Comment Pump n dump (Score 2) 80
Still happening with Doge
Submission + - SPAM: 2019 Data Breach Hall of Shame: These were the biggest data breaches of the year
schwit1 writes: The biggest recurrent motif among the major data breaches of 2019 wasn't the black-hooded hacker in a dark room, digging into a screen full of green text. It was a faceless set of executives and security professionals under the fluorescent lights of an office somewhere, frantically dialing their attorneys and drafting public relations apologies after leaving the front doors of their servers unlocked in public.
The words "unsecured database" seemed to run on repeat through security journalism in 2019. Every month, another company was asking its customers to change their passwords and report any damage. Cloud-based storage companies like Amazon Web Services and ElasticSearch repeatedly saw their names surface in stories of negligent companies — in the fields of health care, hospitality, government and elsewhere — which left sensitive customer data unprotected in the open wilds of the internet, to be bought and sold by hackers who barely had to lift a finger to find it.
And it's not just manic media coverage. The total number of breaches was up 33% over last year, according to research from Risk Based Security, with medical services, retailers and public entities most affected. That's a whopping 5,183 data breaches for a total of 7.9 billion exposed records.
In November, the research firm called 2019 the "worst year on record" for breaches.
The truth is, until a suite of industry-shaping federal reforms and regulations slap some accountability into US data brokerages and communications companies while miraculously rolling back government mass-surveillance programs, keeping one's data trail clean is about as likely to save you from being part of a mega-breach as recycling your coffee cup is to stop climate change.
Link to Original Source
The words "unsecured database" seemed to run on repeat through security journalism in 2019. Every month, another company was asking its customers to change their passwords and report any damage. Cloud-based storage companies like Amazon Web Services and ElasticSearch repeatedly saw their names surface in stories of negligent companies — in the fields of health care, hospitality, government and elsewhere — which left sensitive customer data unprotected in the open wilds of the internet, to be bought and sold by hackers who barely had to lift a finger to find it.
And it's not just manic media coverage. The total number of breaches was up 33% over last year, according to research from Risk Based Security, with medical services, retailers and public entities most affected. That's a whopping 5,183 data breaches for a total of 7.9 billion exposed records.
In November, the research firm called 2019 the "worst year on record" for breaches.
The truth is, until a suite of industry-shaping federal reforms and regulations slap some accountability into US data brokerages and communications companies while miraculously rolling back government mass-surveillance programs, keeping one's data trail clean is about as likely to save you from being part of a mega-breach as recycling your coffee cup is to stop climate change.
Link to Original Source
Comment Retirement ? (Score 1) 333
Jeez, what happened to /. that we are having a lengthy discussion about retiring ? Having said that (and I am 'only' in my 50's) I think most of us can out think and out program the kids at work nowadays.
Comment Why Insourcing is good ... (Score 1) 326
If you employ local people they spend their money in the local economy. If you train and develop local people, you spread more money around the local economy and you help develop your area and your country. Its also a lot easier to do collaborative, agile work when everyone is co-located. Sure you can outsource to a foreign country that bring people into the country, but they rarely stay longer than a couple of years and take your companies IP back home with them along with their accumulated savings.
Outsourcing may seem cheaper - and it is at first - but in practice it works out more expensive for companies. Foreign outsourcing companies slowly ramp up the costs and their workers slowly increase their expectations of what they should earn.
By the time a company wakes up from its outsourcing nightmare and decide they want to do it themselves , their own systems are a stranger to them.
Comment Alien - for the shock value (Score 1) 1222
Alien. The first one.
Watched it on VHS - bolted out of my seat and fell on the ground when alien junior burst through the guys chest.
Comment Re: Yes. (Score 1) 245
Java is the new COBOL. Not a language for a bit of fun weekend work. It is there to pay the bills.
Comment Re:Set a specific goal (Score 1) 312
Java is the new Corporate COBOL methinks. C# is becoming more x-platform with DotNet Core, and since MS bought Xamarin.
Submission + - Is COBOL getting cool again ?
techfilz writes: Romanian developer Bizu Ionic has engineered a software bridge called node.cobol which can execute Node.js script from within COBOL programs. In this example source code a web server is run and renders an ASCII art picture of COBOL founder Admiral Grace Hopper.
Comment Re:Didn't Really Care For It (Score 1) 351
Ah yes - Quake. Playing it late at night for the first time with the Trent Reznor soundtrack echoing around the bedroom. Then standing in the lobby and looking at the different entrances and the roof, just amazed at the effects and 3D imagery. Quake 2 - not so great with the sci-fi stuff and then Quake 3 Arena : rocket jumps & intelligent bots !
Submission + - Iran Arrests Eight For 'Un-Islamic' Instagram Modeling (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Tehran cybercrimes court said the country has arrested eight people working for online modeling agencies deemed to be "un-Islamic." The women models were arrested for starring in photos on Instagram and elsewhere without wearing their headscarves, which has been required in public since 1979. A total of 170 people have been identified by investigators for being involved in online modeling, including 59 photographers and make-up artists, 58 models and 51 fashion salon managers and designers. The court's prosecutor Javad Babaei announced the the threats on TV, claiming modeling agencies accounted for about 20 percent of posts on Instagram from Iran and that they had been "making and spreading immoral and un-Islamic culture and promiscuity." He added, "We carried out this plan in 2013 with Facebook, and now Instagram is the focus."
Submission + - Security Expert Jailed for Reporting Vulnerabilities in Lee County, FL Elections (theregister.co.uk)
rootmon writes: Information Security Professional David Levin was arrested 3 months after reporting un-patched SQL injection vulnerabilities in the Lee County, Florida Elections Office run by Sharon Harrington, the Lee County Supervisor of Elections. Harrington's office has been in the news before for voting systems problems (for example in during the 2012 election, 35 districts in Lee County had to remain open 3 hours past the closing of polls due to long lines and equipment issues , wasting $800,000 to $1.6 million of taxpayer money incompatible iPads for which her office is facing an audit. Rather than fix the issues with their systems, they chose to charge the whistle blower with three third-degree felonies. The News Press also has several related interviews.
Comment Re:the War on Cash (Score 1) 208
Spot on with your comments.
And in a modern DevOps environment, you dont need to treat the Mainframe Developers (and their associated Ops colleagues) any different to the Java (or similar) guys. Put them all together and get them collaborating and treat the Mainframe like any other Server (albeit with a bit more care). There are enough people out there looking for jobs that you can get a code academy to train some junior COBOL devs for you or x-train some of the Java guys. The offshore guys in Eastern Europe (Belarus for example) can do some quality COBOL code if needed. The Indians also built up a lot of COBOL skills for Y2K that they can still deploy and they are not adverse to retraining if required.
I dont think that you can beat the mainframe for transaction handling right now (like overnight batch for ATMs) except in some isolated cases. Compare some modern Core Banking platforms with MF on transactions per second - as in actually do performance testing and not just listen to the Vendors empty promises. Sure you have places like Google and Amazon where the Devs are brilliant & can manage just about anything on new platforms but that's not the case in the Banks :-)
Submission + - Don't hate perky morning people: It might be their DNA's fault. (arstechnica.com)
Striek writes: Aggregated genome data from 23andme.com was analyzed and published in Nature magazine, and now further evidence has been added to the belief that being a morning person or a night owl is wired in our DNA.
It's not the first time such research has been published, either.
So those of us who work late into the night and prefer to rise at noon, much to the chagrin of our partners, can point to our DNA as the reason, not our lazy habits.
It's not the first time such research has been published, either.
So those of us who work late into the night and prefer to rise at noon, much to the chagrin of our partners, can point to our DNA as the reason, not our lazy habits.
Submission + - Bruce Schneier: China and Russia Almost Definitely Have the Snowden Docs (wired.com)
cold fjord writes: Writing at Wired, Bruce Schneier states that he believes that China and Russia actually do have the Snowden documents, but that the path by which they got them may be different than what has been reported: "... The vulnerability is not Snowden; it’s everyone who has access to the files. I’ve handled some of the Snowden documents myself, and even though I’m a paranoid cryptographer, I know how difficult it is to maintain perfect security. It’s been open season on the computers of the journalists Snowden shared documents with since this story broke in July 2013. And while they have been taking extraordinary pains to secure those computers, it’s almost certainly not enough to keep out the world’s intelligence services. .... Which brings me to the second potential source of these documents to foreign intelligence agencies: the US and UK governments themselves. I believe that both China and Russia had access to all the files that Snowden took well before Snowden took them because they’ve penetrated the NSA networks where those files reside. After all, the NSA has been a prime target for decades."
Comment Java is the new COBOL (Score 0) 382
The most boring and brain-sapping 'Enterprise' technology out there. Honestly - who goes home and thinks 'Aah - a couple of nice quiet hours programming in my favourite language on my favourite projects'. Even the outsource Indians at work seen tired of Java. Or life. Can't tell.
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