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Microsoft

Submission + - What would Gates say under oath about H1B pay?

Submitted by gr8scot
gr8scot writes: Bill Gates claims, again, that he can't find good help in the United States labor market and that the H1B 'program has strong wage protections for U.S. workers.' Jon Stokes of Ars Technica has unfortunately (for Bill) done his homework, and caught him in a lie about the salaries of his H1B workers: 'Salaries for these jobs at Microsoft start at about $100,000 a year.' In light of his direct appeal to our elected representatives in the Washington Post article, 'I urge them' to invite William Gates III to a televised chat, preferably under oath, to present a detailed account of exactly how the national problem of high-tech jobs with no skilled American applicants has affected his company. From Gates' Op-Ed in the Washington Post:

Last year, reform on this issue stalled as Congress struggled to address border security and undocumented immigration. As lawmakers grapple with those important issues once again, I urge them to support changes to the H-1B visa program that allow American businesses to hire foreign-born scientists and engineers when they can't find the homegrown talent they need. This program has strong wage protections for U.S. workers: Like other companies, Microsoft pays H-1B and U.S. employees the same high levels — levels that exceed the government's prevailing wage.
He asked for the attention of Congress, and I hope they listen very carefully to what he tells them. I also hope they, and all of Microsoft's customers, will note the 'disconnect' between what he tells them in this context and what his marketing department tries to tell us all about their wonderful conferencing and collaboration software. That he needs foreign workers in this country but his software does what he says it does cannot both be true.
Space

Submission + - Pentagon: US spy satellite to hit Earth by March (google.com)

Submitted by gr8scot
gr8scot writes: It probably won't do any harm, but it is certainly expensive. 'Hydrazine is harmful to the human central nervous system and can be fatal in big doses. However, it breaks down quickly in heat and ultra-violet light, the French security agency Ineris said in a report. Specialists cited in the New York Times said the hydrazine would burn off if the fuel tank breaks, as is likely, when re-entering the atmosphere.' And, among all those other satellites, why isn't there one for maintenance, or at least with a grappling hook to put the broken ones in a stable, unpowered orbit until repairs can be done? Article: 'The United States has a thick web of billion-dollar satellites monitoring the Earth, some including high-powered telescopes or radars, with the capability to zoom in and help launch precision strikes on enemy targets.' And, not one to zero in on the other satellites, when they become 'enemy targets'? Geniuses! I realize it's space, distances are great, and "thick web" is a relative term. '"Since we've been in the business of doing that, for 50 years or so, there have been more than 17,000 man-made objects that have re-entered the Earth atmosphere."' But, in light of the fact that 17,000 satellites — most of them owned and/or put there at the expense of the United States — have re-entered the atmosphere, I estimate that "web" is thick enough for maintenance to be as reasonable as putting them into orbit in the first place, for long-term cost efficiency alone.
Security

Why Privacy & Security Are Not a Zero-Sum Game 131

Posted by kdawson from the insert-ben-franklin-quote-here dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Ars Technica has up a nice article on why security consultant Ed Giorgio's statement that 'privacy and security are a zero-sum game' is wrong. The author reasons that, due to Metcalfe's law, the more valuable a government network is to the good guys, the more valuable it is to the bad guys. Given the trend in government to gather all of its eggs into one database, unless more attention is paid to privacy, we'll end up with neither security nor privacy. In other words, privacy and security are a positive-sum game with precarious trade-offs — you can trade a lot of privacy away for absolutely no gain in security, but you don't have to."
Security

RIAA Website Hacked 247

Posted by CmdrTaco from the maybe-someone-just-typed-rm--rf dept.
gattaca writes "A lack of security controls allowed hackers to "wipe" the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) website on Sunday. The existence of an SQL injection attack on the RIAA's site came to light via social network news site Reddit. Soon after hackers were making merry, turning the site into a blank slate, among other things. The RIAA has restored RIAA.org, although whether it's any more secure than before remains open to question, TorrentFreak reports."
Power

Do Any Companies Power Down at Night? 646

Posted by Soulskill from the when-else-can-employees-run-their-torrents dept.
An anonymous reader writes "My Health Sciences Campus has about 8,000 desktop computers, and on any given night about half of them are left on. I know this because I track all the MAC addresses in case there is a virus outbreak. Aside from the current fad of 'being green', has anyone had any success in encouraging users to power-down at night? You could potentially eliminate running bots, protect yourself from the next virus outbreak, keep your data safe, etc. Do security concerns and power consumption issues matter enough to do this?"
Security

Online Crime Seen as Growing Threat to Business, Politics 89

Posted by Zonk from the can't-we-all-just-play-some-wow dept.
BobB passed us a link to a NetworkWorld article, exploring the ongoing realization in business circles of the dangers online criminals pose. The piece raises the possibility that criminal elements are gaining access to US research labs in an effort to ferret out corporate and governmental information. One institute referred to in the article states: "Economic espionage will be increasingly common as nation-states use cyber theft of data to gain economic advantage in multinational deals. The attack of choice involves targeted spear phishing with attachments, using well-researched social engineering methods to make the victim believe that an attachment comes from a trusted source." We just recently discussed possible hacker involvement in several municipal blackouts.
Security

CIA Claims Cyber Attackers Blacked Out Cities 280

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the say-g'night-dick dept.
Dotnaught writes to tell us InformationWeek is reporting that the CIA admitted today that recent power outages in multiple cities outside the United States are the result of cyberattacks. "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
Operating Systems

FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE Now Available 100

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the put-the-daemon-back-in-the-box dept.
cperciva writes "FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE, the fourth release from the highly successful 6-STABLE branch of FreeBSD development, has been released. In addition to being available from many FTP sites, ISO images can be downloaded via the BitTorrent tracker, or for users of earlier FreeBSD releases, FreeBSD Update can be used to perform a binary upgrade."
Spam

Anti-Spammer Fined $60K for DNS Lookup "Hack"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the education-before-a-ruling-is-overrated dept.
towaz writes "It appears David Ritz, the veteran American spam-fighter, has been hit by $60,000 in fines plus lawyers fees after losing a civil suit that accused him of illegal hacking. The complaint alleged that Ritz 'hacked' servers owned by Sierra (which describes itself as a specialist web hosting and internet services firm), obtaining confidential internal network configuration data (using a zone transfer, host -l command) and domain name information (using whois) before publishing that data on the net."

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