The Register

Paint a target on Myanmar, pledge more info-sharing to get the job done A group established by six Asian nations to fight criminal cyber-scam slave camps that infest the region claims it's made good progress dismantling the operations....

'Public interest alone does not justify warrantless querying' says judge It was revealed this week a court in New York made a landmark ruling that sided against the warrantless state surveillance of people's private communications in America....

Who guards the guardrail makers? Not the bosses who hire them, it's alleged Scale AI, which labels training data for machine-learning models, was sued this month, alongside labor platform Outlier, for allegedly failing to protect the mental health of contractors hired to protect people from harmful interactions with AI models....

But we mean, you've had nearly four years to patch One of the critical security flaws exploited by China's Salt Typhoon to breach US telecom and government networks has had a patch available for nearly four years - yet despite repeated warnings from law enforcement and private-sector security firms, nearly all public-facing Microsoft Exchange Server instances with this vulnerability remain unpatched....

Hello Operator? Can you give me number nine? Can I see you later? Will you give me back my dime? OpenAI on Thursday launched a human-directed AI agent called Operator that can use a web browser by itself to accomplish various online tasks, or at least try to do so....

No in-the-wild exploits ... yet Cisco has pushed a patch for a critical, 9.9-rated vulnerability in its Meeting Management tool that could allow a remote, authenticated attacker with low privileges to escalate to administrator on affected devices....

x86 behemoth calls the approach 'innovative' - DIY builders may disagree Intel claims a more modular approach to PC design could make systems easier to repair and reduce electronic waste - and it has some proposals for you....

OpenAI boss tell world's richest man money is there to fund infrastructure project Updated The world has been treated to tech bros squabbling over Stargate, the alleged $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure project led by OpenAI, while the grown-ups look on....

Big organizations and governments are main users of these gateways SonicWall is warning customers of a critical vulnerability that was potentially already exploited as a zero-day....

Company 'strongly disagrees' with law infringement allegations Meta has again come under fire for its pay-or-consent model in the EU....

Generative AI needs a break, just like the rest of us, m'kay? OUTAGE Reactivate your brain. ChatGPT has gone down....

Experts warn not to take leaks lightly as years-long compromises could remain undetected Thousands of email addresses included in the Belsen Group's dump of FortiGate configs last week are now available online, revealing which organizations may have been impacted by the 2022 zero-day exploits....

Chips and software giant Broadcom says it's 'flexible and open' on licensing terms, but customers disagree VMware users continue to be unhappy with licensing changes since the virtualization giant was acquired by Broadcom, and are now complaining that they are being forced into three-year commitments when renewing vSphere licenses....

Shares slide at 'most profitable' company in Korea as world worries over geopolitics Market uncertainty and fears around trade protectionism are overshadowing SK hynix's latest earnings, with its shares sliding despite revenue doubling for the financial year just completed....

As Microsoft, Apple, and Google switch the tech on by default, what happened to asking for permission first? Opinion Copilot in Microsoft 365 and Apple Intelligence on iDevices are the latest examples of the tech industry's obsession with making services opt-out rather than opt-in....

CMA flexes its new Strategic Market Status muscles The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching Strategic Market Status (SMS) investigations into both Apple and Google, probing the duo's control of their respective mobile ecosystems....

Coming soon to April's TrueNAS SCALE release, dubbed 'Fangtooth' The latest version of OpenZFS offers RAID expansion, plus faster data deduplication donated by iXsystems. The code will be available very soon in the beta of TrueNAS SCALE 25.04....

Plus: 'Largest-ever' duff traffic tsunami clocks in at 5.6 Tbps In addition to Chinese spies invading organizations' networks and ransomware crews locking up sensitive files, botnets blasting distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks can still cause a world of hurt - and website downtime - and it's quite likely your competitors are to blame....

And the government thinks that AI and taking shackles off big tech will help? God help Britain For the first time since the start of the pandemic, the number of tech firms incorporated in the UK has declined, with a shrinking economy, as well as high inflation and interest rates causing a slump in business confidence....

Nailed just 15% of assigned tasks A service described as "the first AI software engineer" appears to be rather bad at its job, based on a recent evaluation....

Answers on a postcard to what 'Microcode Signature Verification Vulnerability' might mean AMD has confirmed at least some of its microprocessors suffer a microcode-related security vulnerability, the existence of which accidentally emerged this month after a fix for the flaw appeared in a beta BIOS update from PC maker Asus....

What? Why? Xi wants people spending, so has extended a subsidy scheme to phones, tabs, and smartwatches If you want a cheap iPhone, China's the place to be right now thanks to a government subsidy scheme that means resellers are discounting the devices to make sure Beijing helps to pick up the bill....

Old flaws that keep causing trouble haunt Big Red Oracle has delivered its regular quarterly collection of patches: 603 in total, 318 for its own products, and another 285 for Linux code it ships....

Microsoft's IG-for-suits insists lawsuit's claims are without merit LinkedIn was this week accused of giving third parties access to Premium customers' private InMail messages for AI model training....

Markets smartwatches as health helpers even as they expose some owners to PFAS Apple has been sued for allegedly selling wristbands for its smartwatches that contain high levels of "forever chemicals" known as PFAS that may be linked to harmful health effects in humans....

And: America 'has never been less secure,' retired rear admiral tells Congress The Trump administration gutted key cybersecurity advisory boards in its first days, as expert witnesses warned Congress of potentially destructive cyberattacks by China....

The (good old) boys are back in town US federal government contractors are no longer subject to anti-discrimination rules over hiring, training, and employment - after President Trump reached back 60 years to scrap an equal opportunity order signed by former President Lyndon B. Johnson....

Threat actor exploited phishing and OAuth abuse to inject malicious code Cybersecurity outfit Sekoia is warning Chrome users of a supply chain attack targeting browser extension developers that has potentially impacted hundreds of thousands of individuals already....

Meanwhile, datacenter emissions continue to soar Microsoft is forking out for even more carbon credits to offset spiralling AI-fuelled carbon dioxide emissions from its datacenters....

This year's model adds lots of AI, improved management, and support for biz buyers First fondle Samsung has announced the Galaxy S25, the latest version of its flagship smartphone range, and, as you'd expect, made new AI features the hero....

Learning how to deal with the microorganisms hitching a ride with humans Two NASA astronauts are set to venture outside the International Space Station (ISS) in search of signs of life....

Update addresses boot failures on multi-node systems Microsoft is releasing an out-of-band patch to deal with a problem that prevented some Windows Server 2022 machines from booting....

Ross Ulbricht's family are now appealing for donations to support his reintegration into society Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht is now a free man after US President Donald Trump made good on his promise to issue a federal pardon upon taking office....

But no changes to bcachefs Linux kernel 6.13 is here, but don't get too excited. It's not a biggie and, given the timing, probably won't appear in many familiar distros....

Amazon doesn't break out figures, but then again neither do Microsoft nor Google As more businesses shift an ever greater number of workloads to the cloud, hyperscalers aren't doing enough to help CIOs or tech buyers, who are already under legislative pressure, to be more transparent about their own corporation's carbon footprint regarding compute services....

Everyone agrees defense matters. How to do it is up for debate Feature The Trump administration came to office this week without a detailed information security policy, but analysis of cabinet nominees' public remarks and expert comments suggest it will make significant changes in the field....

Cut off nearly 44k peeps who had been waiting 70 minutes for advice on unavoidable chore The UK tax collector must "take responsibility for its own failings to offer sufficiently effective digital services to customers," according to a committee of MPs which accused HMRC of "deliberately" poor phone service to push callers online....

Interim appointment after former head booted out for not being 'sufficiently focused on growth' The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has a new chair after the sudden departure of the previous incumbent....

The nascent tech enters Hype Cycle's downward slope, says Gartner Tech analysts have forecast 9.8 percent year-over-year growth in worldwide IT spending in 2025, reaching $5.61 trillion and driven by continuing AI investments, despite moonshot" projects seeing a high failure rate....

That invitation to a Teams call on which IT promises to mop up a spamstorm may not be what it seems Two ransomware campaigns are abusing Microsoft Teams to infect organizations and steal data, and the crooks may have ties to Black Basta and FIN7, according to Sophos....

1,066 seconds of steady-state high-confinement plasma operation and all that China's Hefei Institutes of Physical Science has claimed a new world record for maintaining a steady-state high-confinement plasma operation, a feat needed to create a fusion reactor that in theory will produce vast amounts of energy at little cost....

Nobel Prize winner Demis Hassabis thinks human trials will happen soon Clinical trials of the first drugs designed with the help of artificial intelligence could commence this year, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis suggested Tuesday....

Plus: Google stuffs Gemini into Workspace, with a hidden off switch? Ready or not, generative AI assistants and productivity aids are getting harder to avoid with a growing number of software vendors enabling them by default....

SoftBank, Oracle, MGX form Stargate Project with ChatGPT maker, intend to outspend Microsoft this year OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and investment firm MGX on Tuesday announced plans to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure in America over the next four years, to be used by the ChatGPT super-lab....

Lawsuits pile up after database accessed by miscreants Canada's largest school board has revealed that student records dating back to 1985 may have been accessed by miscreants who compromised software provider PowerSchool....

El Reg asked a lawyer to explain WTH is going on Analysis President Trump's executive order stalling the enforcement of the TikTok ban in the United States has created legal uncertainty for companies hosting or distributing the app. To further confuse the matter, it's not even clear that Trump's decree is within his power to issue or enforce....

Same, Big A, same If you were unable to access Atlassian's Bitbucket Cloud today, it's because in the words of the IT giant, the service was "hard down."...

Seven days after disclosure and little action taken, data shows Fortinet customers need to get with the program and apply the latest updates as nearly 50,000 management interfaces are still vulnerable to the latest zero-day exploit....

Also, prepare for paused wind projects and the Gulf of America from Trump 2.0 - and that's just day 1 US President Donald Trump has wasted no time in culling Biden-era programs, including the elimination of the prior administration's executive orders on AI safety and electric vehicles, and freezing funds for EV infrastructure....

Researchers aim to tackle unmet needs for social connection and recreation Scientists in the US have developed a neural interface that enables an individual with paralysis to control a virtual quadcopter by decoding brain activity into distinct finger movements....