Networks

• 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

  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 6

  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 1

  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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• Indian government committee slams 'gross misuse' of internet shutdowns – even in Kashmir

  Officials use them for mundane matters, not big emergencies as laws intend
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 02:45 UTC 2

  India's Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology has slammed state governments' use of internet shutdowns.

  A mew report [PDF] on "Suspension of telecom services/Internet and its impact" finds that while shutdowns are legal, they are being used indiscriminately.

  The report notes that Indian law allows internet shutdowns on grounds of "Public Emergency and Public Safety," but the document also points out that "no parameters have been laid down to decide the merit or justice of the telecom/internet shutdowns".

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• It's primed and full of fuel, the James Webb Space Telescope is ready to be packed up prior to launch

  Fingers crossed the telescope will finally take to space on 22 December
  Katyanna Quach Tue 7 Dec 2021 // 00:48 UTC 12

  Engineers have finished pumping the James Webb Space Telescope with fuel, and are now preparing to carefully place the folded instrument inside the top of a rocket, expected to blast off later this month.

  “Propellant tanks were filled separately with 79.5 [liters] of dinitrogen tetroxide oxidiser and 159 [liters of] hydrazine,” the European Space Agency confirmed on Monday. “Oxidiser improves the burn efficiency of the hydrazine fuel.” The fuelling process took ten days and finished on 3 December.

  All eyes are on the JWST as it enters the last leg of its journey to space; astronomers have been waiting for this moment since development for the world’s largest space telescope began in 1996.

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• China to upgrade mainstream RISC-V chips every six months

  Home-baked silicon is the way forward
  Agam Shah Mon 6 Dec 2021 // 23:54 UTC

  China is gut punching Moore's Law and the roughly one-year cadence for major chip releases adopted by the Intel, AMD, Nvidia and others.

  The government-backed Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is developing open-source RISC-V performance processor, says it will release major design upgrades every six months. CAS is hoping that the accelerated release of chip designs will build up momentum and support for its open-source project.

  RISC-V is based on an open-source instruction architecture, and is royalty free, meaning companies can adopt designs without paying licensing fees.

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• The SEC is investigating whistleblower claims that Tesla was reckless as its solar panels go up in smoke

  Tens of thousands of homeowners and hundreds of businesses were at risk, lawsuit claims
  Katyanna Quach Mon 6 Dec 2021 // 22:35 UTC 4

  The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into whether Tesla failed to tell investors and customers about the fire risks of its faulty solar panels.

  Whistleblower and ex-employee, Steven Henkes, accused the company of flouting safety issues in a complaint with the SEC in 2019. He filed a freedom of information request to regulators and asked to see records relating to the case in September, earlier this year. An SEC official declined to hand over documents, and confirmed its probe into the company is still in progress.

  “We have confirmed with Division of Enforcement staff that the investigation from which you seek records is still active and ongoing," a letter from the SEC said in a reply to Henkes’ request, according to Reuters. Active SEC complaints and investigations are typically confidential. “The SEC does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation,” a spokesperson from the regulatory agency told The Register.

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• Fail: Exam paper marked by Elon Musk up for auction

  Sweary test on sale as Tesla CEO forgets where he parked his car
  Richard Speed Mon 6 Dec 2021 // 19:03 UTC 5

  Elon Musk fans must be all a quiver this week as they finally have the chance to buy a collectible to slide under the bust of their idol's head: papers signed by the man himself.

  We're not sure what to use as the collective noun for Musk obsessives. Maybe a "delusion"?

  In the case of the auction, the items up for grabs are papers said to be marked up and graded by Musk when he was a teaching assistant at the University of Pennsylvania. The future Tesla CEO wielded the red pen, initialling the paper and scoring the answers.

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• Spar shops across northern UK shut after cyber attack hits payment processing abilities

  Franchisees' closures also affect petrol stations
  Gareth Corfield Mon 6 Dec 2021 // 18:41 UTC 10

  The British arm of Dutch supermarket chain Spar has shut hundreds of shops after suffering an "online attack," the company has confirmed to The Register.

  "This has not affected all SPAR stores across the North of England," a Spar spokesman told us, "but a number have been impacted over the past 24 hours and we are working to resolve this situation as quickly as possible."

  LancsLive, a local news website for Lancashire, reported that a "total and widespread IT outage" hit the chain at the weekend, along with "security breach" problems today.

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