Indian 'attacks' Norwegian telco to get at Pakistan, China
A tale of twisted IP tracks
Security researchers have uncovered what appears to be a sophisticated targeted attack launched from India and designed to steal information from a range of government and private enterprise victims in Pakistan, China and elsewhere.
What began as an investigation into an attack on Norwegian operator Telenor soon uncovered …
Infosys vows to fight Indian tax claim
Domestic bill lands with a thud
It’s not just Western technology giants that are being targeted by the Indian government, now local IT services behemoth Infosys has been forced to challenge a Rs.5.77 billion (£68.7m) tax demand by the authorities.
India’s second biggest outsourcer was hit with the tax bill for the 2009-10 year last month.
The demand relates …
Pakistan signs up for China's GPS rival
Doesn't want no steenking US military tech
China’s home-grown sat-nav system Beidou (BDS) is expected to add yet another customer after Pakistan signed up to host ground stations for the service.
Pakistan will follow Thailand, Laos and Brunei in becoming a Beidou customer later this month, according to China Daily.
Huang Lei, international business director of Beijing …
Yahoo! Japan says 22 MEELLION User IDs may have been nabbed
Suspected breach didn't nab passwords but resets nonetheless recommended
Yahoo! Japan has told its 200 million customers to change their passwords after revealing that 22 million user IDs may have been exposed in a suspected intrusion last week.
The attack was detected at around 9:00 PM local time on Thursday night, with the internet giant apparently cutting access while it checked what had happened …
Sony investor wants to break up firm, re-invest in hardware biz
Loeb's masterplan calls for IPO of entertainment arm
Sony’s biggest shareholder wants to break up the firm, spinning off its highly profitable entertainment division to generate more cash to plough into its misfiring hardware biz.
Activist investor Daniel Loeb and his hedge fund Third Point has a 6.5 per cent stake in the venerable electronics giant, amounting to a whopping $1.1bn …
India's 2020 vision: a $10 BEELION software industry
Industry body wants PR
India’s all-powerful IT body NASSCOM wants the country’s burgeoning software industry to generate $10bn in revenue by 2020, in a move designed to "rejuvenate" India’s sprawling IT industry.
The body’s newly unveiled 2020 plan will require India’s software market to grow its revenues almost five-fold from the estimated $2.2bn …
BSA targets Indonesian pirates
Thar be treasure...
In a sign of Indonesia’s increasing importance as a market for Western technology vendors, anti-piracy body the Business Software Alliance has teamed up with local police to bust numerous firms found to be running illegal copies of well-known software.
The raid on 20 businesses back in March yielded pirated software from …
India to battle Maoists with more mobiles
Tower-building project will boost coverage in leftist-controlled regions
The Indian government is looking to build nearly 3,000 mobile towers in areas across the country without coverage, in a Rs. 30 billion (£358m) bid to tackle left wing extremism.
The mobile infrastructure project will cover 2,199 locations in nine states where militant Maoists known as Naxals are prevalent. Naxals are seen by the …
China: Online predator or hapless host?
Analysis Reg man asks if all the China-bashing is justified
The People’s Republic of China has been singled out in increasingly unequivocal language by the US and its allies as one of, if not the greatest, source of online attacks, be they perpetrated by criminals or the Chinese state itself. But amid all the anti-Beijing bluster, has China been given an unfairly bad rep?
At first sight …
Malaysian election sparks web blocking/DDoS claims
Rights groups, security firms, opposition leaders cry foul
Opposition leaders and human rights activists have warned that Malaysia’s recent elections were tarnished with widespread web blocking and DDoS attacks designed to deprive voters of information about opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) before going to the polls.
Barisan Nasional (BN) extended its 56-year rule by storming to …
Thai PM's site defaced with smutty abuse
Shinawatra accused of being worst PM EVER!
The Thai Prime Minister’s Office web site is out of action after hackers yesterday defaced the home page with insulting slogans, although the group implicated in the attack says it was framed.
Glamorous Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of exiled former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, has been a controversial figure in Thailand since she …
India introduces Central Monitoring System
Phone calls, texts, emails and even social media all now snoopable
Privacy advocates are up in arms after the Indian government began quietly rolling out a Rs.4 billion(£47.8m) Central Monitoring System (CMS) designed to give the authorities sweeping access to citizens’ phone calls and internet comms in the name of national security.
The scheme is initially thought to have been conceived as a …
Google's Page, LG boss's SECRET confab sparks Nexus 5 rumour
And leaked pix of new smartmobe starts Optimus G2 talk
The smartphone rumour mill is in overdrive again after reports that mobe maker LG is prepping a new Nexus phone with Google.
Meanwhile, separate leaked photos have led to rumours that an LG Optimus 2 handset is in the works.
The South Korean electronics firm's CEO Koo Bon-joon met Google boss Larry Page on his visit to Seoul …
Taiwanese uni sues Apple over FaceTime and QuickTime
Rogue province pulls the patent infringement trigger again
A major Taiwanese university has sued Apple for a second time in a year, this time for infringing one of its patents related to video compression technology in FaceTime, QuickTime and other fruity software.
The US Patent 7,561,078 refers to “an encoding system for a data set, particularly for a video data set”, as follows:
The …
Amazon beats Google to open Chinese app store
Kick in the teeth for the Chocolate Factory
Amazon has opened an Android app store in China before Google, with the Android Appstore open for business in the middle kingdom.
Google's Play store has technically been around for a while in the People’s Republic and its Android OS has a huge lead in the smartphone market, but Play has been subject to periodic blocking by the …
Acer reveals 'floating' screen to save desktop, self
Is it an all-in-one? Is it a notebook? Is it a tablet?
Taiwanese hardware giant Acer has made a bold bid to claw back some of the market share it’s been hemorraghing over the past few months, taking the wraps off the Aspire R7 – a tablet/notebook/desktop hybrid device complete with “floating” touchscreen.
The R7’s main talking point is what Acer has dubbed the “Ezel hinge”, which …
China's internet security giant Qihoo planning global domination
Founder Zhou shares his own Chinese dream
Controversial Chinese software vendor Qihoo 360 has its eyes on world domination after controversial founder Zhou Hongyi told the local press he wants to turn the firm into the planet’s biggest web security biz.
Qihoo made its name flogging free AV to bargain-seeking Chinese punters and has since gone on to build a successful …
NORKS powers down whole towns to find pirates
Smuggled vids help improve press freedom in hermit nation
Reclusive totalitarian state and US-hater North Korea has taken a very small step towards greater press freedom, although not through any humanitarian efforts of the Kim Jong-un regime.
NORKS remains in last place in the latest annual rankings drawn up by Washington-based NGO Freedom House with a miserly score of just 96, tied …
AWS speeds content delivery, Gangnam style
CloudFront and Route 53 customers come to South Korea
Developers and businesses keen to reach customers in the the most connected country on the planet received a boost this week after Amazon Web Services announced a South Korean edge location in Seoul for its CloudFront and Route 53 platforms.
The cloudy giant’s sixth location in Asia and 40th globally will help accelerate the …
Japan's XP migration solution: Remove network cable
Security problems solved the old-fashioned way...
A Japanese local government has come up with a rather unusual solution to the problem of Windows XP migration – keep the venerable OS but disconnect the remaining PCs running it from the internet.
In around a year’s time, April 8 2014 to be precise, Microsoft will end free support for the operating system which is still …
'Chinese' attack sucks secrets from US defence contractor
Comment Crew blamed for three-year attack on QinetiQ
Just when it looked like US-China relations couldn’t get any more frosty, news has emerged that defence contractor QinetiQ suffered a massive breach of classified data over three years which may have leaked advanced military secrets to the infamous PLA-linked hacking gang Comment Crew.
Bloomberg spoke to Verizon’s Terremark …
Red faces as Pentagon leases Chinese satellite
It's ok, we've added 'additional transmission security'
US lawmakers are up in arms after it emerged that the Pentagon has leased a Chinese commercial satellite to support non-classified communications with its African bases.
The details of the one-year, $10m contract were revealed at a House Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill last week. The Apstar-7 satellite is owned and …
Japan's naughty nurses scam free meals with mobile games
Hungry women trick unsuspecting otaku into paying for grub
Japan’s male mobile gaming geeks are being taken for a ride in ever-greater numbers by hungry, cash-poor women who befriend them online before tricking them into paying for an expensive dinner for two.
This particularly devious scam is on the rise in the Land of the Rising Sun as single Japanese women struggle to pay the bills …
China became world's BIGGEST PC market in 2012
PRC yokels have a penchant for desktops and 14-in notebooks
China has surpassed the US as the world’s largest PC market, in terms of annual sales, with the nation's huge untapped rural market offering manufacturers a rare growth opportunity, according to industry watcher IHS iSuppli.
PC shipments in China during 2012 reached 69 million units, three million more than the States could …
Japan forgot data wipe on ship sold to Pyongyang
Former coast guard ship's navigation records reach NORKS
The Japanese government's data protection policies have been called into question after it emerged that a decommissioned coast guard vessel was sold to a pro-North Korea organisation without any checks as to whether key data on board was first deleted.
The 106-ton Japan Coast Guard patrol boat Takachiho was taken out of service …
Crims take to Facebook to flog ZeuS kits
Dark networks meet social networks
Not content with hawking their wares in underground forums and other insalubrious parts of the darknet, criminals are now advertising their wares on Facebook, says RSA.
The Facebook page in question is now unavailable, but appears to have been packed full of handy info for the budding cyber criminal, according to Limor Kessem, …
Chinese cops shutter PRC's biggest pirate movie site
Symbolic move but country remains an IP Wild West
The Chinese authorities’ ongoing efforts to crack down on piracy have claimed another big scalp after police shuttered the nation's largest online source of not-entirely-properly-sourced movies last Friday, cuffing eight execs along the way.
Siluhd.com is said to have over 140 million members, who each pay 50 yuan (£5) every …
Samsung to block mobile app store in Iran as sanctions bite
Tells users 'legal barriers' are reason for canning Farsi service
Samsung is blocking access to its mobile app store in Iran from next month, an action believed to be part of international sanctions over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.
Customers of the Korean tech giant in Iran received notification on Wednesday night by email that the online marketplace would be out of action as of …
Apple loses again in Chinese App Store copyright case
Beijing judge throws the book at Cupertino as writers triumph
Apple has lost another copyright case in China after it was held responsible for content third parties uploaded to the bookish corner of its App Store.
The company was ordered to pay three Chinese writers more than 730,000 yuan (£76,600) in compensation after allowing their content to be uploaded and sold on the App Store …
Vietnamese madam cuffed after advertising girls on Facebook
Art museum nudies NO! But prostitutes, sure
Police in Vietnam have swooped on a prostitution ring after spotting one enterprising lady-of-the-night using Facebook to advertise her girls’ wares to potential punters.
Cops in the capital Hanoi cuffed 20-year-old Do Thi Huyen, of Truong Dinh ward in the city's Hai Ba Trung district as she and a colleague were escorting two …
Alibaba and the thwarted thieves: Cops, bazaar to tackle China's piracy
Magic carpet of tat pulled from under counterfeiters
The biggest e-shopping site in China - a nation considered the counterfeit capital of the world - has promised to help decapitate the "snake" of knockoff goods.
Online bazaar Alibaba will, we're told, work closely with five government and law enforcement agencies including the Ministry of Public Security and the State …
Hidden dragon Huawei: 'We’re making increased efforts at transparency'
Can the telecoms kit maker make it big in biz IT?
Huawei sent out a clear signal to its competitors in the global enterprise IT market on Tuesday with predictions of stellar growth for the vendor’s smallest business group over the next five years to reach revenues of $10bn by 2017. But analysts are sceptical about its chances of becoming a genuinely disruptive alternative to …
Huawei preps new mobes to overhaul Apple
60 million sales the target with innovation to trump sinister reputation
Huawei says it’s on track to almost double its smartphone sales this year with a target of 60 million units shifted, as it looks to peg back “superheroes” Samsung and Apple, but admitted its brand image is still holding it back from world domination.
Speaking to media at the firm’s annual global analyst event in Shenzhen on …
Japanese Feds urge ISPs to support Tor ban plan
Updated Anonymous on the internet? You must be up to no good
Japan’s technology-illiterate police have put themselves in the firing line once again after recommending what amounts to a blanket ban on the use of the Tor anonymiser network in the country.
The FBI-like National Police Agency is set to ask ISPs to "help site administrators" to block communications if the customer is found to …
ZTE ejects from Iran as Feds probe spy-tech export claims
Chinese telecoms dragon wants to keep US sweet
Chinese telecoms kit maker ZTE says it has finally wound up its business dealings in Iran, bar existing customers, as the firm tries to move on following allegations it broke US sanctions by flogging spy technology to the Islamic republic.
Chairman Hou Weigui told Reuters the Shenzhen firm had “basically stopped”.
“We have to …
Touchscreen killer? Cam boffinry cut'n'pastes from real things
Vid Bit like tech from Minority Report flick
Japanese boffins at Fujitsu have been showing off new user-interface technology which uses advanced image processing to effectively digitise physical content, allowing users to manipulate it like they would with a touchscreen interface.
The system consists of a camera and projector so that a user can select a piece of physical …
South Korean gov splashes $22m on memory R&D project
Samsung et al gaze at HUGE MOUNDS of cash
Samsung and five other South Korean tech firms are set to team up on a $22 million government-backed project to research new memory chip technology.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced the initiative, which will feature Korean tech behemoth Samsung as well as memory chip maker SK Hynix, according to Korean news …
Chinese iOS pirate Kuaiyong launches web app store
Bad news for Apple developers targeting PRC
A Chinese group which has made it its mission to take a bite out of Apple’s iTunes revenue share is at it again, launching a full web version of its iOS app store jam-packed with pirated content.
Chinese language app Kuayiong was originally launched at the tail end of last year to fill the gap left by the equally dodgy jailbreak …
Yahoo! thanks! Asian! equity! for! 36! PERCENT! income! boost!
Irony police circle as Jerry Yang's far-sighted deal buys Mayer more time
Yahoo! has beaten Wall Street expectations by reporting a 36 per cent year-on-year increase in net income last quarter, but CEO Marissa Mayer has investments in Yahoo! Japan and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to thank for the respite.
The ailing firm has been undergoing a minor renaissance since the former Googler took over at …
Anonymous squirts all over NORKS in birthday surprise outrage
Happy Birthday, Mr Zombie President
Anonymous hackers have sent North Korean despot Kim Jong-un a little present on the anniversary of his grandfather’s birthday: they vandalised key Nork websites and posted their handiwork on a hijacked Twitter account.
The @uriminzokkiri account was taken over earlier this month in the first round of attacks against North Korean …
Apple alert as half China's fanbois consider switch to Galaxy S4
Big trouble in little China for Cook & Co?
It could be sweaty palm time at Cupertino after new research revealed that more than half of China’s loyal fanbois are thinking of switching their iPhones to a Samsung Galaxy S4, according to new data from market watcher TrendForce.
The Taiwanese firm’s research arm Avanti interviewed a representative sample of 3,000 smartphone …
Alibaba comes again with Android-unfriendly mobile OS
Chinese e-commerce giant in major domestic mobile push
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has unveiled a new plan to reinvigorate its home-grown mobile operating system (AMOS) after a high profile fall-out with Google last year effectively prevented the world’s major handset makers from partnering on the OS.
The cloud-based AMOS, formerly known as Aliyun OS, hit the ropes last …
Baidu muscles in on Google’s turf with Silicon Valley deep learning lab
Chinese search giant beds down next to Apple in Cupertino
Chinese search giant Baidu has opened the doors to a new research facility in Google’s back yard where it’s hoping to tap the local talent to consolidate early mover advantage in the burgeoning field of “deep learning”.
The Cupertino-based Institute of Deep Learning (IDL) is the Silicon Valley counterpart of another facility …
Apple the victim after Chinese scammers exploit returns policy
Fakers exchanged phony parts for real to build 'new' iPhones
The on-going saga over Apple’s “unfair” after-sales service in China has taken another twist after it was revealed that scammers exploited its returns policy to exchange fake parts for real ones, enabling them to build and sell new devices.
Five employees at an electronics store selling Apple goods were arrested in the Chinese …
'North Korea Has Launched a Missile' tweet sent by mistake
Red faces at Yokahama city government after slip of the mouse
City officials in Yokohama were left feeling rather embarrassed earlier this week after jumping the gun on possible nuclear armageddon by mistakenly tweeting that North Korea had launched a missile.
The over-enthusiastic managers of the @yokohama_saigai Twitter account were to blame for the incident, which happened just before …
Chinese boffins predict iPad-sized supercomputers
Quantum physics discovery could spur even lower power consumption
Chinese boffins are predicting iPad-shaped supercomputers could become a reality after observing for the first time a phenomenon known as the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect, which could pave the way for a new generation of low energy-consumption electronics.
The QAH effect has never been observed in a laboratory environment …
Seoul plans anti-GPS jamming system to thwart NORKS
Naughty North Korea has been disrupting signals since 2010
South Korea is finalising plans to track down and block GPS jamming signals emitted by its increasingly belligerent northern neighbour.
Unnamed official government sources told Yonyap news agency that the GPS surveillance system would be co-ordinated by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning.
However, relevant …
Microsoft follows Apple into the dock over warranty terms in China
Surface Pro under the spotlight after state-run radio report
Hot on the heels of Apple’s well publicised run-in with the Chinese authorities over alleged deficiencies in its customer service, Microsoft is now being targeted by state-run media which claims its Surface Pro warranty terms do not comply with local laws.
A China National Radio report on Monday claimed that Redmond is only …
Take a deep breath: No NORKS panic for ICT supply chain … yet
Regional tech titans are keeping a close eye on situation
It’s business as usual for the ICT supply chain in Asia despite heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula which have now seen the de facto closure of the symbolic Kaesŏng industrial zone, according to market watchers.
The Reg has had its ear to the ground across the region to see if the recent escalation in threatening …
Fujitsu looks to blast cloud silos with RunMyProcess buy
Silicon Valley to be site of new cloudy hub
Japanese ICT giant Fujitsu has announced plans to build out its cloud business with the acquisition of little-known French PaaS vendor RunMyProcess (RMP) and the development of a new Global Software Center in Silicon Valley.
RunMyProcess, a member of the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps, essentially allows customers to build and …
