the latest victim of a recent spate of major crypto thefts Turkish cryptocurrency exchange BtcTurk is halting all deposits and withdrawals amid fears that blockchain bandits succeeded in significantly compromising its hot wallets....

Windows 11 24H2 fixes fail from Windows Server Update Services Microsoft has admitted that the August patch Tuesday update might fail to install through Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), but it's ok, admins. Home users are "unlikely to experience this issue."...

US DoE names firms for Pilot Program to show how it could be done America's Department of Energy (DoE) has named ten companies it will work with to test advanced atomic reactor projects outside of the agency's world-famous national laboratories, in line with President Trump's Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program....

Making apps is as easy as selling t-shirts, claims vibe coding startup Hands On Create has declared its vibe coding platform, now called Anything, production-ready at version 1.0, with support for both web and mobile applications - although our quick hands-on generated a host of errors....

Brits wake to a beeping nightmare as Amazon's AI assistant forgets how to set - or stop - alarms Amazon's Alexa is on the fritz, bungling alarms and timers and leaving some UK users trapped in an endless wake-up call....

Moscow-linked miscreants accused of swiping sealed US court files and fiddling with a Norwegian dam's floodgates Russian attackers reportedly spent months rummaging through the US federal court's creaky case-management system, while Norway reckons the same Kremlin-friendly miscreants took control of a dam's controls - a transatlantic double-act in legal files and floodgates....

Microsoft cap-ex larger than output of Uganda and Google trumps Slovenia... all in the name of AI The level of investment pouring into new infrastructure from datacenter operators is comparable to the turnover of some mid-sized economies....

Nearly 100,000 records allegedly up for sale after apparent breach at booking system Italy's digital agency (AGID) says a cybercriminal's claims concerning a spate of data thefts affecting various hotels across the country are genuine....

WebSocket connections wrapped as streams, MAUI fixes and more as latest LTS version nears release candidate stage Microsoft has released Preview 7 of its .NET 10 runtime and frameworks, with new features including wrapping WebSocket connections as streams, improved passkey authentication in ASP.NET, and new features and fixes for MAUI (Multi-platform App UI)....

Intruders accessed important systems but tells customers their data is safe A UK-based multinational that provides tech stock availability tools is telling customers that its website outage is due to a cyber attack....

Social media marketeers getting better at concealing promos in posts Boffins have peered deep into the eyes of social media users and come to the conclusion that they're not great at spotting when an influencer is trying to sell them something....

Success does not guarantee succession Opinion The Linux kernel is a remarkable creation. It has achieved a fundamental status in the industry, and thus the world, unmatched in scope, stability, and reputation. It powers lightbulbs to supercomputers, not to mention the billion-plus global army of Android. It covers a host of processors, a massive array of supported devices and an unparalleled choice of distributions....

Are UK taxpayers getting real value from SPA24 - or just high cost convenience? Register debate series The UK government's five-year Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA24) with Microsoft is set to see public sector bodies spend around 1.9 billion each year-nearly 9 billion in total over half a decade. It's a vast sum for software and services, and one that deserves close scrutiny....

Meanwhile, the clock's ticking for the previous FOSS Redis Redis 8.2 is FOSS again, albeit under a different license, and has multiple performance enhancements. Meanwhile, Redis 7.2, the last of the old FOSS versions, is nearing its end of life. New version, or new Valkey?...