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It's a marketing move to lure more affiliates, says infosec veteran

The latest marketing ploy from the ransomware crooks behind the Qilin operation involves offering affiliates access to a crack team of lawyers to ramp up pressure in ransom negotiations.…

French satellite operator plans capital raise backed by state and key investors including Bharti

Satellite biz Eutelsat is looking to raise €1.35 billion ($1.55 billion) to grow its Low Earth Orbit (LEO) network to take on Starlink and benefit from anticipated growth in demand for connectivity.…

A United Nations study has found a sharp global divide on attitudes toward AI, with trust strongest in low-income countries and skepticism high in wealthier ones. From a report: More than 6 out of 10 people in developing nations said they have faith that AI systems serve the best interests of society, according to a UN Development Programme survey of 21 countries seen by Bloomberg News. In two-thirds of the countries surveyed, over half of respondents expressed some level of confidence that AI is being designed for good. In China, where steady advances in AI are posing a challenge to US dominance, 83% of those surveyed said they trust the technology. Like China, most developing countries that reported confidence in AI have "high" levels of development based on the UNDP's Human Development Index, including Kyrgyzstan and Egypt. But the list also includes those with "medium" and "low" HDI scores like India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

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Q1 revenue jumps to $11.7B, with 400 and 800 GbE driving the spike

The long-dormant market for datacenter network switches is booming thanks to AI.…

X11 is very far from dead – no matter if some want it to be

Comment Considerable new activity is happening both in the established X.org X11 server and around its new fork, Xlibre.…

BrianFagioli writes: In a move that could quietly wreak havoc across the Windows ecosystem, Microsoft is purging outdated drivers from Windows Update. The company claims it is doing this for security and reliability, but the result might be broken hardware for users who rely on legacy devices. If you're using older peripherals or custom-built PCs, you could soon find yourself hunting for drivers that have vanished into the digital abyss. This initiative, buried in a low-profile blog post, is part of Microsoft's new cleanup program. The first wave targets legacy drivers that already have newer replacements available. But the real kicker is that Microsoft isn't warning individual users about which drivers are going away.

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... And then promptly deletes comment. Optimism or an opportunity? Or perhaps both

French cloud business, OVHcloud, claimed yesterday that it is in discussions with the European Commission (EC) regarding a possible migration to a sovereign cloud – in an X post that has since been deleted.…

Semicolon usage in British literature has declined from once every 205 words in 2000 to once every 390 words today, representing a nearly 50% drop, according to analysis commissioned by language learning company Babbel. The punctuation mark appeared once every 90 words in British literature from 1781, making the current frequency the lowest on record. A survey of young learners in the London Student Network found that more than half of respondents could not correctly use semicolons, with only 11% describing themselves as frequent users. The average score on a semicolon knowledge quiz was 49%.

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A senior Broadcom executive has defended VMware's controversial licensing changes by arguing that customers complaining about costs simply weren't using the software bundles properly. VMware shifted away from selling perpetual licenses for individual products to subscription bundles after Broadcom's acquisition. Some smaller and mid-sized customers claim their costs increased eight to 15 times under the new pricing structure, prompting migration plans to alternative platforms. Joe Baguley, Broadcom's chief technology officer for EMEA, countered that 87% of VMware's top 10,000 customers have signed up for VMware Cloud Foundation, and that cost complaints "don't play out" when Broadcom sits down with customers directly.

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Seizures up 830% since 2021, with devices linked to interference in emergency responses

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is concerned about the rate at which outlawed signal-jamming devices are being found across the US.…

Lawmakers in Britain have narrowly approved a bill to legalize assisted dying for terminally ill people, capping a fraught debate in Parliament and across the country that cut across political, religious and legal divides. From a report: MPs passed the bill by 314 votes to 291, in their final say on the question. The bill -- which has split lawmakers and sparked impassioned conversations with their constituents the breadth of Britain -- will now move to the House of Lords for its final rounds of scrutiny. Friday's vote puts Britain firmly on track to join a small club of nations that have legalized the process, and one of the largest by population to allow it. It allows people with a terminal condition and less than six months to live to take a substance to end their lives, as long as they are capable of making the decision themselves. Two doctors and a panel would need to sign off on the choice. Canada, New Zealand, Spain and most of Australia allow assisted dying in some form, as do several US states, including Oregon, Washington and California.

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VCF bundle is worth it if you make the most of every part, says CTO

Customers dismayed by Broadcom's move to selling costly bundles such as VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) will realize its value if they'd just use more of the components, the company's CTO says.…

Turning recently closed coalmines into solar energy plants could add almost 300GW of renewable energy by 2030, converting derelict wastelands to productive use, according to a new report. From a report: In a first of its kind analysis, researchers from Global Energy Monitor (GEM) identified 312 surface coalmines closed since 2020 around the world, and 134 likely to close by the end of the decade, together covering 5,820 sq km (2,250 sq miles) -- a land area nearly the size of Palestine. Strip mining turns terrains into wastelands, polluted and denuded of topsoil. But if they were filled with solar panels and developed into energy plants, the report claims, they could generate enough energy to power as big and power hungry a nation as Germany.

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What about notebooks, including AI-ready devices? Ah well, still months to go, eh Microsoft

With fewer than four months before Microsoft pulls the plug on standard support for Windows 10, businesses are replacing dusty – but in some cases perfectly working – desktop PCs in preparation for the migration to the little loved next generation of the Windows OS.…

Third-party provider pledges to support legacy ERP until 2040

Enterprise software support specialist Rimini Street has announced that it will continue to support SAP's ECC 6.0 until 2040, more than ten years after the German vendor plans to retire support for the legacy ERP platform.…

Services coming back online after legacy systems compromised

Oxford City Council says a cyberattack earlier this month resulted in 21 years of data being compromised.…

The DOJ has filed a civil complaint to seize $225.3 million in cryptocurrency linked to pig butchering scams -- long-con frauds where victims are tricked into fake crypto investments. The funds were laundered through a blockchain network, and the DOJ says recovered money will go toward reimbursing victims. The Verge reports: The 75-page complaint (PDF) filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia lays out more detail about the seizure. According to it, the US Secret Service (USSS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tied scammers to seven groups of Tether stablecoin tokens. The fraud fell under what's typically known as "pig butchering": a form of long-running confidence scam aimed at tricking victims -- sometimes with a fake romantic relationship -- into what they believe is a profitable crypto investment opportunity, then disappearing with the funds. Pig butchering rings often traffic the workers who directly communicate with victims to Southeast Asian countries, something the DOJ alleges this ring did. The DOJ says Tether and crypto exchange OKX first alerted law enforcement in 2023 to a series of accounts they believed were helping launder fraudulently obtained currency through a vast and complex web of transactions. The alleged victims include Shan Hanes (referred to in this complaint as S.H.), the former Heartland Tri-State Bank president who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for embezzling tens of millions of dollars to invest in one of the best-known and most devastating pig butchering scams. The complaint lists a number of other victims who lost thousands or millions of dollars they thought they were investing (and did not commit crimes of their own). An FBI report (PDF) cited by the press release concluded overall crypto investment fraud caused $5.8 billion worth of reported losses in 2024.

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Framework agreement may rescue some unis from 'financial abyss' after Oracle per-employee Java license, says insider

Exclusive Oracle requested Java audits with UK higher education institutions leading up to the negotiation of a national framework agreement — set to be worth up to £9.86 million ($13.33 million) — which aims to save the institutions £45 million when compared to standard commercial pricing.…

'Black side down,' Lego style

Lego has released another NASA-themed set; this time, a version of the US space agency's Boeing 747-based Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with a Space Shuttle perched on top.…

Sometimes the 'R' in RTFM stands for 'Remember'

On Call The trek through the working week can be long and tiring, which is why The Register always offers a little Friday morning refresher in the form of On Call – the reader-contributed column in which you share tech support stories.…