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Cut off one head, two more grow back in its place RansomHub, the ransomware collective that emerged earlier this year, quickly gained momentum, outpacing its criminal colleagues and hitting its victims especially hard. The group named and shamed hundreds of organizations on its leak site, while demanding exorbitant payments across various industries....

Saturation point, and Nintendo and Sega, were just around the corner Feature Remember the excitement of leafing through a catalog for home computer bargains? Or perhaps gazing longingly at festive tech displays in Britain's WH Smith (or ComputerLand if you lived Stateside)? Take a step back to 1984 and the last great hurrah of the home computer....

We have altered the deal, pray we don't alter it any further Amid growing competition and skyrocketing compute requirements necessary to support the next generation of AI models, OpenAI is shaking up its corporate structure - again....

Santa Satya pops one more issue into his sack just in time for Christmas The trickle of known issues with Windows 11 24H2 has continued with a new one just in time for festive season: installed the operating system using removable media? There's a chance it might stop receiving security updates....

This was a triumph There is good news for Sun botherers: the Parker Solar Probe appears to have survived its close encounter with our nearest star....

Reg-reading heroes snacked on their woes and solved problems with extreme speed On Call The biggest days of the festive season may be behind us, but demand for tech support never stops. That's why each Friday, even this one, The Register shares stories of fixers forced to help flummoxed fools in On Call - the reader-contributed column that celebrates your successes....

One man's plan to ruin his holiday for the better Comment It was only recently I started reveling in the Black Friday feeling. My first foray into the e-commerce extravaganza came last year when I bought a PS5 and in the same spirit, I finally pulled the trigger on an Apple Watch Ultra 2 the other week after pining for one since launch. Not because I needed the impetus to get off my butt and start working out, the reason behind so many purchases, as I understand it....

Rob Joyce explains how it's done Video In 2018, Rob Joyce, then Donald Trump's White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, gave a surprise talk at the legendary hacking conference Shmoocon about his hobby....

Register readers have spoken The Register readership has spoken - a "winner" is set to be punished with the horrible Windows XP Christmas sweater. And Copilot? Headed to where the sun doesn't shine, judging by the vast majority of comments....

Unspecified "vendor technology" to blame for hour-long stop order A technical snafu briefly grounded American Airlines flights across the US on Christmas Eve....

Botnet's operators 'driven by similar interests as that of the Chinese state' After the Mozi botnet mysteriously disappeared last year, a new and seemingly more powerful botnet, Androxgh0st, rose from its ashes and has quickly become a major threat to critical infrastructure....

Lots of big numbers, but market share wasn't one of them Microsoft has published a year in review for its Edge browser and talked up AI-powered chats while lightly skipping over the software's stagnating market share....

35 years since AIDS first borked a PC and we're still no closer to a solution Feature Your Christmas holidays looked quite different in the '80s to how they do today. While some will remember what it was like to wake up on the 25th back then, some of you won't even have been born. The food hasn't changed much. Turkey, stuffing, Brussels sprouts... that's all been around for some time....

Easier to let those old phones gather dust in a drawer, survey finds The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has warned that many adults don't know how to wipe their old devices, and a worrying number of young people just don't care....

Tech vendors start saying the quiet part out loud - do enterprises really need all that headcount? Comment AI vendors are starting to say the quiet part out loud. As technology advances, it seems more about controlling costs and headcount....

Mummy, where do zero days come from? Opinion One of the charms of coding is that malice can be indistinguishable from incompetence. Last week's Who, Me? story about financial transfer test software running amok is a case in point....

The victory may be short lived as the chip designer gears up for second round Analysis Qualcomm's push into the PC arena is safe, at least for the moment, after a jury found its mobile processor designs had not violated Arm Holdings' licenses as the British chip designer had claimed....

A #DOScember surprise: fits on a single floppy, but has a network-capable package manager With its recent switch to a different kernel, SvarDOS moves from being a distro of FreeDOS to greater independence....

Analyst estimates show growing apetite for alternative infrastructure Nvidia dominated the AI arena in 2024, with shipments of its Hopper GPUs more than tripling to over two million among its 12 largest customers, according to estimates from Omdia....

Ho-ho-holy heatshield! NASA's Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to make its closest approach yet to the Sun, approximately 3.8 million miles from the star's surface, on Christmas Eve....

Dual Russian-Israeli national arrested in August An alleged LockBit ransomware developer is in custody in Israel and awaiting extradition to the United States....

Inexpensive over-ear gear, but active noise cancelling won't block out the carol singers Review OneOdio has released a set of over-ear noise-cancelling headphones for an apparent bargain price of 59 ($69). However, they are also a prime example of the axiom "you get what you pay for," or perhaps even a bit less....

Also, Ascension notifies 5.6M victims, Krispy Kreme bandits come forward, LockBit 4.0 released, and more in brief Google has announced plans to allow its business customers to begin "fingerprinting" users next year, and the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) isn't happy about it....

It's all made from our data, anyway, so it should be ours to use as we want Opinion Last year, I wrote a piece here on El Reg about being murdered by ChatGPT as an illustration of the potential harms through the misuse of large language models and other forms of AI....

Lina Khan's tenure may end, but the regulatory hurdles she help built aren't going anywhere Analysis When Donald Trump takes office for his second term on January 20, many expect sweeping changes across the board. But among tech players, when it comes to mergers and acquisitions, those hoping for looser regulations might be disappointed....

'Facts can't be decided by a roll of the dice' Press freedom advocates are urging Apple to ditch an "immature" generative AI system that incorrectly summarized a BBC news notification that incorrectly related that suspected UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione had killed himself....

Says it's not sure what the issue is but points at admins tweaking licensing options It's not just you, there is indeed an activation problem in Microsoft 365 Office triggered by administrators making changes at the licensing level....

Remarkably compact, remarkably cross-platform, remarkably long beta period Beta 6 of Adelie Linux is arriving, just over six years after Beta 1 - but they do say that good things come to those who wait....

Forks at dawn.... but it's not great sign for open source Opinion I am so sick of this. I've been a happy WordPress user since it rolled out the door in 2003, and I kissed Vignette (since acquired by OpenText) goodbye. WordPress was just so much easier to use than the alternatives; it was open source; and it was free. It was such a win!...

New shiny if you run Linux on an M1 or M2 The Fedora 41 version of Asahi Linux is out - the go-to Linux distro for Apple Silicon Macs....

And there his troubles began ... On Call Digital technology remains frighteningly finickity, which is why good tech support people are always in demand - and also the reason The Register never tires of telling your support stories each Friday in On Call, the column your generosity makes possible....

Meanwhile, NASA signs off on Artemis software upgrade Chinese scientists think it's time to rewrite the Moon's history after analyzing samples returned to Earth by the Chang'e 6 mission....

Yes, LLMs can do the heavy lifting. But good luck getting one to give evidence CANALYS FORUMS APAC Generative AI is being enthusiastically adopted in almost every field, but infosec experts are divided on whether it is truly helpful for red team raiders who test enterprise systems....

Users report the sound of silence from operating system update Microsoft has logged some new known issues with Windows 11 24H2 and thrown up more safeguard holds until the problems are resolved....

Aiming to be freeflying by 2028. Handy if anything should happen to the ISS Axiom Space has shuffled the assembly sequence of its space station to remove any dependence it would have on the International Space Station (ISS) by as soon as 2028....

Chair Jay Obernolte urges Congress to act - whether it will is another matter After 10 months of work, the bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence in the US house of Congress has unveiled its report, outlining recommendations for federal AI policy....

It's not just one hyperbolic billionaire - the entire industry is chasing the AI dragon Comment Next year will see some truly monstrous compute projects get underway as the AI boom enters its third year. Among the largest disclosed so far is xAI's plan to expand its Colossus AI supercomputer from an already impressive 100,000 GPUs to a cool million....

Week-long mission set to stretch into ninth month Two astronauts who traveled to the International Space Station aboard Boeing's problem-plagued Starliner are facing another extended delay....

Both are only thinking about the best interests of users, of course The European Commission (EC) has continued pushing Apple to open up more of iOS to third parties, and Apple has pushed back, warning that doing so risks user privacy....

Misleading listing on a recruitment site? Whatever next? The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has slapped IT Career Change Ltd on the wrist over a September 2024 ad promoting a career in Health & Safety....

Amid plans to convert smaller stores, retailer opted to stall December shift as Walmart tech divorce continues Exclusive Asda decided not to go ahead with planned cut-over dates to introduce new systems at some smaller stores earlier this month as part of its technical divorce from Walmart, the previous owner of the UK's third-largest supermarket....

Dodgy AI chatbots as brains - what could go wrong? Feature The first telephone call in 1876 was marked by Alexander Graham Bell's request to his assistant, Thomas, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you."...

Recent campaign targeted 20,000 folk across UK and Europe with this tactic, Unit 42 warns Unknown criminals went on a phishing expedition that targeted about 20,000 users across the automotive, chemical and industrial compound manufacturing sectors in Europe, and tried to steal account credentials and then hijack the victims' Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure....

The EV race is well and truly running, and no-one wants to be left in the dust The automotive industry has been shaken this week by news that giant Japanese carmakers Nissan and Honda are contemplating a merger, with Mitsubishi Motors apparently keen to become part of the mix....

Will consider free speech arguments just nine days before the clock runs out The US Supreme Court has decided to consider made-in-China social network TikTok's appeal against the law that requires it to shift to local ownership, or close, by January 19....

Derivatives claim seeks damages from execs and board members Beleaguered chipmaker Intel has been sued yet again by shareholders over its foundry business, this time in a derivative lawsuit targeting executives and board members....

It could end up like Huawei -Trump's gonna get ya, get ya, get ya The Feds may ban the sale of TP-Link routers in the US over ongoing national security concerns about Chinese-made devices being used in cyberattacks....

Authorization comes less than a month after flight 6: 'The FAA continues to increase efficiencies' The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing a license authorization for the next test flight of SpaceX's Starship....

Enrollment invitations will continue until security improves Microsoft last week lauded the success of its efforts to convince customers to use passkeys instead of passwords, without actually quantifying that success....

All it took to make an Google Edge TPU give up model hyperparameters was specific hardware, a novel attack technique ... and several days Computer scientists from North Carolina State University have devised a way to copy AI models running on Google Edge Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), as used in Google Pixel phones and third-party machine learning accelerators....