Samsung installs accidental geopolitical tracking software.
Also: Microsoft locks up The Hague and Sega sends the wrong spreadsheet.

The Case of the Mandatory Adware and the Sensitive Geographies

Samsung, a company whose entire business model relies on people trusting its hardware, appears to have made an interesting procurement decision. Reports indicate that the organization is preloading software from IronSource onto its devices destined for the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region. This IronSource, formerly known primarily for its adware bundles in the long-forgotten days of desktop installation wizards, is a piece of corporate bloatware that nobody asked for.

It is the corporate equivalent of having a regional office manager who insists that everyone uses a specific, shady third-party stapler with GPS tracking; just because they got a great bulk discount. The issue is less about the app's function and more about the fact that it is a mandatory, non-removable installation from an Israeli firm in a politically sensitive region. Samsung clearly just wanted a partner for "value added services" and accidentally stepped into an international incident, which is what happens when you let the Sales department write the software specification.

Help Desk Suspends The Hague's Email Access

The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s office has confirmed a classic IT mishap, this time with global implications. Microsoft, the company that essentially runs the backend of modern civilization, temporarily suspended the email account of ICC Chief Prosecutor, Karim A. A. Khan, QC. The suspension followed a document request from a US congressional committee related to Donald J. Trump, the former US President.

This is not a conspiracy; this is just a ticket escalation gone wrong. Some Level 1 support agent at Microsoft probably saw the words "Subpoena" and "High Profile" and executed the standard, automated "account freeze pending legal review" script. They did not stop to consider that the user was essentially the personification of global justice. The Help Desk is a purely bureaucratic machine; it sees a flag, it acts on the flag, regardless of whether the user is a small business owner or an officer of an international court.

A Migration Success Story, Also a Budget Report

In a move that should make every finance department cheer and every cloud architect sweat, one company successfully moved its entire infrastructure from the lavish comforts of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to the more fiscally responsible Hetzner. The savings were a staggering 90 percent, which is the kind of number that makes CIOs weep with joy.

The key takeaway here is that they maintained ISO 27001 compliance throughout the migration using a combination of brute force and Ansible automation. This proves that the cost of your infrastructure is mostly determined by how much you hate writing configuration files. AWS is simply a premium you pay to avoid learning how to automate anything beyond a basic Python script.

Briefs

• Sega's Sales Figures: The publisher accidentally revealed internal sales numbers for several major games, including Persona 3 Reload and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. This is what happens when someone confuses the "Internal Use Only" email distribution list with the "Send to Press" list.
• Confidentiality Agreements: A stark warning to the workforce: watch out for standard non-disclosure agreements that include language that function as a lifetime non-compete. The Legal department always hides the most dangerous landmines in the documents nobody actually reads.
• The Tiny Team Era: Analysts suggest that AI is ushering in the “tiny team” era in Silicon Valley, which is corporate-speak for "we fired everyone with less than 5 years experience and the remaining staff now does the work of five people."