The Register

We should be able to outlaw unauthorized inquiry, Voatz argues Voatz, the maker of a blockchain-based mobile election voting app pilloried for poor security earlier this year, has urged the US Supreme Court not to change the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a law that critics say inhibits security research because it's overly broad.…

Eight DDoS attacks targeted networks, virtual classrooms, say officials A teenager in America has apparently admitted knocking virtual learning classes offline with a string of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.…

Sites with WP File Manager should update ASAP – exploits in the wild A critical vulnerability in a popular WordPress plugin called WP File Manager was spotted on Tuesday and was quickly patched by the plugin's developers.…

50 per cent decrease in worldwide traffic when lockdowns started Machine-learning models used to direct the journeys of Google Maps users have been retrained to adapt to changing traffic conditions during the coronavirus outbreak.…

'Fundamental right to privacy' can wait – Facebook and others are annoyed Apple has delayed a rule change that requires apps on iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14 to request permission from the user before tracking them via a unique ID number.…

Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G will first appear on the Acer Spin 7 Two years after entering the PC market, Qualcomm has updated its Snapdragon 8cx platform.…

Digital services tax? You'll be paying that on top of VAT, developers told Apple is tweaking its App Store to enable vendors to offer subscription codes. It has also informed developers that new digital service taxes will be deducted from their proceeds.…

We talk to VMware VP and Kubernetes co-founder Craig McLuckie: 'Our ambition was to disrupt' - but not just for Google SpringOne Virtual SpringOne kicked off with VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger declaring that the company's partnership with Microsoft – Azure Spring Cloud is generally available from today – has ended decades of "clawing and spitting and fighting with each other".…

Snowden, privacy campaigners cheer ruling 7 years in the making The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled [PDF] that the National Security Agency's phone-call slurping was indeed naughty, seven years after former contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the tawdry affair.…

Yes, Cupertino appealed last time. It has been 7 years now A three-judge panel in California has ruled [PDF] that Apple Store staffers should be paid for time spent waiting to undergo the iGiant's bag checks.…

With auto-punctuation and all! Plus: Emojis... and more Edge-y nagging Microsoft took pity on those who like to yell at their PCs with an improved version of Windows dictation among other cosmetic tweaks in an updated Dev Channel build.…

Cancelled contract saw outsourcing giant paying back £700k The Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) has begun tendering for a £10m administration system - rebooting a project previously awarded to Capita that was cancelled when the outsourcer missed all milestones.…

Concept demo fast enough to show movies and games apparently As the world's second largest TV manufacturer, Chinese tech conglomerate TCL is best known for its displays. In that vein, it has shown off its newest e-ink technology at IFA, dubbed NXTPAPER, which promises richer colour and a refresh rate comparable to that of a smartphone.…

And if it does, chalk a win for IBM Watson at last Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are turning to machine-learning models to predict the severity of incoming hurricanes.…

The Reg talks to the experts about how to manage spend Feature Spinning up services on public clouds is dead easy, but what about staying in control of the bill?…

Meanwhile, UK languishes in 47th according to Cable.co.uk rankings The UK has slipped down the global broadband speed rankings and now sits at 47th place, according to a new report from Cable.co.uk.…

Joint investigations imagined, complete with sharing of confidential info gleaned from local probes The nations of the five eyes alliance – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA – have started a new club that will see their respective competition agencies “share intelligence, case theories and investigative techniques to better coordinate investigations across international borders”.…

No one wants them – including all of Britain’s top brands Nominet is at it again: the .uk registry operator has emailed owners of .co.uk domain names to panic them into renewing .uk domains they never wanted in the first place.…

Takes its domestic standard for human/robot interactions to the ISO to get moving machines working with humans in hospitals and beyond Japan’s Ministry of the Economy and National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology have opened a conversation with the International Standards Organisation (ISO) with a view to setting new global standards for robots that work alongside humans.…

We're not talking about the programming language, either The Moon’s surface is peppered with flecks of rust, according to research published on Wednesday.…

IDC says 2020 will be a unique and beautiful snowflake as shipments pop three percent because you can't go to the movies PC sales will resume their long-term decline in 2021, says analyst firm IDC.…

PUBG, Alipay, Baidu and more exiled India has banned a further 118 Chinese apps, including AliPay, Baidu, and PUBG Mobile, on grounds that they "are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order."…

Great – and who will be the first responders? The US Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Wednesday ordered US federal agencies outside the defense and intelligence communities to develop a working vulnerability disclosure policy.…

Astroturfing, political posturing, invective. Exactly what internet policy needs Comment A flawed consultation into Section 230 – America's safety blanket that shields online platforms like Google and Facebook – has already devolved into a mess dangerously reminiscent of the net neutrality debate.…

11th-gen Core processor family for portable computers announced Having celebrated the arrival of its 11th-generation Core technology last month, Intel on Wednesday held a virtual event to announce the official launch of what it has already discussed, its latest line of processors for laptops.…

South Carolina crook jailed for 2 years after flogging $340k of purloined Cisco kit A former IT security director was yesterday given a two-year prison sentence after he admitted to stealing and reselling dozens of networking switches from a county government.…

Five years after arrest at LAX, Broadcom secret snatcher sent down A Chinese professor who stole trade secrets from a Silicon Valley semiconductor company was yesterday sentenced to 18 months in jail and fined $476,835.…

El Reg speaks to those battling the dog-eat-dog regime in internet giant's warehouses Special report Palettes stacked 10 high when the old rules said a maximum of five; policies to thwart the spread of the COVID-19 virus not followed and co-workers only informed about positive tests a month later; punishing work rates that are constantly changed and used as a weapon; write-ups as retaliation for complaining about racist behavior; and serious injuries dismissed with a Tylenol and an ice-pack.…

Seems the only things being generated by Pentagon deal are legal arguments The ongoing JEDI pantomime took another turn today [PDF] as Oracle's challenges to the handling of the winner-takes-all $10bn cloud contract were rejected by a US appeals court.…

All the gamers NVMe Microsoft plans to bring the DirectStorage API developed for the forthcoming Xbox Series X to Windows PCs, and a development preview will be available next year.…

'Vision' platform to be 'cornerstone of our emerging asset intelligence strategy and programme' UK utility Severn Trent Water has offered £4.8m for a replacement of its supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.…

Enterprise, Pro versions of OS coming to Microsoft's jumped-up whiteboard Microsoft is bringing Windows 10 Enterprise and Pro to the most sizeable of Surface devices, the Surface Hub 2S.…

Duelling devices out soon – but no such promise for requisite next-gen networks It only took a year for 5G devices to begin their downward trajectory into "affordable" territory. Samsung and Xiaomi both look set to continue that southwards march, with both brands unveiling bargain-basement 5G blowers set for a release in the coming months.…

Void forged in merger event also the first of its kind spotted Video The latest gravitational wave event, announced by astrophysicists today, is a particularly good 'un. Not only is it the largest signal detected yet, it's the first time an intermediate-sized black hole has ever been spotted.…

APT phishing crew had COVID-themed fling with the west during height of pandemic, claim researchers Malware pathologists have noted a return to "business as usual" as groups associated with Chinese state interests turned their attentions back to Tibetan matters after a European dalliance earlier this year.…

ERP outfit picks its battles in darkening enterprise software cloud Interview The ERP market is in for a few surprises later in the year, according to Mike Ettling, CEO of ERP vendor Unit4.…

'It's so under-appreciated as a planet compared to Mars' Interview As Rocket Lab sought to get its Electron booster back into action, The Register spoke to CEO Peter Beck about finding faults, recovering rockets, and missions to Venus.…

The next train is headed to... oh dear Bork!Bork!Bork! We live in a global village and Microsoft is often at pains to remind us that Windows is a worldwide operating system. So here's some borkage in Bucharest.…

Which means you get to pay, because cost of ads, sellers' fee hikes are built into prices, so once the tech titans charge more ... you get the drift Google and Amazon will increase the prices they charge advertisers and sellers to reflect new digital services taxes being levied in the UK, Austria and Turkey.…

Whaddaya mean we’re all doomed? With a US presidential election nearly upon us, the past week has seen a worrying jump in the number of lies, misinformation and state-sponsored efforts to sow discontent.…

Google and Apple's new 'Exposure Notifications Express' gives health authorities a shortcut Google and Apple have updated their COVID-19 contact-tracing tool to make it possible to notify users of potential exposures to the novel coronavirus without an app.…

Kitchen table chat tries to sell you on the latest kit, AI devs might like it, too Nvidia launched its GeForce RTX 30 series last night, its latest family of real-time ray-tracing graphics processors aimed primarily at PC gamers.…

Telecoms Authority says it could learn to love Tinder and Grindr if they open hearts and minds Pakistan has continued its crusade against lewd online content by banning a bunch of dating apps.…

Vodafone's Indian outpost has a $10bn bill all by itself and may struggle to pay India's supreme court has given the nation's telcos a decade to pay billions of dollars in back taxes.…

No degree? No H-1B? No worries! Indian giant tickles Trump’s tummy Indian IT services giant Infosys has pledged to hire 12,000 more American workers in the next two years and will prioritise graduate hires because they let the company grow while keeping costs down.…

Silicon Valley heavyweights demand access to review boards that can shoot down trolls just ahead of trial Intel is leading an effort to force the US Patent and Trademark Office to axe a new rule said to favor litigious patent trolls.…

Never mind GitHub Packages or Azure Container Registry, we've reinvented the wheel... er, box Microsoft's GitHub on Tuesday launched a public beta of its Container Registry, a service that both overlaps with and complements GitHub Packages, which debuted last year, but evidently has nothing to do with Microsoft's Azure Container Registry.…

So brave... but not so Brave Google Chrome is making good on its promise to block so-called "heavy ads" – web adverts that hog the network, drain batteries, or slow down your device by chewing up too much processor time.…

Some kind of protest against drones taking away people's jobs of pestering aircraft mid-flight? The pilots of a passenger jet landing at LA International reckon they were approached by a mysterious flyer equipped with what was described as a "jetpack," passing within a few hundred yards of their aircraft.…

Also: Scotland edges closer to launch, and ad astra Gerald 'Jerry' Carr In brief An impressive sequence of launches at the end of August was marred first by ULA's Delta IV Heavy preferring life on the ground just three seconds before lift-off and then SpaceX deciding the weekend weather looked a bit iffy for its next batch of Starlink satellites.…