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27th November 2012 Archive

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  • US & EU celebrate 'Cyber Monday' by seizing 132 websites

    Counterfeit-goods sting nets transatlantic miscreants

    Law-enforcement authorities in the US and the European Union celebrated "Cyber Monday" – the internet's shopping-frenzy equivalent to brick-and-mortar stores' Black Friday – by shuttering 132 websites for selling counterfeit merchandise. "These websites were stealing from legitimate websites and copyright holders and the …

    Law 27 Nov 00:09

  • ‘Anonymous’ takes down Texan RFID-tracking school

    Hacktivists toying with school district’s site

    Activist group Anonymous, or persons using its insignia and name, claim to have taken down the website of the US schools that have made it compulsory for students to wear RFID tags. Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore student at the John Jay High School's Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio, last week refused to wear the …

    Security 27 Nov 00:32

  • Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 arrives, first of many

    Rapid releases planned to fix bugs, add features

    Microsoft has released the first major update to Visual Studio 2012, in what company reps say is only the first in "a regular cadence" of planned improvements to its flagship developer tool suite. Redmond launched VS2012 just over two months ago, but according to S. Somasegar, corporate veep of Microsoft's Developer Division, …

    Developer 27 Nov 01:04

  • Samsung suppliers broke labour laws, but didn't hire kids

    Unveils long list of new policies to stop abuses

    Samsung Electronics has said it is now taking “corrective actions” after a month-long audit it set up identified several instances of suppliers breaking local Chinese labour laws, although not-for-profit groups remain sceptical about the prospect of widespread and lasting change. The investigation, which was instituted after …

    Law 27 Nov 05:37

  • Network giants want software-defined network standards

    Virtual networks coming to mobile and metro networks … and beyond!

    Software-defined networking (SDN), the concept that's so hot VMware spent $US1.05 billion buying market leader Nicira, is on the way to becoming a standard for telecommunications networks. SDN is the networking world’s equivalent of server virtualisation. The latter made it possible to treat a single physical server as several …

    Networks 27 Nov 05:39

  • Outsourcing fingered as UBS cops £30m fine

    Rogue trader should have been spotted in outsourced report

    The perils of outsourcing have again come under the spotlight after regulators investigating the $US2.3bn loss at Swiss bank UBS pointed to key risk management failings at a third party provider based in India. The FSA and Swiss regulator FINMA launched a joint investigation into UBS in September 2011 after it came to light …

    Business 27 Nov 05:42

  • Man facing rare refusal-to-unlock-encryption charge: Court date set

    Accused of DDoS attacks against police, Oxbridge websites

    A 20-year-old Brit will appear before magistrates in Maidstone, Kent, on 20 December charged with launching denial-of-service attacks on the websites of Kent Police and Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Lewys Martin, from Walmer near Dover in Kent, also faces charges of theft of personal data and failure to disclose passwords …

    Law 27 Nov 05:58

  • Google plans touchscreen Chromebook for 2013 - report

    Chocolate Factory has ordered 20 million own-brand devices

    Undeterred by the luke-warm response its partners have had launching their browser-only Chromebook laptops, Google is set to hit the market with a touchscreen version at the end of 2012, according to reports from Taiwan. The 12.85in notebook will be the Chocolate Factory’s first own-branded effort, with Taiwanese OEM giant …

    Hardware 27 Nov 06:17

  • Fallen flash pioneer's CEO bets $600k it can rise again

    Must be sick of watching flash newbies grab the big bucks

    Struggling SSD supplier STEC has received a vote of confidence from its own CEO - Mark Moshayedi has just bought $593,000 worth of shares. According to Forbes and Nasdaq community news president and CEO Mark Moshayedi bought 137,664 shares at an average price of $4.71. He obviously expects and hopes they will rise as STEC …

    Storage 27 Nov 06:33

  • Tool time with Trevor: 'Organic' sysadmins' spice mush still pretty edible

    Sysadmin blog When 'eat what's in front of you' just won't wash

    I've talked before about Spiceworks as a social network. It's time to look at the application that serves as the carrot to get you hooked on that social network. Spiceworks has an organic development history; it has grown through developer vision but also through end-user and vendor feedback. This is both Spiceworks's greatest …

    Datacenter 27 Nov 07:00

  • Nokia Lumia 820 WinPho 8 review

    Smaller, cheaper... nicer

    The Nokia Lumia 820 is the second of Nokia's two new Windows phones. It's the neglected sibling of the flagship Lumia 920, and is barely mentioned in Nokia's presentations.  But I found it a very capable handset, with plenty to commend it. Why does this sound a bit familiar? Nokia's Lumia 820: It's like déjà vu all over again …

    Hardware 27 Nov 07:30

  • BT.com blats small privacy bug, ignores GAPING HOLE

    Allow anyone to hike your bill? Yes, that's what we call customer convenience

    BT has squashed a mild website privacy bug reported by a Reg reader - but the telco has refused to address a related issue that allows anyone to add paid-for features to any BT landline. The latter problem, described by the telco as a "customer convenience", can be exploited using just a property's postcode and phone number to …

    Security 27 Nov 07:58

  • Upping your game with Windows Server 2012

    Two Reg readers provide many reasons

    Join us on December 7 at 11:00 GMT, when we’ll be broadcasting live from our London studio with Reg readers Chris Losch, from Newham Council, and Gary Collins, from Intercept IT. Between them, they’re going to run through a raft of real-world projects and deployment scenarios where they’ve been using and abusing Windows Server …

    Datacenter 27 Nov 08:08

  • Capita cans Employee Forum a year after launch

    No connection with redundancy programme closing, none at all, say sarcastic staffers

    Capita IT Services (CITHS) staffers are scratching their heads after the Employee Forum was disbanded just a year after it was set up. The council of 70 staffers was formed as part of the Unity programme, set up by former operations director Russ Hewitt who was then shown the door in July just week before CEO Mark Quartermaine …

    The Channel 27 Nov 08:28

  • Eucalyptus pushes pedal to metal, turns cloud control knob up to 3.2

    'Harder on the inside, softer on the outside'

    Eucalyptus Systems, the company behind the open-source cloud controller of the same name, has just rolled out the 3.2 release of its software. With its latest release, it is sticking to its cloud fabric knitting and ramping up its business and customer base, and it certainly needs to get on top of this, especially while …

    Cloud 27 Nov 09:03

  • Only Kinect: Microsoft boffins build Minority Report-style tools

    Big, expensive goggles no longer compulsory for AR

    In the two years since Microsoft launched Kinect, there’s been huge interest among enthusiasts in adapting the hands-free controller to new settings beyond gaming. Techies and geeks of open- and closed-source shades have hacked the hardware, used the tools or adapted Kinect to steer computerised, wheeled armchairs. Among …

    Developer 27 Nov 09:22

  • Druva: We can do a mixture of anything you can do

    Voodoo that we do quite different from that which you do

    Mobile, desktop and notebook backup startup Druva has dropped file sharing into its product mix and reckons it's distanced itself from pure-play endpoint backup vendors and file sync 'n' share players. Druva was founded in 2008 and says its software is used to protect more than a million endpoints - desktop and notebook PCs, …

    Storage 27 Nov 09:44

  • BYOD: A bigger headache for IT bosses than Windows Metro?

    Your survival guide to giving users what they want

    Nothing elicits passionate debate quite like the suggestion that consumer technology is dictating workplace IT - with the exception of arguments over the Windows 8 Metro desktop, perhaps. The debate on the consumerisation of IT is packed with business, legal and human resources headaches. Individual prejudices and experience …

    Management 27 Nov 10:00

  • Peter Moore: IT consultant and Iraq hostage – Part One

    Interview Stripped, pistol whipped, cold conked, bored stiff

    On May 29, 2007, IT consultant Peter Moore and four British guards were taken hostage by an Iraqi militia during what was supposed to be a quick three-month posting to Baghdad. It would be another 946 days before he was released. During his years of imprisonment, Moore endured solitary confinement, mock executions, and the …

    Developer 27 Nov 10:15

  • Amazon's secret UK sales figures revealed by Parliamentary probe

    You guys don't buy much from us - honest

    Globe-spanning giant etailer Amazon has given the UK government access to its British sales figures for three years, after MPs grilled the firm over its tax payments in Blighty. Amazon said in written evidence to the Public Accounts Committee that it would like to reveal the figures on a "confidential basis" to the MPs. The …

    Financial News 27 Nov 10:29

  • Harley allows Apple to use 'Lightning' brand on 'playthings'

    Bikers keep rights for lace, ribbons, flowers and bows

    Apple has acquired the trademark "Lightning" from motorbike makers Harley Davidson, but only for use on a limited set of goods and services, a European trademark filing has revealed. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Apple was granted two European registrations for the "Lightning" trademark last week. The …

    Hardware 27 Nov 10:44

  • Steam stats show surge in honest PC gaming

    6 million concurrent users

    PC gaming is on the rise… if the popularity of Valve's Steam platform is anything to go by, that is. Over six million people were simultaneously logged into Valve's digital distribution service this past weekend, the highest number it has ever seen. The five million mark was reached in January 2012, a figure many attributed …

    Games 27 Nov 10:52

  • Yahoo! email! hijack! exploit!... Yours! for! $700!

    Cybercrook: It's a bargain, guys... They usually cost way more

    A cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw on Yahoo! Mail creates a means to steal cookies and hijack accounts, according to a hacker who is offering to sell an alleged zero-day vulnerability exploit for $700. The cybercrook, who uses the online nickname TheHell, knocked up a video to market the exploit which he is attempting to sell …

    Security 27 Nov 10:58

  • ITU to EU: We don't want to control the internet... honest

    But who's listening when Google says otherwise

    The ITU has reiterated that it does not want control of the internet, this time refuting a motion passed by the EU, which has joined the bandwagon fighting to preserve Google's future. The resolution, submitted by the Pirate Party among others, and passed last week, objects to the ITU trying to control the internet, at its …

    Government 27 Nov 11:24

  • Revealed: Google's manual for its unseen humans who rate the web

    Technology? Yes, but also toiling home-workers

    It's widely believed that Google search results are produced entirely by computer algorithms - in large part because Google would like this to be widely believed. But in fact a little-known group of home-worker humans plays a large part in the Google process. The way these raters go about their work has always been a mystery. …

    Media 27 Nov 11:30

  • Bash Street bytes: Do UK schools really need the Raspberry Pi?

    Feature Does Britain really need to be a nation of coders?

    There’s been a right fracas in education this year, with the government proclaiming that ICT (Information and Communication Technology) teaching is dull and demotivating, and that kids need to be be taught more programming, and less use of applications. Into the fray like a white knight comes the Raspberry Pi, a tool designed …

    Hardware 27 Nov 11:49

  • Elon Musk envisions small town of VEGETARIANS ON MARS

    Offers $500k one way tickets to 'people in their mid 40s'

    Billionaire space pioneer Elon Musk wants to get a Martian colony of 80,000 people up and running by ferrying folks out there for $500,000 a trip. Musk wants to start his colony on Mars with just ten people or so, who would fly to the planet on a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane. "At Mars, you can …

    Science 27 Nov 11:55

  • Data cops: Facebook privacy plans must be 'modified'

    We don't need your consent ... bitch

    Two privacy campaign groups have urged Facebook to rethink plans to change its terms of service, designed to help the social network squeeze more money out of ads. Meanwhile data regulators have stated that the plans will have to change so as to comply with privacy rules. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and …

    Media 27 Nov 11:58

  • Second PAC-MAN orbiting SATURN: Local absence of dots explained

    'Could be a whole arcade out there,' says NASA boffin

    NASA's Cassini mission has discovered a second Pac-Man moon in the Saturn system: Tethys. Cassini already spotted the Pac-Man thermal shape on the Mimas moon in 2010, and this second shape - found in Tethys, one of Saturn's 62 icy moons - shows that warmer areas in this pattern could be pretty normal for moons. "Finding a …

    Science 27 Nov 12:19

  • One in 10 Brit smartphone owners 'can't afford' to pay for apps

    Beggared themselves buying iPhones, now can't find 69p

    Brits like smartphones, but half of them don't like paying for apps and two-fifths of those who've downloaded one say they'd never hand over cash for the privilege. The numbers come from MyVoucherCodes, which asked 2,611 British app downloaders what they thought the apps were worth, with only 27 per cent saying they regularly …

    Applications 27 Nov 12:38

  • High school kids fend off university challenge in student cluster battle

    SC12 For a little bit, at least...

    The SC Student Cluster Competition (SCC) has seen university teams from around the world vying to prove their cluster competence. But this year has been marked by a number of firsts, including the first team composed entirely of high school students. The Skyline High School Eagles, located in Salt Lake City, entered the LittleFe …

    HPC 27 Nov 12:47

  • Power station, airport SCADA defences 'dead as a dodo'

    Security bod promises to help fix holes rather than flog exploits

    Researchers have discovered yet more security vulnerabilities in crucial equipment used by power plants, airports, factories and other critical systems. Exodus Intelligence said it has found more than 20 flaws in SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) software from vendors including Rockwell Automation, Schneider …

    Security 27 Nov 12:54

  • Nowhere to hide for Google users as Play is given Plus treatment

    Anyone reviewing products now gets name, photo attached

    Google is continuing its efforts to make anonymous posts on its services a thing of the past by forcing customers wishing to leave product reviews on its recently overhauled Android Marketplace online shop - now dubbed Play - to do so with their real name. When punters attempt to leave reviews for individual products on the …

    Media 27 Nov 13:07

  • Conmen swipe 100,000 Brits' sensitive info in UK.gov fraud bid

    Cops probe database ransack, attempted Treasury raid

    Crooks attempted to defraud the UK government after swiping sensitive details on tens of thousands of civil servants, postmen, BT staff and public-sector workers, The Register has learnt. The audacious raid of personal information on state and private-sector employees is the subject of a two-and-a-half-year criminal …

    Government 27 Nov 13:29

  • Lawsuit launched against HP following Autonomy catastrophe

    Mad Leo, Whitman both named by shareholders' lawyers

    Investors are suing HP over accusations that senior execs hid negative information on multibillion acquisition Autonomy which subsequently led to a share price collapse. It was only a matter of time before stockholders got legal representation following last week's spat, when HP wrote-down $5bn related to the Autonomy buy, …

    The Channel 27 Nov 13:44

  • Google parks panzers on Germany's lawn over 'link tax' plan

    Geld spricht, Stier Scheiße Wanderungen

    Google is attacking Germany's politicos in an effort to prevent the country's Parliament from passing a copyright law in the country that would force search engines to pay publishers for running links to newspaper stories. The world's largest ad broker is lobbying hard against the so-called ancillary copyright law by moaning …

    Media 27 Nov 14:10

  • Bradley Manning to speak in public for first time in two years

    Army private and alleged Wikileaker called as witness

    US Army private Bradley Manning will speak publicly for the first time in two years, when he's called as a witness in a pre-trial hearing later today. Manning, who is accused of "aiding the enemy" by handing over army secrets to Wikileaks, is expected to be called to testify at Fort Meade army base in a hearing that's expected …

    Security 27 Nov 14:24

  • Oracle de-cloaks JavaScript Nashorn project

    JavaScript shall speak unto JVM

    A project to make JavaScript work better with Java is being kicked off with a boost from Oracle. Oracle’s multi-language lead Jim Laskey has announced Project Nashorn, which aims to build a lightweight, high-performance runtime in Java using the native Virtual Machine (JVM). Nashorn will start from scratch, using entirely new …

    Developer 27 Nov 14:37

  • Cloud-building Fedora 18 goes into beta

    OpenStack and Eucalyptus included, OpenShift on the way

    The Fedora Project is kicking out the first and only beta of its Fedora 18 release of Linux, and this time around the focus is on cloud, cloud, cloud. Fedora 18 is code-named "Spherical Cow" but it might as well have been called "Cow-Shaped Cloud Wearing A Red Hat", since arguably the most important aspects of the release are …

    Operating Systems 27 Nov 15:00

  • Ten technology FAILS

    Tech that might have revolutionised your life but you have now completely forgotten

    Nokia's N-Gage, Palm's Foleo, Motorola's Atrix, Apple's Newton MessagePad, HD DVD, Sony's Rolly, Sony's Mylo, Philips' CD-i, Commodore's CD-TV, IBM's PCJr, the Camputer's Lynx, Gizmondo, the Phantom, Atari's Jaguar, MySpace, Beenz - behind every iPad there are dozens and dozens of technology products that aspired to greatness …

    Hardware 27 Nov 15:02

  • FCC: Let Dish deploy 4G? Imagine a $1bn pile of cash ... ON FIRE

    LTE in sat-phone frequencies 'will turn public asset into private windfall'

    Letting Dish roll out LTE into its satellite frequencies will obliterate the value of neighbouring radio spectrum that the US government hopes to sell for billions, said the FCC. FCC rep Justin Cole told Bloomberg that allowing Dish to deploy 4G would "take a public asset potentially worth billions of dollars and turn it into …

    Mobile 27 Nov 15:23

  • Nintendo shrinks Wii for Crimbo

    Mini Mii for Canada

    Nintendo has officially unveiled a new version of the original Wii console, a smaller, top-loading model that shows the Japanese firm hasn't quite given up on its old tech yet. While many expected Nintendo's focus to shift following the arrival of the Wii U, the company clearly believes there's still a market for standard …

    Games 27 Nov 15:28

  • El Reg debuts badges for commentards

    Site News Badges? We do need some stinking badges!

    Today we introduce badges for commentards. This feature will be rolling out over the next few hours. We kick off with three badges: bronze, silver and gold, which will appear alongside all non-anonymised comments made by those who qualify. The Register currently publishes almost 40,000 comments a month, and forum posts …

    Site News 27 Nov 15:35

  • Ericsson sues Samsung for un-FRANDliness

    Empties both barrels of patent shotgun at Koreans

    Ericsson has filed a patent suit against Samsung in the US alleging that the Korean firm has refused to renew a licence to use some of its technology on the same terms other companies have accepted. The Swedish firm must have been feeling left out of the Great Patent Wars, because it filed two suits against Sammy in Texas, one …

    Law 27 Nov 15:54

  • Minnesota store CUPBOARD was full of rocks FOUND ON MOON

    Apollo 11 booty shoved in drawer by National Guard

    Small pieces of the moon have turned up in a Minnesotan basement and no one is quite sure how they got there. The five samples of Moon rock along with a small Minnesotan flag were transported from the Moon after Neil Armstrong's historic first visit to the Earth's satellite. But the rocks haven't been given quite the respect …

    Science 27 Nov 16:22

  • OS/2 a quarter century on: Why IBM lost out and how Microsoft won

    Let's pile into the DeLorean to see what might have been

    Twenty-five years ago IBM unveiled its master plan to reclaim the PC industry. In November of that year the first floppy diskettes of OS/2 version 1.0 trickled out. Microsoft had co-developed the software with Big Blue. The world would look very different if the plan succeeded. And the world was already changing significantly. …

    Operating Systems 27 Nov 16:35

  • Antarctic discovery: ALIEN LIFE may be FOUND ON MOON of Jupiter

    If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere - microbes

    Boffins reckon the evidence of live microbes deep in the dark, cold, briny depths of Antarctic lakes suggests that life may thrive in similarly hostile environments on other worlds and moons of the solar system - and beyond. A zoo-o-boffinry team discovered an ancient colony in Lake Vida, Antarctica, estimated to have been …

    Science 27 Nov 16:36

  • New iMac in shop windows FRIDAY but you'll wait to take one home

    Literally-bleeding-edge deskslabs use Brit welding

    Apple insists its svelte new iMacs will hit UK shelves on Friday, but the company isn't forthcoming on how it'll push the computers into Blighty's distribution channel. Suppliers last week told The Channel they do not expect the super-slim all-in-one Mac OS X machines to arrive in volume until January. But Apple today …

    The Channel 27 Nov 17:07

  • Chevrolets to get 'Eyes Free' mode for driving with Apple Siri

    Took my Chevy to the levee, my phone said it was dry

    Cars controlled by Apple's voice assistant Siri will be on the road from early 2013, a General Motors exec announced today at the Los Angeles International Auto Show. New models of Chevrolet's smaller models - Spark and the Sonic LTZ and RS - will pack an interface that's compatible with whimsical iPhone voice assistant Siri. …

    Hardware 27 Nov 17:35

  • Apple's former retail boss spills magic beans on store strategy

    Ron Jonhson on improving icommunities, transforming ilives

    Apple doesn't just construct retail stores it brews a magical experience that transforms your very existence, or so said Ron Johnson, former retail veep at the firm. Did someone say ahem...bullshit? No of course not. The man - now CEO at loss-making J.C. Penny - gave an insight into the cerebral workings of an Apple exec …

    The Channel 27 Nov 18:13

  • Apple granted patent for microphone silhouette

    Shambolic Siri's icon blessed by hard-working USPTO drones

    As if further proof were needed that something is broken at the US Patent and Trademark Office, it took a full 411 days for their staffers to grant Apple a design patent for iOS's Siri voice-recognition icon. Not the Siri technology itself, mind you, but merely its microphone-in-a-circle silhouette icon. Design patent D671, …

    Software 27 Nov 19:48

  • Hotel blames burglaries on hacked Onity card locks

    Updated Black Hat demo exploited in the wild

    A Texas hotel is claiming to have suffered multiple burglaries stemming from flaws in a common type of electronic lock, exploits for which were demonstrated at this year's Black Hat hacking conference. In July, security researcher Cody Brocious showed how a device cobbled together from $50 worth of parts could be used to break …

    Security 27 Nov 20:13

  • Red Hat takes OpenShift platform cloud private

    'If you can run RHEL, you're good'

    With the the rollout of its OpenShift Enterprise, Red Hat wants to put programmers and system administrators on an assembly line. And not just its own people, but you and your colleagues in the IT department – and it's for your own good. Well, for the good of your bean counters, at least. That, in a nutshell, is the message …

    Virtualization 27 Nov 20:19

  • Melbourne IT looks to offload business units

    Tough times for SME services

    Battling disappointing trading results, Australian domain name custodian Melbourne IT is seeking buyers for some of its ailing business units. The hosting house has also weathered a tough year on the security front, enduring a Privacy Commission investigation, following a hacking attack from Anonymous in August that targeted …

    Hosting 27 Nov 21:00

  • Exec responsible for Apple iOS map fiasco walks the plank

    No, not that guy, another guy

    Apple's lamentable mapping application has claimed another victim with the apparent firing of Rich Williamson, who headed up the fiasco project in Cupertino. Sources within Apple told Bloomberg that Williamson had been given his marching papers by senior vice president Eddy Cue, who was recently appointed to sort out the mess …

    Software 27 Nov 21:40

  • LHC CMS yields unexpected 'new stuff'

    What’s the ‘matter’? A color-glass condensate - maybe

    Is there any phrase in science more exciting than “that’s odd”? MIT researchers right now would probably say “no”, since they suspect that LHC collisions may have yielded a previously-unobserved state of matter. The unusual particle patterns turned up in what was meant to be a “reference run” of the Compact Muon Solenoid …

    Science 27 Nov 22:05

  • Astrobioboffins seek funds to search for ALIEN HAIRSPRAY

    If a planet has CFCs, it likely has intelligent life

    Forget searching for radio-frequency signal patterns or exoplanetary megastructures. The new hotness in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence is the detection of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the ozone-eating greenhouse gasses formerly found in refrigerators and cans of hair spray. "Detecting alien 'hair spray' in the …

    Science 27 Nov 23:02