The Register – Tech News

Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

A full 46 percent of children even said that age checks were easy to bypass, while just 17 percent said that they were difficult to fool. The methods kids use to fool age gates vary, but most are pretty simple: There's the classic use of a video game character to fool video selfie systems, while in other instances, children reported just entering a fake birthday or using someone else's ID card when that was required. The report even cites cases of children drawing a mustache on their faces to fool age detection filters. Seriously.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/05/04/uk_online_safety_act_age_checks_subvert/?td=rt-3a

Atlassian to shed ten percent of staff, because AI

Australian collaborationware company Atlassian has announced it will shed ten percent of staff – around 1,600 people. “It would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn’t change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas. It does,” wrote CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes. “This is primarily about adaptation. We are reshaping our skill mix and changing how we work to build for the future.”
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/11/atlassian_layoffs/?td=rt-3a

Browser extensions pushed malware to 4.3M Chrome, Edge users

A seven-year malicious browser extension campaign infected 4.3 million Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge users with malware, including backdoors and spyware sending people's data to servers in China. The attackers, which Koi named ShadyPanda, played the long game: publishing legitimate extensions, accumulating thousands or sometimes millions of downloads over several years, and then pushing a malware-laden update that auto updates across the entire user base.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/01/chrome_edge_malicious_browser_extensions/?td=rt-3a

Dell ends hybrid work policy despite remote work pledge

Dell justified the policy change by asserting a thirty-second in-person conversation can replace an email discussion that goes on for hours or days and by noting that specific groups within the company – sales, manufacturing, and engineering – have already adjusted to being in the office five days per week. Many companies, such as Amazon, have trimmed back or ended remote work arrangements over the past year. These return to office (RTO) mandates, however, have failed to improve corporate financial performance, according to a study last year by University of Pittsburgh business school associate professor Mark Ma and Yuye Ding, a doctoral student.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/31/dell_ends_hybrid_work_policy/?td=rt-3a

Mozilla removing Do Not Track option from Firefox 135

"Many sites do not respect this indication of a person's privacy preferences, and, in some cases, it can reduce privacy," Mozilla said on the updated DNT support page. It directs users to instead make use of newer Global Privacy Control features also present in the browser.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/12/firefox_do_not_track/

Study finds 268% higher failure rates for Agile software projects

A study has found that projects adopting Agile practices are 268 percent more likely to fail than those that do not. Even though the research commissioned by consultancy Engprax could be seen as a thinly veiled plug for Impact Engineering methodology, it feeds into the suspicion that the Agile Manifesto might not be all it's cracked up to be.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/05/agile_failure_rates/