The Register

How convenient for influx of potential new voters Britain's National Cyber Force will be based in Lancashire, the government has said – though despite obvious clues neither the Ministry of Defence nor BAE Systems will confirm the force's planned new location.…

Was it REvil? We don't (yet) know for sure Ukrainian police have reportedly arrested two members of a ransomware gang – and while some have fingered REvil, no firm details have been published by cops from multiple countries.…

Company says 34.7% women in their workforce is pretty dang good A former office leader for SAP in Southeast Asia has accused the German software company of violating local laws by treating her differently from male counterparts during a corporate restructure and leaving her jobless.…

5 October shaping up to be a big day in Redmond While its licensing plans for enterprises might be infamously byzantine, Microsoft has confirmed pricing and availability of Office 2021 for consumers and small businesses.…

Fourth of nine scheduled planetary assists completed as spacecraft inches closer to releasing its orbiters The European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) joint mission BepiColombo sent back its first photos of Mercury on Friday as it completed the fourth of nine planetary flybys enroute to study the solar system's smallest and innermost planet.…

Storage capacity of your hosts could take a hit VMware has warned users it will end support for non-persistent removable storage as a boot medium for its flagship vSphere VM-wrangler.…

Je suis un bork star Bork!Bork!Bork! Bork is continuing its European vacation with a French train ride through Rennes, showcasing the best efforts of Windows to baffle passengers.…

Browser monoculture bad Feature "Browser monoculture" is often bemoaned as a threat to the web. According to Statscounter, which tracks browser use, over 70 per cent of the market is made up of people using Google Chrome or another browser based on the underlying Chromium project.…

Like in the pricing department Review Logitech has shrunk its MX Keys wireless keyboard, but does a backlight justify Apple-esque pricing? We put it through its paces to find out.…

Terms and conditions apply, and that’s a good thing Opinion Personal data is the oil of the internet. The great engines of Facebook and Google pump it relentlessly, burning it at will to power their marketing monetisation magic. The pollution it creates in broken privacy, shattered politics and the corrupting force of hidden agendas, is out of control.…

You say 'temporary', they hear 'permanent' Who, Me? Start your week with a warning about those temporary emergency hacks that all too often end up permanent in today's edition of Who, Me?…

Plus: Experts dubious of Apple's AI algorithm being able to detect depression and anxiety In brief Self-driving car startups Cruise and Waymo are one step closer to launching commercial autonomous taxi fleets in California after the US state’s Department of Motor Vehicles granted them both relevant permits.…

Vid filming ended in deadly disaster A 29-year-old man alleged to have been part of a group that blew up at least 15 cash machines in Germany managed to kill himself and injure an associate last year while filming a video tutorial on how to blow up ATMs, according to European authorities.…

You better cough up for all this bandwidth, says broadband biz Netflix should cover bandwidth and maintenance costs of a surge in our network traffic, says South Korean ISP SK Broadband, which has taken legal action after subscribers flocked to watch the streaming giant’s latest Korean-language TV show Squid Game.…

Hand back the money or I'm letting the IRS know, says DeFi biz boss Robert Leshner, founder of decentralized finance biz Compound Labs, has asked for the return of roughly $90m worth of COMP tokens after a smart contract bug distributed more of the cryptocurrency than it should have.…

Stop cheering, you're meant to think this is a bad thing The Internet Archive has launched a campaign against tech regulation by setting up a Wayforward Machine, semi-parodying its famous Wayback Machine archiving site.…

That's the hope as distributed and heavy workloads promised a boost in targeting Oracle for high-end workloads Open-source database fans were given reason to celebrate this week with the release of PostgreSQL 14, an iteration of the RDBMS featuring performance improvements for heavy and distributed workloads.…

Another convocation of confusion from around the world that you may have missed Roundup Welcome to another lash-up of lunacy, as we gather together some odd and unusual stories from the past few days and pass them to you surreptitiously while suggesting "the swallows fly south at sunset" in a bad Hungarian accent.…

Cisco Talos spots early-stage campaign targeting low-info users A malware peddler has created a fake website posing as Amnesty International to serve gullible marks with software that claims to protect users against NSO Group's Pegasus malware. In fact it's a remote access Trojan (RAT).…

Sets sights on Salesforce and other SaaSy processes Erstwhile data-visualisation specialist Qlik is taking a stab at process automation as it bids to link up data, analytics, and action – bringing it into the territory of the big software-as-a-service applications.…

Gone are the days where you have to show a machine a gazillion images in different poses and lighting conditions Robots powered by neural networks are frustratingly brittle. They need to see numerous demonstrations of a specific task in simulation before they can begin to execute the same actions in the physical world. A new technique, however, promises to speed up the process.…

Spytech removed after staff outrage IKEA has removed hidden security cameras from its warehouse in Peterborough, England, after an employee spotted one in the ceiling void while using the toilet.…

Yes, it's UK's turn for a fuel shortage First it was bog roll and pasta shortages. Now people are panic-buying petrol to round out the post-pandemic/Brexit apocalypse.…

$15bn merger scrapped following scrutiny from US authorities Five9 shareholders have slammed the brakes on a proposed $15bn merger with videoconferencing giant Zoom.…

Including shielding techies against bad behaviour from dodgy umbrella firms Campaigners have urged the British government to fully fund a new single enforcement body (SEB) to protect workers' rights, including those who use unregulated umbrella companies.…

'Putting rocket boosters the size of Saturn V's F1 under Brit space biz.' Yikes. But where's the money, Boris? UK government has published its National Space Strategy [PDF], a document full of big ideas but according to some, no new funding.…

Industrial elegance on the Usk Geek's Guide to Britain Transporter bridges enjoyed only a rather brief period of popularity as the preferred way to get people and stuff across rivers. The first to be built was the Vizcaya Bridge over the River Nervion between Las Arenas and Portugalete in Spain, in 1893. The last one, crossing the River Mersey at Warrington, was built just 22 years later in 1915.…

Shut up and take my money Something for the Weekend, Sir? "Buy me a beer?" Sure, I buy beers for perfect strangers all the time. But you will have to wait your turn. There is a queue, and the other strangers are more reluctant to accept my hospitality.…

The answer won't surprise you On Call It's Friday mystery time as a Register reader finds himself embroiled in The Adventure Of The Haunted Computer. Welcome to On Call.…

Intros Model 4 smartphone with five-year warranty, six years of software updates Fairphone, an outfit that uses only ethically sourced materials and regulated labour to make smartphones, has revealed a new model of its flagship handset and started selling wireless earbuds too.…

Orders annual data reviews to ensure compliance with rules on how to handle data that's terrifying to lose, or merely scary China has ordered local organisations to conduct annual reviews of the data they hold, so they can apply proper protections as defined on a new three-tier classification scale.…

Also plans remote-controlled robots with fingers and jar-opening capabilities, to help run a moon base Japanese auto-maker Honda has set its sights on developing its own rockets and running a satellite launch business.…

Assuming tech works as promised, overhaul needed in policy and supplies, panel says Let's say, for the sake of argument, that quantum computers will exist in some useful fashion in the not too distant future.…

Before you call it dumb, take a look at its biological counterparts on this planet Robots with Intel Inside brains? That's what Chipzilla has in mind with its Loihi 2 neuromorphic chip, which tries to mimics the human brain.…

At Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, billionaire egos create fear of flying A group of 21 current and former employees of Blue Origin, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos’s rocketry side hobby, have penned an open letter that describes the company as fostering a sexist culture, intolerant of internal dissent, and sanguine about safety.…

Boffins devise tricks to dupe stolen or nearby iPhones into paying out when in transit mode and using Visa Apple's digital wallet Apple Pay will pay whatever amount is demanded of it, without authorization, if configured for transit mode with a Visa card, and exposed to a hostile contactless reader.…

Plus 'widespread potential violations of US, EU, UK privacy law' as an added bonus Apple says, "Privacy is a fundamental human right." Google says, "We build privacy that works for everyone." But neither mega-corp manages to provide much privacy on their mobile devices, according to a study conducted by boffins at the University of Oxford in England and an independent researcher.…

'The internet is a complex system' Updated Websites and apps are suffering or have suffered outages around the world for at least some netizens today due to connectivity issues.…

Claimed REvil contractor badmouths West from anonymous pulpit Someone claiming to be a former contractor for the REvil ransomware gang has given an interview to a security firm, saying he struggles to sleep at night but isn't ashamed of what he does.…

Technology, security, competitiveness also on agenda. *Cough* Privacy Shield *cough* The EU and the United States of America plan to work together to build a common approach to data governance and policies around technology platforms, according to a joint statement.…

Royal Free Hospital saga continues as representative action brought A UK law firm is bringing legal action on behalf of patients it says had their confidential medical records obtained by Google and DeepMind Technologies in breach of data protection laws.…

On the other hand, sweeten the deal with a couple of quid and they'll be a lot more happy to share Consumer guardian Which? has attempted to put a price on people's personal information as it ramps up pressure for tougher rules around data-ravenous tech giants such as Google and Facebook.…

Infrastructure to support lower-emission aircraft, is the hope More than a dozen projects that might someday provide the infrastructure at airports to sustain zero-emission aviation are on the receiving end of grant money to continue their research.…

All eyes on Priti Patel as High Court case recedes into insignificance Autonomy Trial Home Secretary Priti Patel has granted Autonomy founder Mike Lynch a two month grace period on the decision to extradite him, according to reports.…

30 million Windows devices in 60k orgs studied Fallout from the notorious hardware requirements of Windows 11 continued this week, as IT management outfit Lansweeper published research showing well over half of surveyed workstations didn't make the cut.…

Could one of the longest and dirtiest cases in tech history finally be over? The Supreme Court of California has thrown out Oracle's appeal against a decision to award $3bn damages to HPE in a case which dates back a decade and relates to Big Red's commitment to develop on Itanium hardware.…

More airspace and a hotline to the authority fixed up for the next flight Virgin Galactic has received clearance by US flight regulators to resume spaceflights.…

From a document supposedly about better use of existing silos. Eh? The Ministry of Defence has published a data strategy that calls on the British armed forces to make better use of its "enduring strategic asset" – by spying on social media and dobbing in dissenters to local councils.…

Security firm points to a 'stalkerware' epidemic, new Nobelium group activity Security specialist ESET's latest Threat Report warns of a massive increase in attacks on Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) endpoints – and new activity from the Nobelium gang against European government organisations.…

Accenture poised to get contracts for hardware, software and IT advice as mega-pie sliced UK government has dished out spots on a £3.6bn framework to secure management consultancy services for IT strategy, software spending and hardware investments, among a flood of other advisory categories.…