On-Prem

• Intel plunking down $20bn for at least two chip factories in Ohio

  Announcement scheduled for today as Gelsinger meets with Biden at the White House
  Laura Dobberstein Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 13:24 UTC 3

  Intel is scheduled to announce on Friday that it is committing $20bn to build semiconductor plants outside Columbus, Ohio, thereby strengthening domestic supply chains, according to reports from the White House.

  The US government's canned statement on Thursday said the effort would create 7,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs.

  Intel told Time the money will build at least two semiconductor plants on a 1,000-acre site that could expand up to 2,000 acres and eight fabs.

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• UKCloud acquired: Public sector specialist finally bags investment from current chair and private equity after reporting steep losses

  Wolves no longer at the door of struggling Brit cloud slinger
  Paul Kunert Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 12:43 UTC 2

  Private investors led by current chairman Jeff Thomas have bought loss-making public sector service provider UKCloud for an unspecified sum, ending the months-long pursuit for potentially life-or-death funding.

  Hadston 2 Limited, set up by Thomas, is joined by BGF Group plc and Digital Alpha, buying a company that has three brands selling multi-cloud services to clients including central and local government, police, defence and the NHS.

  "The funding provides a strong foundation on which to assemble a portfolio of innovative businesses promoting the ethical and sustainable use of data to drive positive change in our communities and economy," said Thomas in a statement.

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• 'Please download in Microsoft Excel': Meet the tech set to monitor IT performance across central UK government

  Influencing billions in spending, the Cabinet Office will keep tabs on Whitehall with… a spreadsheet?!?
  Lindsay Clark Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 11:24 UTC 22

  Exclusive The UK's Cabinet Office has launched a new approach designed to assess the IT resource needs of central government departments and measure their performance: emailing a spreadsheet and asking for multiple replies.

  In a letter seen by The Register, Joanna Davinson, executive director at the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), said her team had created a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Digital Dashboard which in December was presented to the Functional Leadership Group.

  That MVP has now been sent to Whitehall's chief digital and information officers (CDIOs).

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• BOFH: What a beautiful classic car. Shame if anything were to happen to it

  And look, your COVID pass is all melted...
  Simon Travaglia Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 10:32 UTC 27

  Episode 1 There's been a fire.

  "Not in the building?!" I gasp at the Boss' smoke-tanned face.

  "Just outside the building," he says.

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• 'Can you identify your assailants?' Yes, they were pixelated! I'd know them anywhere!

  'Inside' knowledge on the image database conundrum – at 25 frames per second
  Alistair Dabbs Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 09:30 UTC 17

  Something for the Weekend, Sir? Stop that uterus! It stole my wallet!

  What do you mean, "Can you identify the uterus in question?" It looked like a uterus! Or, as we've been singing it all through Christmas, a wooooom*.

  Talk about getting the new year off to a bad start – I've just been robbed by a delinquent reproductive organ. Yet the all signs were there: I knew 2022 would be doomed back in early December when I read that the Salzburg Schokolade company, inventors of the mighty last-minute-airport-gift-shop chocolate ball Mozartkugel, had gone bust.

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• Why should I pay for that security option? Hijacking only happens to planes

  But if I give him my bank details, I'll be rich!
  Richard Speed Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 08:30 UTC 12

  On Call Friday is here. We'd suggest an adult beverage or two to celebrate, but only if you BYOB. While you fill your suitcase, may we present an episode of On Call in which a reader saves his boss from a dunking.

  Our tale comes from a reader Regomised as "Ed" and is set earlier this century. Ed was working as a developer in a biotech lab. He rarely spoke to the director, but did speak to the director's personal assistant a lot.

  This PA was very much a jack of all trades (and master of... well, you get the drift). HR? He was in charge of that. Ops? That too. Anything technical? Of course. Heck, even though the firm had its very own bean counter, one had to go through the PA to get anything paid or budgets approved.

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• UK, Australia, to build 'network of liberty that will deter cyber attacks before they happen'

  Enhanced 'Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership' will transport crime to harsh penal regime on the other side of the world
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 08:02 UTC 21

  The United Kingdom and Australia have signed a Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership that will, among other things, transport criminals to a harsh penal regime on the other side of the world.

  Australian foreign minister Marise Payne and UK foreign secretary Liz Truss yesterday inked the document in Sydney but haven't revealed the text of the pact.

  What we do know is that the two nations have pledged to "Increase deterrence by raising the costs for hostile state activity in cyberspace – including through strategic co-ordination of our cyber sanctions regimes." That's code for both nations adopting the same deterrents and punishments for online malfeasance so that malfeasants can't shop jurisdictions to find more lenient penalties.

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• Japan's Supreme Court rules cryptojacking scripts are not malware

  Coinhive-slinger wins on appeal
  Laura Dobberstein Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 06:58 UTC 9

  A man found guilty of using the Coinhive cryptojacking script to mine Monero on users' PCs while they browsed the web has been cleared by Japan's Supreme Court on the grounds that crypto mining software is not malware.

  Tokyo High Court ruled against the defendant, 34-year-old Seiya Moroi, on charges of keeping electromagnetic records of an unjust program. That unjust program was Coinhive, a "cryptojacking" script that mines for Monero by pinching some CPU cycles when users visit a web page that includes the code. Moroi ran the code on his website.

  Coinhive has been blocked by malware and antivirus vendors as it slows down other processes, increases utility bills, and creates wear and tear on your device. But in many ways Coinhive's Javascript code acts no differently to advertisements.

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• EC president promises European Chips Act to quadruple homegrown production by 2030

  'Most of our supplies come from outside Europe. This is a dependency and uncertainty we cannot afford'
  Agam Shah Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 06:44 UTC 9

  The European Commission will introduce legislation next month designed to turn the continent into a center of chip expertise and manufacturing.

  The EC will propose the European Chips Act in early February, which will boost Europe's infrastructure for the production and supply chain of chip manufacturing, said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the commission, in an address to the World Economic Forum on Thursday.

  The goal is to raise Europe's market share of global chip production to 20 per cent by 2030, which would mean quadrupling the EU's current output, she said, and would involve state aid to build "first of a kind" production facilities.

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• Russia's Putin out the idea of a broad cryptocurrency ban

  Central bank worries that block-bucks reduce government control and are used by crims
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 04:57 UTC 13

  Russia has floated the prospect of Putin a ban on cryptocurrencies.

  The Bank of Russia, the nation's central bank, yesterday published a Consultation Paper [PDF] titled "Cryptocurrencies: Trends, Risks, and Regulation" that ponders the impact of unbacked cryptocurrencies and stablecoins on Russia's economy.

  The document opens by noting that Russian citizens have not missed the crypto investment boom, and transact an estimated $5 billion a year with the digi-dollars, while the nation has become a major centre for crypto-mining.

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• China signs up 400 million new 5G subscribers in a year, more than doubling user population

  730 million 5G services active in Middle Kingdom, while another 100 million 4G services came online too
  Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Fri 21 Jan 2022 // 02:54 UTC 2

  730 million 5G subscriptions have been ordered in China, according to operational statistics published this week by the nation's big three carriers: China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile.

  That total means 396.5 million new 5G packages were activated during 2021, more than doubling the 333.5 million services in operation as of January last year. The actual market could be even larger, as the three report subscriptions which could cover multiple devices or people.

  Demand for other communications services continued to grow in China across 2021.

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