The Register

Multiple providers? Hybrid approach? Or, just take the hit? Comment It's been an interesting period for cloud services, with both Amazon and Skype suffering major outages. In Amazon's case it was a good old-fashioned network interruption that caused significant knock-on effects (it released a very frank explanation that is well worth a read). As for Skype it was a configuration change that broke the world.…

That'll solve all our scaling issues, chuckles SDN upstart's carefree veep HP has taken another step away from the world of the Borg, certifying the Pica8 open switching operating system to run on its Altoline open networking switches.…

Never has the phrase 'Jack of all trades' been more apt What are you looking for in a new storage system? Performance, capacity, efficiency, data services? Well, from my point of view you should be looking for analytics first! The right analytics tool can easily save you money, time, and make your job easier.…

Might be nice to avoid new spy tech export laws The Saudi Arabian government came close to buying a majority stake in Italian surveillance software firm Hacking Team last year.…

A safe distance from the Piers Gaveston dining society The recent news that a pop vid director had sent a vintage Sony telly up to the stratosphere prompted us to note that just about everything bar the kitchen sink has been dispatched heavenwards under a meteorological balloon.…

Modern day internet missionaries altruistically just want to help Microsoft is the latest company to rush into the lucrative emerging Indian market, with the promise to connect 500,000 villages in the subcontinent to the internet.…

Ideal for trunk calls, and so much else Review Every time The Register reviews a high-end, large-screen smartphone we get a comment or two about how for a quarter of the price you can get something similar from a no-name Chinese manufacturer.…

Aliens? Dirt? Dirty aliens? Poll The clock is counting down to NASA's imminent announcement as to just what the "major" discovery it has made on Mars could be.…

Leaked slides show UK spooks worried judicial oversight will spoil their sneaky fun Leaked internal documents from Blighty's mass-surveillance agency, GCHQ, shows that it frets not over parliamentary or political oversight ... but instead describes judicial oversight as "THE MAIN ISSUE FOR US".…

Skinny boxen drops from a size 12U to 6U OVERNIGHT with this neat trick NetApp has announced a slimmed down top-end array, cutting the controller box size in half.…

Only snippets longer than seven words are chargeable After months of deliberations, Germany's national arbitration board on copyright has told German copyright collection company VG Media to go whistle over its proposal for a six per cent “Google Tax”.…

The inexorable rise of Silicon Valley's unchallengeable mantra Comment "Disruption" – Silicon Valley's favourite buzzword for intimidating other, profit-making parts of the economy – has taken a knock.…

Bargepole length insufficient Exclusive The Department for International Development is the second Whitehall ministry to shun the Cabinet Office's major back office outsourcing deals, The Register can reveal.…

Buttarelli can't see any sensible reason for enormous passenger data slurp Europe’s data protection tsar has warned law-makers that collecting and storing information on all airline travellers risks breaching EU privacy laws.…

Once-theoretical attack vector appears fully-formed on CloudFlare's doorstep CloudFlare has turned up an unusual form of denial-of-service attack: mobile advertisements that are pumping out around 275,000 HTTP requests per second.…

Tech Unplugged sees Reg presenter unplugged How might disk death in the data center come about?…

Welcome to internet technical support. Please give us your computer The world's most popular pirate torrent site KickAss Torrents is serving scareware advertising, helping dodgy call centre operators con users into handing over remote access to their machines.…

'Elite member' suffers 'damages to equipment' in NC fracas A robotic Romeo, attempting to "charm" or "distract" its target, suffered damage to its antenna during an altercation with a man in North Carolina, according to media reports. The machine was an "elite member" of a specialist local police unit.…

It's only a local bug until it's not In the wake of last week's cookie security warning, accomplished Polish penetration tester Dawid Czagan has dug up a separate issue with Apple's Safari.…

'See judge? I gave cops a backdoor!' Derbycon: PhishMe researcher Paul Burbage has added insult to injury for a former FireEye intern cum arrested VXer by showcasing how to thoroughly pwn his remote access trojan.…

Oz telco consolidation continues Fibre and data centre owner Vocus and consumer/business carrier and service provider M2 are merging to create what they are calling a “full-service vertically integrated telco”.…

Already got plenty of airwaves, wants to hold onto its cash Sprint says it will not take part in next year’s 600 MHz auction in the USA.…

If carriers talk, criminals might hear, apparently The Attorney-General's Department has told The Register national security considerations lie behind it discouraging telcos and ISPs discussing their data retention plans.…

No notice, but sources say Oz 'net users will see slowdown Rumours are emerging that there's yet another break in the SeaMeWe-3 cable.…

Plan in place by October 7 or get the NOxious cars off the road Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority, KBA, has lost patience with scandal-plagued Volkswagen and has given it a deadline.…

UN pledge seemingly ignores UN broadband slowdown report Two of the world's richest men and Bono* have pledged to help bring internet access to everyone across the planet by 2020.…

Engineers, supplier flagged up concerns in 2011 and 2007 Volkswagen was reportedly warned about rigging emissions tests on its vehicles years ago, not only by one of its suppliers but also the German car giant's own engineers.…

Implies org would rather stay under gov power than accept key recommendation The chair of domain name overseer ICANN has threatened to reject a key recommendation in the process to move control of the top level of internet from the US government to the non-profit organisation.…

Star was once 20 times more massive than 'Ol Sol Vid NASA has released spectacular new photos of a massive star's remnants, dubbed Veil Nebula, following an ancient supernova explosion.…

Head of Hut Six 'a disastrous example to others' – GCHQ An exhibition has been launched at Bletchley Park to commemorate the work of Cambridge lecturer and "forgotten genius" Gordon Welchman at Britain's wartime codebreaking centre.…

Doctors and nurses take the piss On-Call Welcome once again to On-Call, our regular look at the messes readers find themselves in when asked to go to help out their clients.…

There and back again in seriously British hi-tech luxury Vulture at the Wheel There used to be a tradition on Personal Computer World magazine of writing reviews on the computer you were reviewing. This is being written from the passenger seat of a Rolls-Royce Wraith travelling between Dijon and Reims.…

Such things don't disappear simply by making them illegal Worstall @ the Weekend I think we'd all agree that we'd like the world to be a better place. And I think most of us would, if it didn't take too much effort, support attempts to make it such a better place.…

Squeaky bum time for internet policy wonks Internet oversight body ICANN received a second kick to the buttocks on Saturday morning – this time from erstwhile US presidential advisor Ira Magaziner.…

But please ditch the sonic sunglasses, Doc! TV Review Readers please note: THIS IS A POST-UK BROADCAST REVIEW – THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!…

Plus: 'Well, the internet experiment escaped the lab' QuoTW This week a new iPhone rocked up, we got creeped out by Blighty spooks and everything seemingly went up in smoke for emissions cheat Volkswagen.…

Drink it up, space fans Mars-bothering boffins are set to unveil a "major science finding" on Monday – but NASA is keeping the discovery under wraps for now.…

Neglected Notes gets makeover Facebook has rejigged its Notes feature by turning it into a blog-like function, while skirting any mention of the B-word – perhaps to avoid making the free content ad network appear too retro.…

Adding some much-needed spam and virus filtering FEATURE The story so far: Over the last two weeks, I've explained how you can set up a mail server to provide you with POP3 and IMAP services, for your own email, with some basic filtering of inbound connections, and the ability to connect to it and send emails from just about anywhere. This week, it's time to add more serious mail filtering tools to provide better protection against spam and viruses.…

20 years on from taking the Time Out Comedy Award Feature Bill Bailey. No, no, he’s not dead yet – which has been a bit of a theme with some of these articles of late – but he is dead funny. And it’s also 20 years since the “part man, part troll” first started to make waves by winning the Time Out comedy award of 1995.…

Benchmark THIS, Mr Diesel Guy Something for the Weekend, Sir? Karma must be a great comfort to those who believe in it. The assurance that nasty deeds will be accounted for, eventually, must make all the shit we have to put up with worthwhile.…

Mr Cook to the burns unit, please Academy Award-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has issued a verbal blast to Apple CEO Tim Cook over his criticism of the forthcoming film biopic of dead Steve Jobs.…

'How many of you feel really great about all the progress you've made today?' *silence* After a fruitless and frustrating day of discussion in Los Angeles, US Assistant Secretary for Commerce Larry Strickling had clearly had enough.…

Run for the tills! Someone has hacked the Hilton's sales registers, and made off with guests' credit-card details, it's claimed. The hotel chain confirmed today it is investigating the alleged breach of its computer security.…

New mobe is heavier with smaller battery Teardown Apple's iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, lovingly crafted by Cupertino's chief designer Sir Jony Ive, have landed – and with them the first teardowns shedding light on what's packed under the hood.…

Bods agreeing on little at crucial meeting Every professional has job-specific nightmares. It could be a doctor delivering a baby from the Exorcist, or an engineer standing on a bridge that collapses.…

And Volkswagen appoints new boss, who apologizes again The US Environmental Protection Agency has warned auto makers that it will inspect all light vehicle models in America to make sure no one is gaming air pollutions tests, Volkswagen-style.…

Me? Breaking into businesses and stealing trade secrets? No! US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping have announced an cyber-peace deal in which neither side will engage in commercial spying online.…

SIGINT and DIGINT revealed The enormous scale of GCHQ's surveillance was revealed on Friday by newly published Snowden documents. The files note the growth in capabilities enjoyed by the UK government's snoopers since intercepting communications in bulk from 2007.…

And he's all out of gum Ex-Violin Memory CEO Don Basile has emerged as an investor in Cumulus Logic. It’s great to have one of the most colorful people in storage back on the scene.…