Tuesday, 16th December 2025

The Register
Updated: 22:20 Tue, Dec 16 2025. (Last checked: 19 mins ago)

Analytics provider: We didn't expose smut site data to crims - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:48:17 GMT)

An employee of the adult site could be responsible.

Analytics vendor Mixpanel says it is not the source of data stolen from Pornhub and says the info was last accessed by an employee of the adult site.…


Meta's SAM bot keeps 'em separated as it isolates voices and instruments from audio clips - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:36:12 GMT)

No mention of protections to stop it being used to snoop on people

Want to hear just the guitar riff from a song? How about cutting out the train noise from a voice recording? Meta says its new SAM Audio model can separate and edit sounds using simple prompts, cutting down on the manual work typical of audio-editing tools.…


Browser 'privacy' extensions have eye on your AI, log all your chats - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:03:54 GMT)

More than 8 million people have installed extensions that eavesdrop on chatbot interactions

Ad blockers and VPNs are supposed to protect your privacy, but four popular browser extensions have been doing just the opposite. According to research from Koi Security, these pernicious plug-ins have been harvesting the text of chatbot conversations from more than 8 million people and sending them back to the developers.…


Why do bit barns keep bumping up our bills, Senators ask DC operators - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 19:45:10 GMT)

Amazon, meanwhile, claims its datacenters are helping ratepayers despite tons of evidence to the contrary

Concerned over continually rising energy costs linked to AI datacenter construction projects, three Democratic Senators are asking leading bit barn operators to explain why their promises of not passing grid expansion costs onto consumers are falling short. …


Nvidia fills the void of American open-weights models with some of its own - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 19:31:13 GMT)

Nemotron 3 is a grab bag of 2025's top machine learning advancements

For many, enterprise AI adoption depends on the availability of high-quality open-weights models. Exposing sensitive customer data or hard-fought intellectual property to APIs so you can use closed models like ChatGPT is a non-starter.…


SantaStealer stuffs credentials, crypto wallets into a brand new bag - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 18:58:42 GMT)

All I want for Christmas … is all of your data

A new, modular infostealer called SantaStealer, advertised on Telegram with a basic tier priced at $175 per month, promises to make criminals' Christmas dreams come true. It boasts that it can run "fully undetected" even on systems with the "strictest AntiVirus" and those belonging to governments, financial institutions, and other prime targets.…


Nvidia pledges more openness as it slurps up Slurm - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 16:13:50 GMT)

And parades its latest trio of Nemotron models

Nvidia burnished its open source credentials this week after buying the company behind the veteran Slurm scheduler and announcing a slew of open source AI models.…


Devs say Apple still flouting EU's Digital Markets Act six months on - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:08:28 GMT)

Coalition for App Fairness warns App Store fees remain unlawful despite non-compliance ruling

Six months after EU regulators found Apple's App Store rules in breach of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), developers say Cupertino is still behaving as if compliance were optional.…


US freezes $42B trade pact with UK over digital tax row - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:40:08 GMT)

Tech Prosperity Deal paused after London resists pressure on online services levy

The US government has put a proposed $42 billion (£31 billion) trade pact with the UK on ice because the European country has yet to budge on its Digital Services Tax (DST).…


From Georgia to Essex, AI datacenters are testing public goodwill - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:21:15 GMT)

Communities on both sides of the Atlantic push back against rapid build-outs

Frenzied demand for AI development is driving a wave of datacenter construction, but new projects are facing growing public opposition over concerns about their impact on local communities and the environment.…


Smartphones face a memory cost crunch – and buyers aren't in the mood - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 13:45:22 GMT)

Rising DRAM and NAND prices are squeezing handset makers and threatening a fragile market recovery

AI-nflation The smartphone industry's brief bounce back now looks set to run straight into a wall, with analysts warning that rising memory costs are about to test buyers' patience.…


Mozilla Corporation installs Firefox driver in CEO reboot - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 13:16:11 GMT)

Anthony Enzor-DeMeo picked to replace interim boss Laura Chambers

Mozilla Corporation on Tuesday said it has appointed Anthony Enzor-DeMeo as Chief Executive Officer, replacing Laura Chambers, who served as interim CEO for the past two years.…


Intel hires ex-Trump fixer as Washington whisperer - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 13:11:14 GMT)

But when will Chipzilla bring back will.i.am?

Intel has hired a veteran Republican operator as its head of government affairs, just months after Uncle Sam became the struggling chip vendor's biggest shareholder.…


From pr0n to playlists and paperclips, trio of breaches spills data of millions - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:33:50 GMT)

Adult site, streaming platform, and Japanese retailer expose user info, but not credentials

Three very different companies have now confirmed data breaches affecting millions of users – each insisting the damage stopped well short of passwords and payment details.…


MI6 chief: We'll be as fluent in Python as we are in Russian - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 11:45:23 GMT)

New spy boss says officers must master code alongside tradecraft as agency navigates 'space between peace and war'

New MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli outlined her vision for technology-augmented intelligence gathering in her first public speech on December 15, warning that the UK operates "in a space between peace and war."…


UK.gov doubles hardware spending framework to £24B in 6 months - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 11:03:22 GMT)

Massive procurement deal for laptops and software comes after minister vows to squeeze better value from big vendors

The UK government plans to tender a commercial framework for end-user hardware and software worth up to £24 billion ($32.18 billion) including tax - double the £12 billion maximum announced six months ago.…


Bishop of Hong Kong tells peers AI is not the devil's work - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:15:50 GMT)

Theologians give scriptural OK to online faith communities

The Bishop of Hong Kong said last week that AI was definitely not a gift from the devil at a meeting of his peers across Asia that called for sensible engagement with the technology.…


Ofcom comes knocking after BT, Three mobile outages cut 999 access - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 09:30:10 GMT)

Watchdog reviews if failures breached availability rules after downtime left millions unable to make calls

Ofcom has opened formal investigations into BT and Three after mobile outages this summer left Britons unable to make calls – including to emergency services.…


No, SoundCloud hasn’t started tuning out VPNs. It’s mopping up after a cyberattack - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 05:20:04 GMT)

Bum note for 20 percent of users whose data leaked

Music hosting and streaming service SoundCloud has admitted it suffered a cyberattack.…


Ford shifts gears to build batteries for datacenters - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 02:05:52 GMT)

EV sales didn’t accelerate as hoped, so it will repurpose idling factories

Automotive giant Ford has decided to start a business building big batteries, in part to cash in on the datacenter construction boom.…


Repent ye inefficient – the ‘Palantir-ization’ of IT services is upon us - (pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:19:59 GMT)

Palantir's former IT boss just took over as CEO of Thrive-backed AI MSP platform

Former Palantir CIO Jim Siders has departed the company to join Shield Technology Partners as CEO, in a bid he says is meant to bring AI to bear in the sprawling managed services landscape.…


Amazon security boss blames Russia's GRU for years-long energy-sector hacks - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 23:34:40 GMT)

'Sustained focus on Western critical infrastructure'

Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) is behind a years-long campaign targeting energy, telecommunications, and tech providers, stealing credentials and compromising misconfigured devices hosted on AWS to give the Kremlin's snoops persistent access to sensitive networks, according to Amazon's security boss.…


Oracle isn't done with Ampere yet as A4 instances arrive on OCI boasting 96 cores - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 22:26:12 GMT)

Big Red said it had sold its stake in its long-time silicon partner last week

Oracle last week announced that it had divested from Ampere Computing. But while Big Red may no longer own part of the Arm CPU maker, it's not ready to stop using the chips just yet.…


IBM unleashes CUGA, an open-source AI agent that actually completes more than half its tasks - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 22:12:49 GMT)

Framework looks great for scenarios where a 62 percent completion rate is acceptable

IBM researchers have released an open source AI agent called CUGA that aspires to automate complex enterprise workflows and get it right about half the time, depending on the task.…


ServiceNow mulls buying Armis to gain full visibility into the IT stack - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 22:10:12 GMT)

If the buy happens, the big question is will they integrate the codebase or keep it separate?

ServiceNow is reportedly nearing a deal to buy security software company Armis for $7.1 billion to give its customers full stack visibility of their IT estate and eliminate security blindspots, according to Bloomberg.…


US gov't launches 'Tech Force' to replace IT staff DOGE fired - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 21:39:50 GMT)

Washington rediscovers that modern IT doesn’t run itself

After dissolving several federal tech modernization units and shedding large numbers of technologists, the Trump administration has launched a new talent recruitment initiative, suggesting it still needs people to help drag the government's IT into the present.…


Delays? What delays? Oracle insists its $300B cloud contract with OpenAI is on track - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:16:23 GMT)

And don't sweat the debt either, we've got plenty of capital at our disposal

Despite Wall Street jitters and reports to the contrary, Oracle insists its $300 billion datacenter deal with OpenAI is on track and proceeding on schedule.…


New Jolla phone and Sailfish 5 offer a break from iOS-Android monotony - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:04:35 GMT)

Powered by the original mobile Linux OS with crowdsourced specs

hands on After successful crowdfunding, the latest release of the original handheld Linux distro will power a new handset coming in mid-2026.…


Bot invasion increases with Google scraping the way, Cloudflare says - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:14:12 GMT)

Mobile traffic now accounts for nearly half of requests

Global internet traffic grew by 19 percent during 2025, while nearly half of traffic now comes from mobile devices. A significant and growing portion also comes from bots, many designed to train AI.…


China, Iran are having a field day with React2Shell, Google warns - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 17:53:52 GMT)

Who hasn't exploited this max-severity flaw?

At least five more Chinese spy crews, Iran-linked goons, and financially motivated criminals are now attacking React2Shell, a maximum-severity flaw in the widely used React JavaScript library, according to Google.…


Apple blocks dev from all accounts after he tries to redeem bad gift card - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 17:51:56 GMT)

Paris Buttfield-Addison literally wrote books on Swift

Apple has blocked a long-time developer from his Apple ID after he failed to redeem what support suggested was a dodgy $500 gift card, leaving him unable to work, cut off from personal files, and barred from what he calls his "core digital identity." …


Salesforce willing to lose money on AI agent licenses when customers are locked in - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 16:28:44 GMT)

Flat-rate deals may sting now, but vendor expects payback over decades

Salesforce's chief revenue officer has said that he is relaxed about the CRM giant losing money on AI agent seat-based licensing in the long term because it will have many more years to "monetize" such customers.…


GAO report details faltering Veteran’s Administration records upgrade program - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:44:34 GMT)

Watchdog highlights slate of unmet priorities

A US spending watchdog has delivered another withering verdict on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ efforts to drag its health records program into the 21st century.…


Hyperscalers fuel $112B server spending spree in Q3 - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:02:56 GMT)

IDC's latest tracker numbers were brought to you by the letters A and I

The global server market went into overdrive in the third quarter of 2025, racking up a record $112.4 billion in revenue as AI demand pushed vendor sales up 61 percent year-on-year, according to the latest figures from IDC.…


Nutanix takes another swipe at VMware with sovereign cloud push - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 14:00:10 GMT)

On-prem control planes, dark-site upgrades, and multicloud policies target regulated deployments

Nutanix is taking a pop at VMware – again – as it unwraps features that it says allow customers to run distributed sovereign clouds.…


Roomba maker iRobot gets cleaned out in Chapter 11 - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 13:02:08 GMT)

Company vacuumed up by its own manufacturer

iRobot, the company behind autonomous vacuum cleaner brand Roomba, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, telling investors that its Chinese manufacturer will assume control going forward.…


Delay to European Central Bank messaging project cost the Bank of England £23M - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:50:09 GMT)

Watchdog links schedule change to replanning of UK payments system overhaul

The European Central Bank's (ECB) decision to delay its move to a new messaging standard in 2022 ended up costing the Bank of England £23 million as it was forced to adjust migration to a new settlement system to avoid compounding risks.…


JLR: Payroll data stolen in cybercrime that shook UK economy - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:08:20 GMT)

Automaker admits raid that crippled its factories in August led to the theft of sensitive info

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has reportedly told staff the cyber raid that crippled its operations in August didn't just bring production to a screeching halt – it also walked off with the personal payroll data of thousands of employees.…


Apple, Google forced to issue emergency 0-day patches - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:01:11 GMT)

Both admit attackers were already exploiting the bugs, with scant detail and hints of spyware-grade abuse

Apple and Google have both issued emergency patches after zero-day bugs were caught being actively exploited in what the companies describe as "sophisticated" real-world attacks.…


Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 10:40:06 GMT)

Minister insists 'modest' bill is not an assault on privacy-preserving tech

The Danish government wants the public to weigh in on its proposed laws restricting use of VPNs to access certain corners of the internet.…


Legal protection for ethical hacking under Computer Misuse Act is only the first step - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:30:15 GMT)

I'm dreaming of a white hat mass

Opinion It was 40 years ago that four young British hackers set about changing the law, although they didn't know it at the time. It was a cross-platform attack including a ZX Spectrum, a BBC Micro, and a Tatung Einstein slamming British Telecom's Prestel service over dial-up modems at 75 bits per second.…


Techie 'forgot' to tell boss their cost-saving idea meant a day of gaming - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 07:30:12 GMT)

One keypress turned a tricky Windows NT balancing act into a life of leisure

Who, Me? After a weekend of R&R, The Register welcomes you back to the working week with a new installment of Who, Me? It's the reader-contributed column in which you confess to workplace errors and indiscretions and reveal how you survived to tell the tale.…


Japan just sent origami to space to unfurl possibilities for outsized antennas - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 06:09:16 GMT)

That’s just one of 16 innovative and experimental sats that launched Sunday

Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is celebrating after the successful Sunday launch of its Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration No. 4, which is packed with 16 intriguing payloads.…


Starlink claims Chinese launch came within 200 meters of broadband satellite - (pubDate>Mon, 15 Dec 2025 02:02:22 GMT)

PLUS: Drugs found in ink cartridges; Censorship fighters criticize Vultr; Coupang CEO resigns; And more!

Asia In Brief A SpaceX executive has claimed that a Chinese satellite launch came within 200 meters of hitting a Starlink satellite.…


Honeypots can help defenders, or damn them if implemented badly - (pubDate>Sun, 14 Dec 2025 23:26:27 GMT)

PLUS: Crims could burn your AI budgets thanks to weak defaults; CISA's top 25 vulns for 2025; And more

Infosec In Brief The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has found that cyber-deception tactics such as honeypots and decoy accounts designed to fool attackers can be useful if implemented very carefully.…


The future of long-term data storage is clear and will last 14 billion years - (pubDate>Sun, 14 Dec 2025 10:00:15 GMT)

SPhotoix moves its 5D Memory Crystal cold storage tech closer to deployment in data centers

After decades of research and development, humanity finally has a data storage medium that will outlast us.…


British Airways fears a future where AI agents pick flights and brands get ghosted - (pubDate>Sat, 13 Dec 2025 10:00:15 GMT)

CEO warns airlines that don’t learn to sell themselves to machines could soon be flying under the radar

British Airways' chief executive has warned that the airline industry is fast heading for a future where AI agents, not humans, decide which brands get booked – and carriers that fail to adapt are at risk of quietly disappearing from the digital shop window.…


Microsoft RasMan DoS 0-day gets unofficial patch - and a working exploit - (pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2025 22:29:33 GMT)

Exploit hasn't been picked up by any malware detection engines, CEO tells The Reg

A Microsoft zero-day vulnerability that allows an unprivileged user to crash the Windows Remote Access Connection Manager (RasMan) service now has a free, unofficial patch - with no word as to when Redmond plans to release an official one - along with a working exploit circulating online.…


New React vulns leak secrets, invite DoS attacks - (pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:23:30 GMT)

And the earlier React2Shell patch is vulnerable

If you're running React Server Components, you just can't catch a break. In addition to already-reported flaws, newly discovered bugs allow attackers to hang vulnerable servers and potentially leak Server Function source code, so anyone using RSC or frameworks that support it should patch quickly.…


Trump gives state AI regulation the presidential middle finger - (pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2025 16:41:49 GMT)

Executive order sidesteps Congress and sets up Litigation Task Force

President Trump and his patrons in big tech have long wanted to block states from implementing their own AI regulations. After failing twice to do so in Congress, the US president has issued an executive order that would attempt to punish states that try to restrain the bot business.…

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