The Register

Firm fingers 'overseas criminals' for sending internet phone business TITSUP* It never rains but it pours. Internet telephone service provider Voipfone, currently battling a "major outage" across all voice services, has admitted to being hit by an "extortion-based DDoS attack from overseas criminals" that knocked it offline last week.…

'Nice comparative boost' for AMP claimed to be achieved by actively slowing other formats More detail has emerged from a 173-page complaint filed last week in the lawsuit brought against Google by a number of US states, including allegations that Google deliberately throttled advertisements not served to its AMP (Accelerated Mobile) pages.…

Took Propofol, aka ‘the milk of amnesia’ or 'the drug that killed Michael Jackson' Samsung boss Lee Jae-Yong has been convicted of drug abuse and fined 70 million won (US$60K).…

Transparency, algorithmic accountability, and much more – tune in online next week for free Special Series After some years of investigation, more and more industries are warming to integrating machine-learning technologies into their digital offerings. Given the almost omnipresent reports on biased algorithms and security concerns, however, consumers often have an understandably hard time finding enthusiasm for AI popping up in sensitive areas, such as health and finances.…

Sir Jeremy Fleming paints picture of a cultural battle over the internet, AI and the soul of future technology The UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) boss Sir Jeremy Fleming has outlined a plan to pursue criminal actors who deploy ransomware as well as the state actors that are aware of their efforts.…

Zuck says criticism is unfair and – look over here at our huge revenue growth, billions for future holo-conferences, and pivot to young adults Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg believes the media has made "a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company".…

Good thing the government didn't crank up the national alert system or anything ... Oh no, it did South Korean telco KT, which has around 30 per cent of the nation’s mobile market, has admitted that a network outage was caused by its own blunder and not a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.…

Pretty ambitious – none of this Blue-Origin-led consortium can put humans in orbit yet Blue Origin is leading a consortium hoping to put the first commercial space station into orbit. The craft is set to combine research and tourism facilities, and provide an office address in space for businesses.…

Unions face test on Staten Island after defeat in Bessemer, Alabama On Monday, a group representing workers at Amazon's warehouses on Staten Island, New York, electronically delivered a petition with at least 2,000 signatures to America's National Labor Relations Board in an effort to demonstrate there's enough employee support to hold a vote on whether to unionize.…

US govt issues alert over JS package downloaded 8m times a week – plus more news from world of infosec In brief The US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has warned developers that a version of the ua-parser-js JavaScript library, available via NPM, was infected with data-stealing and cryptocurrency-mining malware.…

Boss used org's credit card to buy stuff from Amazon, Square accounts he set up, say prosecutors An IT manager in the US was arrested on Friday for allegedly embezzling about $370,000 from an unidentified non-profit organization.…

Choice is the word for Jamf's Dean Hager Interview As Apple's devices continue to find favour with enterprise users, the fortress that is Windows appears to be under attack in the corporate world.…

Or so says infsec outfit Emsisoft Hurling online abuse at ransomware gangs may have contributed to a hardline policy of dumping victims' data online, according to counter-ransomware company Emsisoft.…

When NT and 9x became one Feature It was on this very day, 20 years ago, that Microsoft released Windows XP to General Availability.…

Firm working on both old programme and its replacement - CMA checks potential 'incentive' to delay Britain's competition watchdog is launching a full blown probe into whether Motorola Solutions is abusing its position as the sole provider of an emergency service network by holding up the replacement project.…

Chipzilla dreams of planting ControlFlag in hardware Intel Labs has big plans for a software tool called ControlFlag that uses artificial intelligence to scan through code and pick out errors.…

Phishing and password spraying on the up Russia's Nobelium group – fingered as being a Russian state actor by both the United States and Britain – has massively ramped up phishing and password spraying attempts against managed service providers (MSPs) and cloud resellers, Microsoft's security arm has warned.…

FSD rolled back to 10.2 after 'issues' found Tesla has yanked the latest beta, 10.3, of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software from participating car owners after boss Elon Musk noted the company was "seeing some issues" with the code.…

'Serious deficiencies in tech and organisational measures' The United Kingdom's data watchdog is calling on organisations to review their "bulk email practices" after a BCC blunder by HIV Scotland incurred a £10,000 fine for breaking data protection regulations.…

Enginners and researchers don't know why Twitter's algorithms are more likely to boost right-wing content than left-wing posts from politicians and news publications, according to a recent study.…

Lack of data for planning also a problem, spending watchdog finds The UK court system's failure to implement its own recommendations for improving data sharing is holding back its recovery from the pandemic, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO).…

It worked on Jolly Roger, it can work on ProudWhiteGuy66373 Opinion Three things on the morning news reliably ruin breakfast for socially aware technogeeks.…

Cheaper, better than running it yourself? Maybe Feature Outsourcing generally has a bad reputation, scarred by countless failed projects in the public and private sectors and with cost cutting, rather than improved sevice delivery, seeming to drive business decisions.…

Apparently The Social Network is the only one allowed to do nasty things with users' data Facebook has sued a Ukrainian national for allegedly harvesting and selling personal data describing 178 million of the Social Network's users – actions it says violates the service's terms of service.…

Some of those punch cards may still be lying at the bottom of a lift shaft Who, Me? Punch cards are the order of the day in a reader confession that takes us back to an unfortunate incident with a trolley. Welcome to Who, Me?…

China backed the concept of tools users perceive as an extension of the OS, not just an app Catch a ride, pay your utility bills, order your dinner, top up your insurance, chat with friends – how many apps did you need to get that lot done? In much of the world North America and Europe your answer could involve a fistful of apps, but in Asia you could do it all in one, thanks to rise of the "superapp".…

He's free of governance duties now, but still an emeritus member Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) co-founder John Gilmore has been removed from any active role on the digital rights organisation's board but will continue to serve as emeritus member.…

With an average 1.27 million orders a week, many customers left hacked off Updated The UK's largest retailer, supermarket titan Tesco, has restored its online operations after an attack left its customers unable to order, amend, or cancel deliveries for two days.…

Common network services are less important when we've moved to apps hosted at the edge What will the internet look like in the year 2071? Geoff Huston, chief scientist the regional internet registry the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), thinks there may not be an internet – or at least not as we know it today.…

First Artemis mission is stacked on a rocket – now for five punishing sets of tests before liftoff NASA has set a date for the test of the technologies it hopes will see it return to the Moon and explore Mars: February 2022.…

Plus: Explore the limits of language models in bizarre research experiment, and more In brief A man was detained in Japan for selling uncensored pornographic content that he had, in a way, depixelated using machine-learning tools.…

Golf enthusiast given 30 days to cough up code A Florida man has been accused of breaking the copyleft license of Mastodon by running an online instance of the software without providing its source code as required.…

Amended Texas complaint alleges backroom efforts to maintain ad dominance and more Several years ago, to deal with the competitive threat of header bidding – a way for multiple ad exchanges to get a fair shot at winning an automated auction for ad space – Google allegedly hatched a plan called "Jedi" to ensure that its ad exchange always won.…

Windows giant has a funny way of 'loving' Free software Updated Microsoft has enraged the open-source .NET community by removing flagship functionality from open-source .NET to bolster the appeal of Visual Studio, not least against its cross-platform cousin Visual Studio Code.…

Watchdog finds dubious data gathering, illusory solicitations for consent The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday said many internet service providers are sharing data about their customers, in defiance of expectations, and are failing to give subscribers adequate choices about whether or how their data is shared.…

Component swaps still a thing – for now Apple's seventh-gen Watch has managed to maintain its iFixit repairability rating on a par with the last model – unlike its smartphone sibling.…

Learn how to take the broad view by tuning into this webcast early next month Sponsored We’re used to talking about the disruption AI will inevitably cause. But that disruption is predicated on AI moving into production, and that requires integration into the broader corporate infrastructure.…

Only for one-to-one voice and video, mind Microsoft has finally kicked off the rollout of end-to-end-encryption (E2EE) in its Teams collaboration platform with a public preview of E2EE for one-to-one calls.…

Researcher spots RSA tell-tale lurking in plain sight on VirusTotal Around 1,500 Cobalt Strike beacons uploaded to VirusTotal were reusing the same RSA keys from a cracked version of the software, according to a security researcher who pored through the malware repository.…

More transparency and reporting needed, says Arunja Capital Updated Accusations of harassment and concerns over pay gaps continue to dog Microsoft as shareholders were urged by investor Arunja Capital to vote for the software giant to release transparency reports.…

15% tax minimum to hit tech firms The US government and administrations in Europe have come to an agreement that will drop the threat of tariffs in response to policies on digital services taxes (DSTs).…

Britain's anti Amazon and Google war gets a second front The UK may require smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home devices to broadcast UK DAB radio stations, over government fears that Brits aren't consuming enough of the unloved radio tech.…

Exodus, movement of the people... to the Middle East or elsewhere More than a third (35 per cent) of contractors in the UK have become permanent employees, retired, shifted to work overseas or are "simply not working" since IR35 tax legislation was revised earlier this year.…

'I can debug production from the IDE,' said CS boss Peter Pezaris Observability company New Relic has acquired CodeStream, specialists in developer collaboration, with the aim being to connect observability data with code in the development environment.…

Remember the R Tape Loading Error? The glory days of audio-cassette loading are set to return in the coming weeks, with retro fans to be treated to a broadcast for them to hit Play and Record to.…

The second vanishing of the cybergang... for now As we noted a few days back, notorious ransomware gang REvil "disappeared" again this week. Recent reports have now shed light on why that may be.…

WebKit engine is well behind the competition Feature The legacy of Internet Explorer 6 haunts web developer nightmares to this day. Microsoft's browser of yore made their lives miserable and it's only slightly hyperbolic to say it very nearly destroyed the entire internet. It really was that bad, kids. It made us walk to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways. You wouldn't understand.…

A message for you, (on your) rudie Something for the Weekend, Sir? "You've got mail!" announces a voice on the tram.…

Look what you found! Aren't you clever! On Call Let us take a little trip back to the days before the PC, when terminals ruled supreme, to find that the more things change the more they stay the same. Welcome to On Call.…

Chipzilla braces for a China-gaming-ban-shaped hole in future results, predicts more product delays Intel has blamed Apple's switch to its own M1 silicon in Macs for a dip in sales at its client computing group, and foreshadowed future unpleasantness caused by supply chain issues and China's recent internet crackdowns.…