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Latest in long-running pwning of Cisco kit found in mystery Fed agency

A US federal agency was successfully targeted by a previously unknown backdoor malware called Firestarter, according to CISA cybersnoops and their UK counterparts – neither of which disclosed the agency's name.…

AI infrastructure and international growth offset domestic carrier shifts as 'Connectivity + Computing' strategy takes hold

One way to deal with bug hunting LLMs: ditch the old drivers

One tactic to deal with LLM-powered vulnerability detection is simple – just speed up the removal of old code. If it's gone, it no longer matters if it's buggy.…

We gotta get boring to get graduated

Grafanacon The founder of the Open Telemetry project says its maintainers may need to turn to AI tools to get some elements robust enough for the project as a whole to graduate.…

Windows giant offers buyouts to eligible staffers willing to walk

Microsoft has committed to improving the quality and reliability of Windows, and a step on the path to that goal is… encouraging a chunk of its US staff to leave the company.…

Chipzilla hopes agents, robots, and edge devices make CPUs cool again... now it has to build the chips

Chipzilla hopes agents, robots, and edge devices make CPUs cool again... now it has to build the chips

Intel is betting on AI to reverse its fortunes, wagering that inference and agentic workloads will restore the CPU to the center of compute - even as its chip manufacturing struggles persist.…

After flubbing the Metaverse, Zuck embraces the Neoverse

Meta plans to deploy tens of millions of Amazon Web Services' Graviton 5 CPU cores as part of a multi-year collaboration that will make the social network among the largest-ever consumers of the cloud giant’s homegrown silicon.…

Ailing scaling blamed by Windows-maker for unreadable missives

Microsoft's update to harden Remote Desktop against phishing attacks has arrived. When users open a Remote Desktop (.rdp) file, they should now see a warning listing all requested connection settings - or they would if it was displaying correctly.…

OpenAI's first security hire, Ari Herbert-Voss, thinks more automated bug finding will improve security without costing jobs

OpenAI's first security hire, Ari Herbert-Voss, thinks more automated bug finding will improve security without costing jobs

Black Hat Asia Open source models can find bugs as effectively as Anthropic's Mythos, according to Ari Herbert-Voss, CEO of AI-powered security startup RunSybil and OpenAI's first security hire.…

Anthropic is expanding Claude's app integrations beyond work tools, adding personal-service connectors like Spotify, Uber, AllTrails, TripAdvisor, Instacart, and TurboTax. The Verge reports: Some of these apps, such as Spotify, already have similar connectors in OpenAI's ChatGPT. Once an app is connected, Claude will suggest relevant connected apps directly in your conversations, like using AllTrails for hike recommendations. Anthropic notes in its blog post announcing the new connectors that, "Your data from [connected apps] isn't used to train our models, and the app doesn't see your other conversations with Claude. You can also disconnect it at any time." Additionally, Anthropic says "there are no paid placements or sponsored answers in conversations with Claude." When multiple apps seem relevant, Claude will show results from both "ranked by what's most useful." Claude will also ask users to verify before taking actions like making a purchase or reservation using a connected app.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Oval Office resident rants about Blighty's Digital Services Tax with threats that don’t quite add up

Donald Trump has threatened to whack the UK with a "big tariff" if it doesn't scrap its tax on large US tech firms, reviving a long-running spat over who gets to skim the proceeds from Silicon Valley's global empire.…

Missed flights and more means something has got to give at the border

Missed flights and more means something has got to give at the border

Greece is taking a flexible approach to introducing the European Union's biometric Entry/Exit System (EES), after some British passport holders missed flights home following the system's implementation on 10 April.…

Nothing says 'We want honest opinions' like a 36,000-letter mailshot with no awkward questions allowed

Members of the UK government’s People’s Panel on Digital ID will spend two weekends in Birmingham and three evenings on Zoom discussing how Britain should build a national digital identity system, earning £550 plus expenses for their trouble.…

Computer glitch spawns duplicate jackpots, disgruntled punters, and one very bad career choice

A computer glitch in a Spanish betting shop triggered a chain of events that ended with the store manager being kidnapped and held for €50,000 ($58,000) in ransom, allegedly by one of the shop's own employees.…

Won't somebody think of the children not being hit by a load of building materials?

Won't somebody think of the children not being hit by a load of building materials?

On Call Delivering excellent tech support can sometimes require heavy lifting, a feat The Register celebrates each Friday with a new instalment of On Call – the reader-contributed column that shares your stories of hoisting glitchy tech back to full function.…

The FCC has expanded its foreign-made router ban to also cover consumer Wi-Fi hotspots and LTE/5G home-internet devices, though existing products and phones with hotspot features are not affected. PCMag reports: On Wednesday, the FCC updated its FAQ on the ban, clarifying which consumer-grade routers are subject to the restrictions. Portable Wi-Fi hotspots are usually considered a separate category from Wi-Fi home routers. Both offer internet access, but portable Wi-Fi hotspots use a SIM card to connect to a cellular network rather than an Ethernet cable inside a residence. However, the FCC's FAQ now specifies that "consumer-grade portable or mobile MiFi Wi-Fi or hotspot devices for residential use" are covered under the ban. The ban also affects "LTE/5G CPE devices for residential use," which are installed for fixed wireless access and use a carrier's cellular network to deliver home internet. The FCC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about the changes. In the meantime, the FAQ reiterates that the foreign-made router ban only applies to consumer-grade devices, not enterprise products. The document also notes that mobile phones with hotspot features remain outside the restrictions. In addition, the ban only affects new router models that vendors plan to sell, not existing models, as T-Mobile emphasized to PCMag.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.