TheRegister
Python Foundation goes ride or DEI, rejects government grant with strings attached
The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has walked away from a $1.5 million government grant and you can blame the Trump administration's war on woke for effectively weakening some open source security. …
Signal president Meredith Whittaker says they had no choice but to use AWS, and that's a problem
Messaging service Signal may be unusual in its deployment of credible end-to-end encryption, but it shares a common availability vulnerability with many other internet services – dependence on Amazon Web Services (AWS).…
Atlas vuln lets crims inject malicious prompts ChatGPT won't forget between sessions
In yet another reminder to be wary of AI browsers, researchers at LayerX uncovered a vulnerability in OpenAI's Atlas that lets attackers inject malicious instructions into ChatGPT's memory using cross-site request forgery.…
HPE's Discovery to succeed Frontier supercomputer with next-gen Cray tech
HPE is set to build a successor to the Frontier exascale system for America's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, based on the next generation of its Cray supercomputer platform, plus a separate AI cluster to advance machine learning with a multi-tenant cloud-like platform.…
Breach at Iran’s cyberspy factory results in leak of student data
Iran's school for state-sponsored cyberattackers admits it suffered a breach exposing the names and other personal information of its associates and students.…
You have one week to opt out or become fodder for LinkedIn AI training
If you thought living in Europe, Canada, or Hong Kong meant you were protected from having LinkedIn scrape your posts to train its AI, think again. You have a week to opt out before the Microsoft subsidiary assumes you're fine with it.…
As AI agents join SaaS, AWS tells users to expect more pricing puzzles
Interview As agentic AI solutions flood the market, users will face a complex environment in terms of deployment and commercial models, with standard practices yet to be resolved, says Olawale Oladehin, AWS director, solutions architecture.…
EU sovereignty plan accused of helping US cloud giants
Europe's efforts to reduce reliance on US hyperscalers is under fire from many of the local cloud providers it is designed to help.…
Researchers exploit OpenAI's Atlas by disguising prompts as URLs
Researchers have found more attack vectors for OpenAI's new Atlas web browser – this time by disguising a potentially malicious prompt as an apparently harmless URL.…
X says passkey reset isn't about a security issue – it's to finally kill off twitter.com
X (formerly Twitter) sparked security concerns over the weekend when it announced users must re-enroll their security keys by November 10 or face account lockouts — without initially explaining why.…
Ex-CISA head thinks AI might fix code so fast we won't need security teams
Ex-CISA head Jen Easterly claims AI could spell the end of the cybersecurity industry, as the sloppy software and vulnerabilities that criminals rely on will be tracked down faster than ever.…
Everything you know about last week's AWS outage is wrong
Column AWS put out a hefty analysis of its October 20 outage, and it's apparently written in a continuing stream of consciousness before the Red Bull wore off and the author passed out after 36 straight hours of writing.…
Machine learning saves £4.4M in UK.gov work and pensions fraud detection
The UK government's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has saved £4.4 million over three years by using machine learning to tackle fraud, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). However, the public spending watchdog found the department's ability to expand this work is limited by fragmented IT systems and poor cross-government data standards.…
The Chinese Box and Turing Test: Is AI really intelligent?
Opinion Remember ELIZA? The 1966 chatbot from MIT's AI Lab convinced countless people it was intelligent using nothing but simple pattern matching and canned responses. Nearly 60 years later, ChatGPT has people making the same mistake. Chatbots don't think – they've just gotten exponentially better at pretending.…
The perfect AWS storm has blown over, but the climate is only getting worse
Opinion When your cabbie asks you what you do for a living, and you answer "tech journalist," you never get asked about cloud infrastructure in return. Bitcoin, mobile phones, AI, yes. Until last week: "What's this AWS thing, then?" You already knew a lot of people were having a very bad day in Bezosville, but if the news had reached an Edinburgh black cab driver, new adjectives were needed.…
Frustrated consultant 'went full Hulk' and started smashing hardware
Who, Me? Welcome to Monday morning and another installment of Who, Me? For the uninitiated, it's The Register's weekly reader-contributed column that tells tales of your greatest misses, and how you rebuilt a career afterward.…
Automattic accuses rival WordPress outfit WP Engine of ‘false advertising, and deceptive business practices’
The long battle between Automattic and WP Engine has flared again, this time with accusations the latter company issued “false advertising”, and employed “deceptive business practices.”…
UN Cybercrime Treaty wins dozens of signatories, to go with its many critics
The United Nations on Saturday staged a signing ceremony for the Convention against Cybercrime, the world’s first agreement to combat online crime. And while 72 nations picked up the pen, critics continue to point out the convention’s flaws.…
Australia sues Microsoft for misleading Microsoft 365 users about Copilot subscription options
Asia In Brief Australia’s Competition & Consumer Commission on Monday commenced legal proceedings against Microsoft for allegedly misleading users of its Microsoft 365 bundle.…
Shaq's new ride gets jaq'ed in haq attaq
Infosec In Brief Former basketball star Shaquille O'Neal is 7'1" (215 cm), and therefore uses car customization companies to modify vehicles to fit his frame. But it appears cybercriminals have targeted Shaq’s preferred motor-modder.…