Security

• Despite growth, questions remain over whether SAP can get customers off-prem fast enough to appease investors

  €500m cloud investments drag on profit
  Lindsay Clark Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 16:47 UTC 1

  SAP's operating profit has fallen 45 per cent year-on-year in the fourth calendar quarter pf 2021 to €1.47bn as cloud investments drag on profitability.

  Despite boasting 17 per cent growth in cloud revenue to £9.4bn, the full-year results also show the pain involved as one of the world's largest software vendors attempts to transition to a new business model.

  On a call with investors, CEO Christian Klein said: "These are very strong results during a challenging time for most businesses. They demonstrate the confidence our customers have in SAP and in the unique value we offer in helping them address an unprecedented set of challenges. We are optimistic about the year ahead and we are well on track to achieving our 2025 ambitions."

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• New tools to simplify wrapping your head around Kubernetes

  Where to begin when you're ready to get your K8s on
  Liam Proven in Prague Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 15:15 UTC

  Engineer Nelson Elhage offers several reasons Kubernetes is so complex but this does at least mean that multiple companies offer tools to try to help you master it.

  The Google-backed container-management system is famously difficult, even to spell or pronounce. (It's often called "k8s" for short: since "kubernetes" is 10 letters long, "k8s" signifies "k" + eight letters + "s", and is pronounced "kates".) The Mountain View mammoth even commissioned a comic to explain what it is. (It's long, but quite good.)

  K8s is a set of tools for managing clusters – but not everyone has a spare cluster lying around that they can play with.

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• ISO.org outage hits day 3: Still in the dark as the important matter of bunk bed standards enters discussion

  Time to get out ISO 22300:2021, Security and resilience – Vocabulary
  Richard Speed Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 14:16 UTC 6

  The great International Organization for Standardization outage is entering its third day as consultants find themselves bereft of technical documents with which to beat engineers.

  Problems first appeared as 26 January drew to a close and the organisation noted: "We are currently facing a technical outage impacting our application's availability and performance. This outage is under investigation."

  The following day brought good news. At 0822 CET on 27 January the group announced it had identified the issue (something to do with IT infrastructure) and a couple of hours later reported that some applications were being brought back up.

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• Capita offloads Microsoft licensing biz Trustmarque to private equity for £110m

  Remainder of Capita's Portfolio of unwanted businesses to be expunged by year end, says CEO
  Paul Kunert Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 13:45 UTC

  Capita is again clearing out another of the previous CEO’s past conquests with confirmation this morning that it is offloading software licensing and hardware reseller Trustmarque to One Equity Partners for £111m.

  Readers will no doubt be delighted to hear that the sale represents a good earner for Capita, everyone's fave outsourcing badass, which paid £57m for Trustmarque in 2016. Not all of Capita's other past divestments have proved as financially nourishing.

  "We are pleased to have agreed the sale of Trustmarque to One Equity Partners following a competitive sales process," said Jon Lewis, who grabbed the controls of what appeared to be a slowly sinking ship in December 2017.

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• Internet Society condemns UK's Online Safety Bill for demonising encryption using 'think of the children' tactic

  Plus: Cops' surveillance is used against drug gangs and not child abusers, says Tutanota
  Gareth Corfield Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 12:56 UTC 26

  Britain's controversial Online Safety Bill will leave Britons more exposed to internet harms than ever before, the Internet Society has said, while data from other countries suggests surveillance mostly isn't used to target child abusers online, despite this being a key cited rationale of linked measures.

  Government efforts to depict end-to-end encryption as a harm that needs to be designed out of the internet as it exists today will result in "fraud and online harm" increasing, the Internet Society said this week.

  Founded by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, the Internet Society is one of the oldest and most well-respected institutions guiding the path of the public internet today. Its cry against the draconian Online Safety Bill (aka Online Harms Bill) should cause policymakers to sit up and pay attention.

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• HPE has 'substantially succeeded' in its £3.3bn fraud trial against Autonomy's Mike Lynch – judge

  All eyes turn to Priti Patel as midnight extradition deadline looms
  Gareth Corfield Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 11:50 UTC 47

  Updated Hewlett Packard Enterprise "substantially succeeded" in its multi-billion pound lawsuit against Autonomy founder Mike Lynch for fraud over that company's accounts.

  Giving a summary of his full judgment this morning, trial judge Mr Justice Hildyard said that HPE "substantially succeeded" in its case. The full financial damages are yet to be announced publicly.

  The finding is a massive victory for HPE, which saw its corporate reputation dragged through the mud during the trial as queues of ex-execs testified they didn't read due diligence documents before agreeing to the deal.

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• UK government responds to post-Brexit concerns and of course it's all the fault of those pesky EU negotiators

  'Incalculable cost' of non-participation in Horizon programme 'continues to rise'
  Richard Speed Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 11:45 UTC 67

  The UK's European Scrutiny Committee has published the government's response to concerns over the Brexit divorce bill and the impact on the UK's participation in EU programmes.

  The original report turned up in October 2021 and highlighted the costs incurred as Brexit negotiations went on. The UK was given the nod for participation in the likes of Horizon (the EU's big research fund) and Copernicus (the EU's Earth Observation programme), however approval allowing UK entities to actually bid is still lacking.

  The maximum financial endowment of Horizon Europe is €95.5bn. Copernicus was reported as being €5.4bn in the original report. The majority of the UK's contribution to these and other programmes would normally have been expected to flow back into Blighty's coffers. But these are not normal times.

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• Crack team of boffins hash out how e-scooters should sound – but they need your help*

  *They're probably fine
  Richard Currie Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 11:03 UTC 65

  Poll Boffins from UCL's Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory (PEARL) have linked arms with London e-scooter providers to decide on a "universal sound" for the silent but deadly transport mode.

  It remains illegal in the UK to use a privately owned battery-powered deathtrap, but that hasn't stopped the great unwashed – as anyone who has suddenly had to dive off the path during a parkland walk will tell you.

  However, to allow the craze in a regulated environment, rental firms have been popping up all over the country – including TIER, Lime and Dott in London – as evidenced by the amount of scooters cluttering pedestrian walkways or, indeed, the local river.

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• How to get banned from social media without posting a thing

  Mme D finally takes to the Web 2.0 stage and becomes a bad actor
  Alistair Dabbs Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 10:17 UTC 64

  Something for the Weekend, Sir? "Is it in yet?"

  There you go! It's working now! "There's no need to push it," I explain calmly. "Just put it right here and it should insert itself automatically, see?"

  Mme D is trying to connect two social media accounts so she won't have to upload the same photo twice. Frankly, she doesn't even want to upload it once. She'd rather not have to deal with it at all.

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• BOFH: On Wednesdays, we wear gloves

  In which Simon meets the new accountant
  Simon Travaglia Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 09:30 UTC 35

  Episode 2

  >Ding!<    >shudder<

  "Hi there – it's Gary isn't it?" I ask, stepping into the lift. "One of our new breed of beancounters?"

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• Bouncing cheques or a bouncy landing? All in a day's work for the expert pilot

  Sure, you can program an autopilot but will you be defeated by a Dell?
  Richard Speed Fri 28 Jan 2022 // 08:31 UTC 60

  On Call Some users are less than bright, and some are just slightly dim. But few are quite as dim as this high-flying employee of the world's formerly favourite airline. Welcome to On Call.

  Today's story of tribulation by telephone comes from "James" (for that is not his name). It takes us back 10 years or so, when James was making a nice enough living as a self-employed computer repair person. Got a busted bit of kit? He was the local man to see.

  "I had replaced a screen in a Dell laptop for a new customer who lived in a nice area, with a rather large house," he told us.

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