Personal Tech

• Foreign Office IT chaos: Shocking testimony reveals poor tech support hindered Afghan evac attempts

  Contributed to dysfunction as diplomats and soldiers struggled to get Afghan helpers out of reach of Taliban
  Lindsay Clark Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 13:49 UTC

  Diplomats and soldiers were left grappling with appallingly inadequate IT and secure communications support as thousands of Afghans struggled to get help from the UK during the fall of the capital Kabul in August.

  A massive shortfall in PC availability, lack of login for secure IT systems, disjointed IT systems and a desperate attempt to fall back onto printed paper methods all contributed to chaotic scenes at the newly merged Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), according to written testimony put before Parliament today.

  "On the evening of Saturday 21 August, the soldiers were issued one FCDO computer for every two soldiers. These did not work because FCDO IT had not issued the passwords to unlock them. These computers were finally unlocked on the afternoon of Sunday 22 August. Until this, the soldiers worked with one computer shared between roughly eight people," said former desk officer Raphael Marshall in his evidence [PDF] to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee's Inquiry on Government Policy on Afghanistan.

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• Samsung splits itself in two... internally: Semiconductor biz and then everything else

  Smartphones and consumer electronics now under one roof
  Paul Kunert Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 13:20 UTC

  Samsung is splitting into two internal divisions – a semiconductor unit and one for smartphones, TVs and other consumer electronics – appointing two CEOs in what appears to be the biggest operational shake-up in years.

  The top job for semiconductors, the largest and most profitable area of the company, has gone to Kyehyun Kyung. He was CEO of Samsung Electro-Mechanics and also previously ran the Flash Product and Technology Team, and the DRAM Design Team.

  "He is expected to help maintain the company’s semiconductor leadership and leads innovation in the components business," said Samsung in a statement.

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• Self-driving towards an IPO? Intel unveils plans for Mobileye offering

  Chipzilla to keep its hands on the wheel
  Richard Speed Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 12:25 UTC

  Intel will take its Mobileye tentacle public next year, five years after spending $15bn to buy the sensor company.

  Chipzilla said it will maintain majority ownership of Mobileye after the offering, expected in mid-2022 (although a final decision on the IPO, its conditions and timings has yet to be made.)

  The justification given for the move is to "unlock the value of Mobileye for Intel shareholders."

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• Thought NHS Digital's wind-down meant it would stop writing cheques? Silly you. It's gone on an IT buying spree

  £37m signed up for soon-to-be-defunct non-dept public body
  Lindsay Clark Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 11:30 UTC 7

  It may be winding down as a government unit, but NHS Digital has not stopped its tech spending, signing up suppliers for around £37m in work for the coming years.

  NHS Digital has been the main national body responsible for delivering IT strategy, while NHSX, formed in 2019, was intended to "lead digital transformation in the NHS."

  In a move designed to end the unclear governance of NHS IT strategy and delivery, both (ahem) "brands" are being scrapped, merging with NHS England & NHS Improvement which is responsible for NHS IT strategy and approves IT projects where capital cost exceeds £15m.

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• Why we will not have a unified HPC and AI software environment, ever

  No good reason for vendors to play ball with each other
  Dan Olds Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 10:45 UTC

  Register Debate Welcome to the latest Register Debate in which writers discuss technology topics, and you the reader choose the winning argument. The format is simple: we propose a motion, the arguments for the motion will run this Monday and Wednesday, and the arguments against on Tuesday and Thursday. During the week you can cast your vote on which side you support using the poll embedded below, choosing whether you're in favour or against the motion. The final score will be announced on Friday, revealing whether the for or against argument was most popular.

  This week's motion is: A unified, agnostic software environment can be achieved. We debate the question: can the industry ever have a truly open, unified, agnostic software environment in HPC and AI that can span multiple kinds of compute engines?

  Arguing AGAINST the motion today is Dan Olds, Chief Research Officer for HPC/AI industry analyst firm Intersect360 Research.

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• The nub of the issue: Has your ThinkPad's TrackPoint gone TITSUP*? You aren't alone

  A post-Halloween spooktacular as users face the 'Ghost in the Machine'
  Richard Speed Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 10:00 UTC 13

  Lenovo is about to complete a full year of customers complaining about the Trackpoint on the company's popular ThinkPad business laptops.

  Problems kicked off in January, with clientele grumbling on Lenovo's community forums that the TrackPoint on their machines would "abruptly stop working."

  For the uninitiated, the TrackPoint is that odd, mini-joystick nub thing that can be found in the middle of ThinkPad keyboards. Designed as an alternative to a touchpad (although Lenovo includes one of those as well) or mouse, a good few Lenovo customers opt for the company's hardware specifically because of the small, red device. Others, frankly, could not care less.

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• Questions over timetable slippage in UK taxman's £7bn 'cliff edge' IT procurement

  Watchdog says tenders to be published by September – but HMRC procurement show that's not going to plan
  Lindsay Clark Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 09:15 UTC 1

  Documents released by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) suggest its everything-and-the-kitchen-sink re-procurement of £7.1bn in IT spending is slipping, according to a timetable set by UK.gov's major projects watchdog.

  The UK tax collector's technology sourcing refresh comes under the Technology Sourcing Programme, which aims to address a £900m annual IT budget. It kicked off in September last year with an early market engagement to talk to suppliers.

  In July 2021, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), which reports to the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, rated the project as "amber" on its risk scale, noting that "HMRC faces a cliff edge of contract expiry combined with the need to re-balance control over its digital and technology capability" relating to contracts set to run out in June next year.

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• Blogfight! Blogfight! Blogfight! Fastly flames Cloudflare's serverless stats

  We're faster than you. No you're not. Are too. No way! Yes way … can someone take this pair to the principal's office?
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 08:13 UTC

  Content delivery contender Fastly has come out swinging at rival Cloudflare.

  This story starts with a November 21 post from Cloudflare in which it compared the performance of its "Workers" – a serverless offering – to Fastly's rival Compute@Edge product.

  In what will come as a colossal surprise to nobody, Cloudflare found its product vastly superior to its rival's. One hundred and ninety-six per cent faster, to be precise.

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• Tech Bro CEO lays off 900 people in Zoom call and makes himself the victim

  'The last time I did this, I cried' says Better.com CEO Vishal Garg
  Laura Dobberstein Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 06:44 UTC 28

  Video Managing a business during the plague years has been tough for many, but one plucky CEO has found a clever and efficient way to execute such an unpleasant task: fire 900 workers at once in a Zoom meeting.

  In an exercise completely devoid of sensitivity, Better.com CEO Vish Garg gathered around 900 of his staff onto a five-minute Zoom call during the month of Christmas to tell them their jobs were officially nonexistent.

  "If you are on this call, you are part of the unlucky group being laid off. Your employment here is terminated, effective immediately," the CEO said.

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• Microsoft wins court approval to take over sites run by Chinese crime gang

  'Nickel' back in trouble for trying to lift secrets, often by exploiting Microsoft snafus
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 05:31 UTC 7

  Microsoft has revealed its Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) won court approval to take control of websites a Chinese gang was using to attack targets across the world – often by exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft products.

  A post attributed to Microsoft's corporate veep for customer security & trust, Tom Burt, states the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has granted Microsoft to take control of malicious websites operated by a group called Nickel that has been around since at least 2016.

  Burt's post indicates that Microsoft spotted Nickel trying to pinch information from "government agencies, think tanks and human rights organizations". Taking control of the websites Nickel owned will make it harder for the gang to conduct such attacks, Burt opined.

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• LINE Pay leaks around 133,000 users' data to GitHub, of all places

  Someone just accidentally put it there, says the messaging service company
  Laura Dobberstein Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 04:03 UTC

  Smartphone payment provider LINE Pay announced yesterday that around 133,000 users' payment details were mistakenly published on GitHub between September and November of this year.

  Files detailing participants in a LINE Pay promotional program staged between late December 2020 and April 2021 were accidentally uploaded to the collaborative coding crèche by a research group employee.

  Among the leaked details were the date, time, and amount of transactions, plus user and franchise store identification numbers. Although names, addresses, telephone, credit card and bank account numbers were not shared, the names of the users and other details could be traced with a little effort.

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