The Register

Plus, leak site for BlackSuit seized, Tea spilt, and avoid crime if you've got a famous dad

Infosec in brief  A computer intrusion hit the US spy satellite agency, but officials insist no classified secrets were lost - just some unclassified ones, apparently.…

Surveillance-based pricing? Two lawmakers say enough

Two Democratic members of Congress, Greg Casar (D-TX) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI,) have introduced legislation in the US House of Representatives to ban the use of AI surveillance to set prices and wages.…

Chipzilla hopes it can pull an Altera with its NEX division, and is now looking for buyers

Intel isn't just laying off employees and closing plants in a bid to cut costs – it's also reportedly planning to get rid of its entire Network and Edge Group (NEX) to help right the ship. …

AT&T and Verizon refused to hand over the security assessments, says Cantwell

US Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has demanded that Google-owned incident response firm Mandiant hand over the Salt Typhoon-related security assessments of AT&T and Verizon that, according to the lawmaker, both operators have thus far refused to give Congress.…

The latest version of systemd looks to be a big one, with substantial new functionality. More to love – right?

Like it or not, systemd is the industry-standard init system these days. A new release is coming, and it's a big one.…

Space is hard, especially for racks of fragile computer equipment

opinion  William Gibson's Neuromancer holds up well after 40 years. One of the cyberpunk novel's concepts was an AI housed in an orbital datacenter (ODC) above the Earth. Today, startup companies and venture capital firms are hoping to turn orbital datacenters into reality to enable AI, believing that free power from the sun and cooling using the emptiness of space will unlock the technology from its terrestrial-based shackles of electric bills and cooling water.…

If you've ever logged into a network on your laptop or phone, the password is still there

hands-on  You're at a place you've been before and your Windows laptop immediately remembers the SSID and password for the Wi-Fi network, logging you on automatically. But your phone, tablet, and your coworker's laptop have never been here before, so they can't connect. If only you remembered the password or had it written down somewhere.…

Too much of anything is bad for you, including faux-magical statistical models

There are numerous recent reports of people becoming too engaged with AI, sometimes to the detriment of their mental health.…

Private sector invited to colocate at legacy nuclear facilities

The US Department of Energy (DoE) has identified four sites where private sector firms will be invited to colocate datacenters and energy generation projects, in line with the Trump administration's goal to boost AI development in America.…

The FreeBSD Laptop project continues – and plans to offer a very visible change

FreeBSD 15 is coming, maybe at the end of this year – and along with other improvements, it may finally offer the option of installing with a graphical desktop.…

Zuckercorp blames legal uncertainty under upcoming TTPA law

Meta has followed in Google's footsteps in deciding that pending EU political advertising regulations are so onerous to comply with that they're not even going to bother.…

Policy management not affected, but some personal data may have been snaffled

Updated  Business insurance and employment status specialist Qdos has confirmed that an intruder has stolen some customers personal data, according to a communication to tech contractors that was seen by The Register.…

Malicious code lurking in over 5,000 downloads, says Socket researcher

Developer freelancing platform Toptal has been inadvertently spreading malicious code after attackers broke into its systems and began distributing malware through developer accounts.…

We say everything... just not the oldest hardware. Unix Epochalypse less than 13 years away

Venerable Linux distribution Debian is side-stepping the Y2K38 bug – also known as the Unix Epochalypse – by switching to 64-bit time for everything but the oldest of supported hardware, starting with the upcoming Debian 13 "Trixie" release.…

Under oath in French Senate, exec says it would be compelled – however unlikely – to pass local customer info to US admin

Microsoft says it "cannot guarantee" data sovereignty to customers in France – and by implication the wider European Union – should the Trump administration demand access to customer information held on its servers.…

No, it will not turn you into a 10X programmer. In fact, it won't even transform you into a noob developer

Opinion  Everyone loves the idea of magic. All you have to do is wave your hands, say a few words, and something new is born to the world. That works for Harry Potter, but it won't work for you. Vibe coding, the notion that you can build programs by telling an AI what you want the software to do, is pure fantasy.…

CFO claims money being reinvested in sales and engineering staff

ServiceNow claims it is on course to realize $100 million in savings on its global headcount this year due to the internal implementation of AI.…

CEO Lip-Bu Tan says strategy shift will focus on customer needs, efficiency, and cutting costs

Ailing chip giant Intel is ditching its manufacturing sites in Germany and Poland and signaling further job cuts ahead as its new leader tries to stem the losses and turn the Silicon Valley pioneer's fortunes around.…

Satya Nadella lays out revised mission for Redmond. Spoiler: It involves AI

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Thursday told employees in a memo that the company's recent layoffs have been "weighing heavily on me."…

Mock-ups feature m365.com, which could be yours for a few bucks

Microsoft this week trumpeted the launch of Microsoft 365 Copilot Search with lofty promises and slick mock-ups, but the domain plastered all over them didn't belong to the corporation.…