The Register

Hundreds of gigabytes already slurped, say EFF and Lookout An investigation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and security biz Lookout has uncovered Dark Caracal, a surveillance-toolkit-for-hire that has been used to suck huge amounts of data from Android mobiles and Windows desktop PCs around the world.…

Advanced surveillance system puts mobile first for stealing data An investigation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and security firm Lookout have uncovered Dark Caracal, a highly advanced spying platform sucking huge amounts of data from mobiles and desktops around the world.…

Naturally we demanded proof – and we got it Interview What's it like to fly an F-35 fighter jet? We interviewed the chief British test pilot on a uniquely British flying technique – and then had a play with a full cockpit simulator to find out for ourselves.…

CEO thanks execs for service... more than most get Exclusive DXC Technologies is splitting with exec veep and general manager Mike Nefkens - previously the boss for HPE Enterprise Services before the spin merger with CSC - amid a massive shake-down of the exec line-up.…

It lands today Google has confirmed plans to issue a patch for Chromecast and Google Home aimed at resolving a traffic flooding problem that was swamping home networks.…

A smartphone that plucks at your heartstrings, not always in a good way A top-end smartphone isn’t just for Christmas: it’s for 18 months, maybe two years, two-and-a-half at a push. So here at The Reg, we let the stardust settle around Apple's iPhone X launch before putting the product to test in the field for longer than an afternoon. Fanboi squeals written up just after you peel away the cellophane are no use to anyone.…

Hat trick! A third Oracle enterprise package has been patched against a crypto-mining exploit.…

Web chat? On the phone? Online? That'll be UK IT's Mr Nasty you are talking to Despite ditching other tech suppliers in a consolidation push, Marks & Spencers – purveyor of middle-class dreams – has extended a customer support agreement with everyone's fave outsourcing titan, Capita, for £70m.…

Tory council candidate moots an even more robotic PM – for the 'more personable touch' A local Tory candidate has suggested the party creates a chatbot to up its digital cred and boost engagement with voters. Its name? Theresa Maybot.…

Dev team quits, suggests NHS used them to get better deal with Microsoft The small team behind an ambitious NHoS Linux project are calling it a day, citing receipt of a trademark infringement warning from the Department of Health's (DoH) "brand police" as the "final straw".…

Hey, Reg can entertain children. IP freely, anyone, IP freely? How do you get seven-year-olds interested in intellectual property? Anyway, indeed, why would you want to? No matter, the Intellectual Property Office has launched a cartoon answering the question no one has ever asked.…

When Britain’s future hung in the balance in 1940, a covert army of men, women and children set to work in network of sheds, garages and bus depots across Britain building desperately needed Supermarine Spitfires for the RAF’s war effort.…

Billions of pounds are lost annually to lies. As we become more digital and more connected through web, devices and social the reach of liars and the consequences of their actions assume bigger and more personal proportions - compromised bank accounts, stolen personal data and lost intellectual property.…

It’s the end of the road for the internal combustion engine, right? Volvo will only make electric and hybrid vehicles after 2019 while Britain, France, Germany and others have pledged to stop the sale of and petrol vehicles during the next 20 years.…

All that stands between you and zero g is skill and a rubber duck Anyone who has grown up watching the antics of Apollo astronauts aboard Skylab or the acrobatics of Shuttle and ISS crews has likely dreamed of experiencing weightlessness. Ideally in a way that doesn't involve either a sickening drop in an elevator or alarming turbulence over the Atlantic.…

Potential Reg Standards Soviet entry? Let's take a closer look A strong contender has emerged for an addition to The Register Standards Soviet's list of officially approved weights and measures: the Routemaster Fleet.…

Researchers claim flaws remain more than two years later New InnoTab child learning devices still have the same security flaw first found by researchers at Pen Test Partners two years ago.…

Only a venture capitalist could say something like that – but that’s what Chambers is now Former Cisco CEO John Chambers has launched his very own venture capital firm.…

If an API or feature needs the web, it needs HTTPS under Mozilla's new plan Mozilla has decided to further locking down the Internet with the announcement that developers can only access new Firefox features from what it calls “secure contexts”.…

Microcode mitigation triggers system wobbles, penguinistas warn Techies are scratching their heads after Red Hat pulled a CPU microcode update that was supposed to mitigate variant two of the Spectre design flaw in Intel and AMD processors.…

Court sentencing tool under the microscope Software that predicts how likely a criminal will reoffend – and is used by the courts to mete out punishments – is about as smart as a layperson off the street.…

And sent them mostly to South Korea, naturally North Korea's black hats launched at least six extensive malware campaigns mostly against South Korean targets during 2017.…

Beer money channels that made under $100 a year are also out of the Partner Program YouTube’s changed its rules to exclude low-traffic channels from its Partner Program, the scheme that sees it share ad revenue with video-makers.…

Some confessions, but 'watch this space' is the more common reaction - when there is one Vendors of industrial systems have joined the long list of vendors responding responses to the Meltdown and Spectre processor vulnerabilities.…

Says probe doesn't impact wireless lines, leaving about a gazillion other products in play Broadcom has confirmed it's under investigation by the United States' Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over antitrust issues, but doesn't believe that's going to affect its business.…

Switchzilla has fixes for appliances, voice portal, Nexus switch OS Cisco admins, it's your weekly patch notice.…

BTC plunge, er, sorry, market correction leaves faithful shaken but not deterred Amid a cryptocurrency price correction that has seen the price of Bitcoin drop by half from its mid-December peak, UK-based cyber-cash lending and exchange biz BitConnect said it is shutting down.…

It's an image-recognition thing Google today tore the covers off something called Cloud AutoML, a new service that's part of its "mission to democratize AI."…

Triumphant Trump touts terrific tax tactic Apple announced today it will start to repatriate back to America some of the massive profits it accumulated outside the USA – and will use the cash to Make America Great Again.…

Oh, yeah, and learning new tricks and protecting stuff, sure Ethical hacking to find security flaws appears to pay better, albeit less regularly, than general software engineering.…

So much for that grilling The US Senate's commerce committee basically gave executives from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube a back-rub at a hearing on Wednesday morning.…

Your daily dose of digital depression Usenix Enigma It has been nearly seven years since Google introduced two-factor authentication for Gmail accounts, but virtually no one is using it.…

This language is wired for sound Usenix Enigma HTML5 is a boon for unscrupulous web advertising networks, which can use the markup language's features to build up detailed fingerprints of individual netizens without their knowledge or consent.…

Bill McDermott admits hub was seen as a 'channel to promote corporate messages' CEO Bill McDermott has pledged to improve the SAP Community network previously slammed by members for offering a crap user experience and being another mechanism to push marketing messages.…

CEO Patrick Dennis has his work cut out Comment There's a new president and CEO at Quantum, with the board hoping for a dose of Patrick Dennis magic to fire up the company and return it to growth and profits.…

CEO, CFO in crosshairs after shareholder 'losses' AMD stands accused of "artificially inflating" its stock price by not making public a CPU design flaw the tech world now knows as Spectre, according to a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of investors.…

Prez Macron expected to agree loan when he meets PM The French government will agree to lend the UK its most famous memento of the Norman conquest of England after Blighty leaves the EU.…

Customer details spilled to boyfriend A former Santander bank manager has pleaded guilty to £15,000 worth of computer misuse crimes after her boyfriend talked her into giving him illicitly obtained customer information.…

Flouts doctors' guidelines, doesn't properly balance public interests, MPs told The UK health service's NHS Digital has been accused of operating to a "lower standard of confidentiality" than rest of NHS, in a heated hearing about a deal that requires patient info to be handed over for immigration enforcement.…

Blogger records 7-8% toll on read IOPS The widely used ZFS file system software is slowed down in both read IOPS and throughput by Intel CPU microcode fixes for the Spectre processor design flaws, one set of numbers suggests.…

Firm slapped for 'blatantly ignoring telemarketing laws' A company that made 75 million nuisance calls in just four months has been handed a £350,000 fine from the UK's data protection watchdog.…

UK telcos continue appeal to lower spectrum cap UK comms regulator Ofcom is cracking ahead with plans for the forthcoming spectrum auction - despite further delays posed by Three's Court of Appeal challenge.…

Software-centric business model to reach disruptive industry price point Kaminario has announced it will leave the hardware business, and said Tech Data will build the certified appliance hardware needed to run its software.…

More people have skillz, but not in fields that need them The UK government's "muddled" attempt to boost skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) risks wasting taxpayers' money, according to a report by the National Audit Office today.…

NVMe over Fabrics shows its razor sharp performance teeth NVMe-over-Fabrics fanboy startup E8 has whupped other suppliers' behinds with a SPEC SFS2014 filer benchmark.…

Does it run in VMs, containers, systems running external code? Just. Patch. It Analysis A growing consensus among storage hardware appliance vendors is that, since they don't run external software on their hardware, they don't need to stick performance-hindering patches into their operating systems.…

Turns out they are a top target for phishers Usenix Enigma Gig economy workers – the fancy new way to describe short-term freelance serfs like Uber drivers and Deliveroo riders – are well in the sights of hackers.…

The fight for our public space Special Report Behind the mostly fake "battle" about driverless cars (conventional versus autonomous is the one that captures all the headlines), there are several much more important scraps. One is over the future of the city: will a city be built around machines or people? How much will pedestrians have to sacrifice for the driverless car to succeed?…

With built-in web servers. Yup, you read that right Heathrow Airport is to get new air traffic control radio systems with a surprising amount of internet connectivity baked into them.…

Carillion scandal part of a long tradition of big supplier addiction The scandal around Carillion has put the UK government's addiction to outsourcing in the spotlight. Yet it is a practice that has been going on for many decades - not least in public sector IT.…