Sacramento cops scoured energy records to target suspected weed growers, and the EFF has sued
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has advanced a lawsuit in which it alleges the City of Sacramento misused energy records to accuse residents of growing cannabis, often with disastrous results.…
Dell scoffs at breach, says miscreants only stole ‘fake data’
Dell has confirmed that criminals broke into its IT environment and stole some of its data — but told The Register that it's "primarily synthetic (fake) data."…
Another massive security snafu hits Microsoft, but don't expect it to stick
comment Here we go again. Another major Microsoft attack, with this one seeing someone — most likely government-backed hackers — exploiting a zero-day bug in SharePoint Server that Redmond failed to fix.…
X tells the French police 'non' to its request for algorithmic data
The site formerly known as Twitter has said it will not hand over any information to French police over an investigation into its recommendation algorithms.…
Cursor AI YOLO mode lets coding assistant run wild, security firm warns
Cursor's AI coding agent will run automatically, in YOLO mode, if you let it. According to Backslash Security, you might want to think twice about doing so.…
Humongous parachute for European Mars landing mission tested successfully
video The European Space Agency (ESA) conducted a successful parachute test for the ExoMars Mars landing rover earlier this month, even as uncertainty looms over US involvement in the project.…
NASA veteran warns Hubble faces death by a hundred cuts
Interview "I would say I'm cautiously optimistic, but that probably overstates how I'm feeling."…
Clear Linux OS terminated as Intel trims the fat
Intel has abruptly killed off Clear Linux OS, ending Chipzilla's decade-long adventure in this part of the Linux world.…
Composer for worst Tomb Raider games jailed over COVID-19 loan fraud
Sad news for the three people who fondly remember the soundtracks to turn-of-the-millennium Tomb Raider – their composer, Peter Connelly, has been sentenced to 16 months behind bars for COVID-19 loan fraud.…
Vintage computing boffin releases expansive Intel 286 test suite
The developer of MartyPC, an emulator for vintage Intel-compatible hardware that targets cycle accuracy, has released a test suite for Intel's classic 80286 processor and compatibles – created, in a fit of raw enthusiasm and hyperfocus, by single-stepping a physical chip from the mid-1980s through the execution of almost 1.5 million instructions.…
AWS slaps usage caps on Kiro as AI editor preview proves too popular for its own good
AWS has introduced daily usage limits and a user waitlist for Kiro, its preview spec-driven AI editor, citing unexpectedly high demand as it works to scale the system.…
Selling your digital soul to use Bluesky's DMs isn't just a bad idea, it's the law
Opinion On June 10, social network Bluesky announced that in 15 days it would introduce age verification for UK users, to comply with the UK Online Safety Act. As this law threatens non-compliant content companies with eight-figure fines from July 25, you can see why. The how, however, is breathtakingly inexcusable.…
Please, FOSS world, we need something like ChromeOS
Comment Dear Santa. For Windows-10-end-of-support-day in October, please may we have a dead simple bulletproof all-free OS that gets old PCs online without a Google account, and does nothing else?…
Radio geeks reveal how to access crucial hurricane data after US Department of Defense cut it off
With the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) set to shut down a key satellite data stream used in US hurricane forecasting, a group of amateur radio enthusiasts has stepped in with a decoder they say could fill the gap.…
Four new Android spyware samples linked to Iran's intel agency
Four new samples of Android spyware linked to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) that collects WhatsApp data, records audio and video, and hunts for files by name, surfaced shortly after the Iran-Israel conflict began.…
US signals intention to rethink job H-1B lottery
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) intend to reevaluate how H-1B visas are issued, according to a regulatory filing.…
Microsoft patches under-attack SharePoint 2019 and SE
Microsoft is releasing out-of-band security updates for SharePoint Server 2019 and SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, following a warning that vulnerable versions were now under attack.…
EU cloud gang wins Microsoft concessions, but fair software licensing group brands them 'stalling tactic'
Updated A trade group of European cloud providers has claimed a small victory in bringing lower prices and more flexibility in deploying Microsoft software on their infrastructure, though the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing has blasted it as a "stalling tactic" by the software giant.…
Coldplay kiss-cam flap proves we’re already our own surveillance state
Comment A tech executive's alleged affair exposed on a stadium jumbotron is ripe fodder for the gossip rags, but it exhibits something else: proof that we need not wait for an AI-fueled dystopian surveillance state to descend on us - we're perfectly able and willing to surveil ourselves.…
Under-qualified sysadmin crashed Amazon.com for 3 hours with a typo
Who, Me? Welcome again to "Who, Me?" – The Register's Monday column in which readers admit to making mistakes and explain how they managed to keep their careers going afterwards.…
