Trump eyes end to an H-1B system that favors largest outsourcers

The outcome of the annual H-1B visa lottery is immigration's Groundhog Day. It's the same result year after year, as the large outsourcing firms continue to lead all others in getting H-1B visas.But this year may be different, because of President Donald Trump.[ Join the discussion at Computerworld's H-1B & IT Outsourcing group on Facebook. ] The H-1B lottery favors large firms. In the 2015 fiscal year, for instance, the top 10 firms received 38% of all the H-1B visas in computer occupations alone. All these firms, except for Amazon and to a partial extent IBM, are outsourcers. These large companies have the resources to submit enough visa applications to help ensure they receive a bare minimum of approvals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Packet Blast: Top Tech Blogs, Feb. 10

Are companies doing enough on the IoT security front?

We continue to hear dire warnings about the inherent security risks of the Internet of Things (IoT), and indeed IoT-related incidents are happening. With many companies beginning to capture IoT data from connected devices, a key question is are they doing enough to ensure that data and networks are secure?If security executives thought they had a lot to handle with the growth of mobile devices and the expanding digital enterprise, the emergence of connected products, corporate assets, vehicles and other “things” is taking security coverage to a whole new level.A December 2016 study by the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) — a cyber security think tank that acts as a conduit between private sector companies and U.S. federal agencies, points out how vulnerable enterprises are to attacks such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) via IoT.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Are companies doing enough on the IoT security front?

We continue to hear dire warnings about the inherent security risks of the Internet of Things (IoT), and indeed IoT-related incidents are happening. With many companies beginning to capture IoT data from connected devices, a key question is are they doing enough to ensure that data and networks are secure?If security executives thought they had a lot to handle with the growth of mobile devices and the expanding digital enterprise, the emergence of connected products, corporate assets, vehicles and other “things” is taking security coverage to a whole new level.A December 2016 study by the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) — a cyber security think tank that acts as a conduit between private sector companies and U.S. federal agencies, points out how vulnerable enterprises are to attacks such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) via IoT.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Controlling Chaos: DevOps And Digital Transformation

Video: Simplify BGP Configurations

Running BGP instead of an IGP in your leaf-and-spine fabric sounds like an interesting idea (particularly if your fabric is large). Configuring a zillion BGP knobs on every box doesn’t.

However, BGP doesn’t have to be complex. In the Simplify BGP Configurations video (part of leaf-and-spine fabric designs webinar) Dinesh Dutt explains how you can make BGP configurations simple and easy-to-understand.

Intel’s priciest chip has 24 cores and sells for $8,898

No Intel chip is as expensive as the new Xeon E7-8894 v4 server processor.The US$8,898 Xeon chip has massive horsepower with 24 cores, 60MB of cache and a maximum clock frequency of 3.4GHz. Intel said this is the company's fastest server chip, breaking enterprise application speed records.The company's next expensive chip after the E7-8894 v4 is its other 24-core processor, the Xeon E7-8890 v4, which is priced at $7,174. The chips have similar features except for the base clock speed. The new chip starts at 2.4GHz compared to 2.2GHz for the less expensive chip.The $8,898 chip even outprices Intel's fastest supercomputing chip, the Xeon Phi 7290F, which is priced at $6,401. It is also over four times more expensive than the costliest PC chip, the $1,723 Core i7-6950X for gaming desktops.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s iCloud saved deleted browser records, security company finds

Apple’s iCloud appears to have been holding on to users’ deleted internet browsing histories, including records over a year old.Moscow-based forensics firm Elcomsoft noticed it was able to pull supposedly deleted Safari browser histories from iCloud accounts, such as the date and time the site was visited and when the record was deleted.“In fact, we were able to access records dated more than one year back,” wrote Elcomsoft’s CEO Vladimir Katalov in a Thursday blog post.Users can set iCloud to store their browsing history so that it's available from all connected devices. The researchers found that when a user deletes that history, iCloud doesn't actually erase it but keeps it in a format invisible to the user.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s iCloud saved deleted browser records, security company finds

Apple’s iCloud appears to have been holding on to users’ deleted internet browsing histories, including records over a year old.Moscow-based forensics firm Elcomsoft noticed it was able to pull supposedly deleted Safari browser histories from iCloud accounts, such as the date and time the site was visited and when the record was deleted.“In fact, we were able to access records dated more than one year back,” wrote Elcomsoft’s CEO Vladimir Katalov in a Thursday blog post.Users can set iCloud to store their browsing history so that it's available from all connected devices. The researchers found that when a user deletes that history, iCloud doesn't actually erase it but keeps it in a format invisible to the user.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 8 Rumor Rollup: The $1K iPhone, early birds & a brand new concept design video

The iPhone could really go back to becoming a status symbol if the latest iPhone 8 rumors prove true. Grabbing attention this week is a Fast Company article, headlined "Here's why Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone will likely cost more than $1,000," in which a source says the 5.8-inch iPhone 8 is going to be packed with new features. Those include a wraparound OLED display, more memory and possibly 3D sensing technology for security. (This concern about pricing has been a hot topic of late: See iPhone 8 Rumor Rollup -- Paying the Price for Cool.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hospital devices left vulnerable, leave patients at risk

A patient lies in a hospital bed waiting for a medical professional to conduct a blood gas analysis. Little does the patient know that his personal information is also undergoing a procedure.The database that stores patient data was found unencrypted, default passwords were used, and the nature of the exploit was basic, according to TrapX Security, which was called in later to recreate and diagnose the issues at the unnamed hospital. The technology research company recently released its findings in a report called "Anatomy of an Attack – Medical Device Hijack (MEDJACK)". The security company declined to name the three hospitals it examined, except to say they were located in the Western and Northeastern U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hospital devices left vulnerable, leave patients at risk

A patient lies in a hospital bed waiting for a medical professional to conduct a blood gas analysis. Little does the patient know that his personal information is also undergoing a procedure.The database that stores patient data was found unencrypted, default passwords were used, and the nature of the exploit was basic, according to TrapX Security, which was called in later to recreate and diagnose the issues at the unnamed hospital. The technology research company recently released its findings in a report called "Anatomy of an Attack – Medical Device Hijack (MEDJACK)". The security company declined to name the three hospitals it examined, except to say they were located in the Western and Northeastern U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Fileless malware’ attacks, used on banks, have been around for years

Fileless malware attacks, which were recently discovered in the networks of at least 140 banks, telecoms and governments, account for about 15% of known attacks today and have been around for years in different forms."Fileless malware attacks are becoming much more common and circumvent most of the endpoint protection and detection tools deployed today," Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan said.A recent discovery of fileless malware was reported on Wednesday by researchers at Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs. The attackers have not been identified and "attribution [is] almost impossible," according to Kaspersky.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Fileless malware’ attacks, used on banks, have been around for years

Fileless malware attacks, which were recently discovered in the networks of at least 140 banks, telecoms and governments, account for about 15% of known attacks today and have been around for years in different forms."Fileless malware attacks are becoming much more common and circumvent most of the endpoint protection and detection tools deployed today," Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan said.A recent discovery of fileless malware was reported on Wednesday by researchers at Moscow-based Kaspersky Labs. The attackers have not been identified and "attribution [is] almost impossible," according to Kaspersky.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft hasn’t moved the Windows 10 needle in months

Microsoft has been stuck on the 400 million mark for Windows 10 for more than four months, as the head of the company's operating systems group yesterday repeated the milestone when he spoke to developers."We now have over 400 million users all around the world. This is consumers, people in schools, people in the enterprise," Terry Meyerson, who leads all Windows efforts, said at a developer's day Wednesday that was also webcast by the company.[ Related: Windows 10 Redstone: A guide to the builds ] Yesterday's number was first announced by Microsoft in September 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The 5 things I hate about CRM systems

This article was inspired by a post on Facebook by Ben Parr, former co-editor of Mashable. What he wrote hit a nerve with me—a nerve as raw as any of Lewis Black’s—evoking my tirade. Parr posted:  “Favorite CRM software and why?” I replied, “They all pretty much suck and have since Siebel Systems invented it.”Let’s start with platform companies like Google and Square Payments that do not generally use CRM systems and rarely use call centers. These companies understand that any CRM system will collapse at scale, so they build well-designed web-facing responsive self-service systems as part of the product design. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DARPA hits snag in GEO satellite service plan

DARPA is going to have to contend with an Earth-bound problem if it is to get its plan to service satellites in geosynchronous orbit into space.The agency this week said it had picked Space Systems Loral (SSL) as its commercial partner to develop technologies under its Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program that would enable cooperative inspection and servicing of satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), more than 20,000 miles above the Earth, and demonstrate those technologies on orbit.+More on Network World: How to catch a 400lb drone traveling at full speed+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DARPA hits snag in GEO satellite service plan

DARPA is going to have to contend with an Earth-bound problem if it is to get its plan to service satellites in geosynchronous orbit into space.The agency this week said it had picked Space Systems Loral (SSL) as its commercial partner to develop technologies under its Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program that would enable cooperative inspection and servicing of satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), more than 20,000 miles above the Earth, and demonstrate those technologies on orbit.+More on Network World: How to catch a 400lb drone traveling at full speed+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft celebrates 20 years of Visual Studio

Microsoft announced today it is celebrating 20 years of Visual Studio with the introduction of Visual Studio 2017, the latest iteration of its developer tool suite, on March 7.A lot has changed in those 20 years, as illustrated by a picture Microsoft posted of the contents of Visual Studio 97 (below), the first iteration of the IDE. Back then it was pretty much just a bunch of languages in one box with no real integration.  Microsoft And most of the languages supported back then are gone—such as Visual J++, a Java compiler that caused all kinds of legal problems with Sun Microsystems, and Visual C++, which has been ditched in favor of C#. Also, Visual FoxPro is pretty much dead, and the support apps, including SourceSafe and InterDev, have been replaced with newer apps or functions. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Evolving LTE for 5G

With 5G research progressing at a rapid pace, the standardization process has started in 3GPP. As the most prevalent mobile broadband communication technology worldwide, LTE constitutes an essential piece of the 5G puzzle. As such, its upcoming releases (Rel-14 and Rel-15) are intended to meet as many 5G requirements as possible and address the relevant use cases expected in the 5G era. —Ericsson

The post Worth Reading: Evolving LTE for 5G appeared first on 'net work.