The proud Brits have had their Royal Navy's communications grid knocked out by a computer virus.

Fortunately, the Empire is long gone, so the Navy isn't as important as it used to be, and even more importantly, the MoD claims the virus can't affect the weapons systems on its warships. So, the Navy can still launch jump jets and nuclear tipped Tridents, and incinerate a small continent. It just can't email and tell anyone about it.

Flagship HMS Ark Royal, a through deck cruiser, or an aircraft carrier as the rest of the world would call it, is still without its com system. Reports claim as much of 75 percent of the fleet have been affected, but an MoD spokesman refused to comment the reports. The MoD isn't saying when the troubles started either, but it apparently happened last week.

So, if one of your loved ones serving with the Royal Navy isn't updating his Facebook profile or sending that regular email, it doesn't mean he's being keelhauled by Captain Bligh, it's just that his server is down. As one of my colleagues would put it: "All of our mail servers are down, especially mail server number one."

More here.

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