The Register

Your IT storage may go from terabytes to Exbytes At least one affiliate of the high-profile ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group BlackByte is using a custom tool to exfiltrate files from a victim's network, a key step in the fast-growing business of double-extortion.…

When switches really were switches, one reader managed to avert a potential disaster Who, Me? Welcome, gentle readers, to another instalment of Who, Me? in which citizens of the Reg universe (Regizens?) recount their tales of technological near-misses.…

The truth is out there and 16 people have been tasked to find it NASA has announced the names of 16 individuals who will be a part of its unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) research group that begins work today.…

Yet more nagware to use the Edge browser, plus some usefully re-imagined tools liberated from the maze of the Settings menu Something interesting has popped up in a Chinese language corner of Microsoft's website: a tool called PC Manager that provides easier access to utilities that dwell somewhere in Windows' Settings menus.…

The black hole information paradox and quantum error correction codes overlap almost completely It's hard for professor Brian Cox to hide his enthusiasm for black holes, and he didn't really try as he explained to The Register how progress in understanding the celestial phenomena contributes to the development of quantum computing.…

Tehran laughs it off as foreign psyop or media stunt. Just don't remind them about Stuxnet, OK? Iran's Atomic Energy Organization has laughed off claims that the email systems of a subsidiary were compromised, revealing important operational data about a nuclear power plant.…

PLUS: Australia boosts data breach fines; India outlet drops Meta allegations; AWS spices up Thailand's cloud; and more Asia In Brief South Korean police have reportedly raided the premises of SK C&C, the operator of the datacenter that caught fire on the weekend of October 15 and disrupted the operations of local web giants Naver and Kakao.…

Plus: Meta builds speech-to-speech system to translate Hokkien, Waymo expands to LA, and more In brief Stability AI and Jasper – two startups that make AI software that auto-generates images, text, and other stuff – have each reached so-called unicorn status (valued at over $1 billion) after bagging $101 million and $125 million in funding, respectively.…

At least they didn't call it another DPU Toyota’s research and development wing is giving Fujitsu’s "Digital Annealer" a spin to see just how well this pretend quantum computer can help vehicle production systems adapt faster to changing conditions.…

Anyone got the technical reference manual for this simulation we're living in? Physicists in America have confirmed a strange measurement that was first discovered by scientists probing the internal structure of protons two decades ago. …

'Completely new approaches should be developed to prevent the influence of this propaganda' As a hybrid offline and online war wages on in Ukraine, Viktor Zhora, who leads the country's cybersecurity agency, has had a front-row seat of it all.…

Long live the King's English or something like that Hands On The Register began life in London in 1994 and today has journalists and other staff all over the world, which is to say San Francisco, Sydney, Singapore, Berlin, and beyond.…

Er, did Joe forget who runs Starlink? The Biden administration apparently wants SpaceX to support the anti-government protests in Iran – by providing Starlink satellite broadband to the Mid-East nation after its religious rulers restricted internet access.…

China-owned boredom-killing biz issues precision-engineered denial TikTok has been accused of preparing to keep covert tabs on the physical whereabouts of certain US citizens using its app.…

Software giant is already in deep, giving the startup $1 billion in 2019 Microsoft is reportedly in advanced talks with OpenAI to invest more in the seven-year-old research company.…

One laser + one optical chip = more than the traffic of the entire internet European scientists claim to have achieved a data transmission speed of 1.8 petabits per second, all with a single laser and an optical chip. …

Plus better support for some newer Intel wireless and graphics chipsets OpenBSD 7.2 is here, spanning an impressive 14 different computer platforms, including FOSS fans who have the newest Apple Arm-based Mac models.…

Can expensive tech save this reporter's ugly mug? Not likely It's not just Reg readers who recognize the less than satisfactory quality of built-in computer webcams. Appparently, the world's biggest PC maker does too.…

But the solution may need more than a really big database Comment During the keynote of Oracle's annual sales jamboree in Las Vegas, founder and CTO Larry Ellison took the opportunity to offer some profound insight into the state of healthcare in the US and Europe.…

Twitter tells staff it knows of no plans, though. Plus: billionaire's ventures could take heat from Committee on Foreign Investment Elon Musk has reportedly told investors in his Twitter buyout that he will gut the workforce by 75 percent once his court-ordered takeover concludes.…

We didn't have a time unit. That... is... a... disgrace Reg Standards Bureau She may have lost to an iceberg lettuce in the longevity stakes, but Liz Truss managed to win one thing yesterday: serving 44 days before resigning, she is now Shortest-lived Prime Minister in UK History.…

Former staff describe threat as a 'heist' and 'outright attack' on pension scheme IBM intends to withhold tens of thousands of dollars each from certain retiring staff unless they agree to the IT giant's demands.…

And one designed to slip ransomware and data-stealing code onto infected machines URSNIF, the malware also known as Gozi that attempts to steal online banking credentials from victims' Windows PCs, is evolving to support extortionware.…

Ongoing COVID concerns inspire 'cMaSK' tech to monitor breathing, temperature, and fit Scientists in Canada have developed an electronic device to fit inside a surgical mask which they claim helps monitor the wearer's health and how well the mask is fitted.…

Productivity KPIs need a 21st century makeover, say tech bosses Canalys Channels Forum Businesses need to reassess the metrics they apply to determine how productive employees are in the world of hybrid work – or risk staff leaving for a corporate culture that is more flexible and trusting.…

We'd say this was a clear case of RTFM but this rig was so simple it didn't have a manual On-Call After a week of global chaos, put it all behind you with another instalment of On-Call, The Register's weekly tale of readers who were asked to tackle IT turmoil and emerged triumphant.…

Moonlighting is now now OK – if you do it the Infosys way, says CEO Salil Parekh The CEO of Indian tech services giant Infosys, Salil Parekh, has said employees will be allowed to take on external gigs if they secure company approval – a reversal of the position espoused a month ago when the company warned workers that "dual employment" could result in disciplinary action.…

Weird puffy gas giant circles red dwarf Located 580 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Auriga the Charioteer, there lies an extra fluffy exoplanet with an average density similar to a marshmallow, light enough to float on water. …

Attempted revival of virtual reality is only just beginning and already the cops just want to take a look around Interpol this week unveiled what it has called a Metaverse for police around the world while signalling a lawless virtual universe will not be tolerated.…

Works well, but selection of available apps is meagre First Look Microsoft has decided the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) – its offering that runs Android VMs which behave just like another application in Windows – is sufficiently stable that it can be designated version 1.0 and made available to all.…

That's a whole six hours of revenue, but requirements to open the Android ecosystem will hit harder India's Competition Commission has announced it will fine Google ₹1,337.76 crore (₹13,377,600,000 or $161.5 million) for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android Mobile device ecosystem and ordered the company to open the Android ecosystem to competition.…

The question is: how severe will the Middle Kindgom's response be? Analysis The Biden administration's efforts to stymie China's semiconductor industry appear to have got the attention of chipmakers.…

Scream with us: Aaaaaa-AAH A hospital network in Wisconsin and Illinois fears visitor tracking code on its websites may have transmitted personal information on as many as 3 million patients to Meta, Google, and other third parties.…

Internet mega-souk thinks allegations are a waste of Prime Amazon is facing a £900 million ($1 billion) lawsuit that claims its Buy Box algorithm breaks competition laws by unfairly favoring products sold by the American giant and preferred vendors.…

You can kiss my Californian ass, says ad giant Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Google claiming the internet titan captured biometric data from millions of Texans without notice and consent.…

Time to start considering forest blazes alongside industrial sources of greenhouse gases, say scientists Researchers studying the effects of California's record-breaking 2020 wildfire season have uncovered some unsettling evidence. The fires in that single year undid all the state's greenhouse gas emission reductions since 2003 by a factor of two.…

Video Electronics Standards Association shows the USB Implementers Forum how it's done The USB Implementers Forum, USB-IF, rolled out the spec of USB 4 version 2 just last month, as you've probably read in The Register. We noted at the time that the nitty-gritty stuff would debut in time for developer events scheduled for November.…

Five-year blueprint to modernize tech estate, but cloud still not for everyone in finance sector UBS, one of the largest private banks in the world, is preparing to send more workloads into Microsoft's Azure cloud in pursuit of lower energy consumption and to accelerate digital services for customers.…

Tick tick tick ... just 8 days to go Billionaire Tesla boss Elon Musk told analysts last night he was excited about his upcoming deal to buy Twitter despite his apparent belief that he will be "obviously overpaying."…

NASA had been aiming for the region since before landing because there are 'signs of past water' NASA's long-serving Curiosity Mars rover has finally reached an objective it has been ambling toward since landing on the red planet a decade ago: the "sulfate-bearing unit" of Mount Sharp. …

SOCRadar says sensitive info from 150,000 orgs was exposed, Redmond disputes findings Microsoft has confirmed one of its own misconfigured cloud systems led to customer information being exposed to the internet, though it disputes the extent of the leak.…

What connects a decaying salad vegetable with something called 'the 1922 Committee'? Enter the wonderful and frightening world of British politics The analogy was first drawn by august finance journal The Economist, which said the shelf-life of a lettuce was longer than Liz Truss's period with any actual political power as British Prime Minister, after she "blew up her own government with a package of unfunded tax cuts and energy-price guarantees on September 23."…

Why does it always rain on renters, asks CTO? Listening to the vendors, the analysts, hell, even the government – the direction of travel is obvious. All your server-side computing resources will move to the cloud, like it or not.…

Linux wunderkind's project now an official flavor as 'Kinetic Kudu' brings nine months of updates Ubuntu 22.10 is out, and the biggest change is a new official remix: Ubuntu Unity is now an official flavor.…

We speak to the boffins behind the mission about hits, misses, engineering, and that extraordinary near death scrape This week, the European Space Agency's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral) spacecraft celebrated the 20th anniversary of its launch – although it was only meant to last five years.…

Don't penalize resellers for selling refurbished kit, educate shareholders on being Earth's friend Hardware makers are currently among the mix when it comes to the problem of environmental sustainability, in part by "penalizing" and competing with resellers that are trying to sell refurbished kit.…

May follow Finland and Germany in adopting Singapore's standard The Biden administration has accelerated its efforts to add cyber security labelling for consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and may join other nations in adopting the scheme pioneered by Singapore.…

Software-as-a-hostage? Freeing yourself from the fluffy white chains is not easy, even in face of inflation Public cloud prices are forecast to jump by almost a third in Europe next year as the cost of borrowing and energy squeeze providers. For the US, the expectation is for the price list to jump by a fifth.…

Boffins say educators need to deal with opportunities and risks of GitHub Copilot and pals Analysis While the legal and ethical implications of assistive AI models like Github's Copilot continue to be sorted out, computer scientists continue to find uses for large language models and urge educators to adapt.…

Changes follow astronaut's headgear filling with water during seven-hour star trek Spacewalks outside the International Space Station are set to resume after NASA temporarily paused all such activity to investigate an issue that caused water to accumulate in one astronaut's helmet.…