“There was a story in the news a couple weeks ago about how IBM was planning to move thousands — perhaps tens of thousands — of technical positions to India. This isn’t just IBM, though. Nearly every big company that is in the IT outsourcing or software development business is doing or getting ready to do the same thing. They call this “offshoring,” and its goal is to save a lot of money for the companies involved because India is a very cheap place to do business. And it will accomplish that objective for awhile. In the long run, though, IT is going to have the same problems in India that it has here. The only real result of all this job-shifting will be tens of thousands of older engineers in the U.S. who will find themselves working at Home Depot. You see, “offshoring” is another word for age discrimination. ” Read the rest of the column.
Archive | 2003
MSBlast Prevention and Cure
A new worm exploiting an older Microsoft flaw. Read the story at http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5062532.html?tag=fdfeed
More details here: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5062524.html?tag=fdfeed
A friend called me yesterday to say the Internet was falling down around him (he also said it was a buffer overflow in an RPC call to DCOM, so maybe he knew what he was talking about). Another complained the user group boards were down and the ISP wasn’t too responsive. It will be interesting to see what happens Saturday. With this much warning, can a DDOS be deflected?
Welcome back, Craig!
Five posts in a few days puts Craig Berntsen back in the blogoshere, and on my blogroll at right. Keep ’em coming, Craig!
And how ’bout an RSS feed, to complete the circuit?
Microsoft re-issues security bulletins MS03–024 and -025?
In my inbox this morning are two security bulletins originally issued by Microsoft on July 9th. I cannot find anything in the body of the message or the linked bulletins that indicate why these were re-issued, whether the original patch had a flaw that required a patched-patch, or whether Microsoft was sending these out based on reports of ISPs shutting down sites yesterday based on a DDOS attack. No clue. Here are the links, patch if you haven’t:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms03-025.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms03-024.asp
It’s also worthwhile to run Windows Update regularly, and review the basic security precautions Microsoft recommends at http://www.microsoft.com/security.
Cringely: SCO, IBM, Fox, Ratliff, Long and Ashton the macaw
Great column by Robert X. Cringely at his PBS haunts on why SCO is doomed to fail in its persecution of IBM, and what may be really motivating the suit. In addition, a bit on Oracle, Peoplesoft, SAP, J.D. Edwards, IBM and DB2. And if that’s not enough for you, a little history of Ashton-Tate, JPL, Wayne Ratliff and Jeb Long. All in 1700 words. Cringely rocks. Link courtesy of Craig Berntsen
Acxiom hacked…
One of the world’s largest consumer database companies “hacked” “Acxiom Corp has suffered data theft (a kind of quasi-hack) that exposed consumer data on millions of people, according to this AP report. Acxion manages consumer databases for a huge number of companies, including the likes of Microsoft, IBM, Sears, AT&T, General Electric and Bank of America.” Read more at Ars Technica
WYSIWYG editing for Radio under Mozilla
Cool! Moz is my browser of choice, but hand-coding all the HTML in my posts is tiresome. Looking forward to this update! “mozilla editing. Jake’s got wizzy-mozilla working in Radio under OS X. Watch how quick I change from Safari. Incredible that apple and microsoft don’t see the opportunity of browser based writing.” [Adam Curry: Adam Curry’s Weblog]
Weekend Tourist
Great weekend. Spent Sunday on a Boston Harbor Historical Cruise that was scenic, informative and fun. Despite a little sprinkle when we were starting out, weather was pleasant. Saw Castle Island, the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides, not the document), the piers of South and East Boston, Spectacle Island, Deer Island, Pier Park, and the great Boston skyline. Wrapped it up with lunch and desserts in Quincy Market. A fun trip.
Off to Boston
A good friend is in town and I have an excuse to play tourist. Gone for the day.
When we say Fifty-four megabits per second, we don’t mean it…
Not a news flash to some, but perhaps others: the 802.11g spec, poorly referred to as “54 mbps” is really a measure of best possible radio speed, and not real data throughput in a real situation. Follow the link for Slashdot’s like to an O’Reilly article with the details. Like “56k” modems, althought perhaps even more overhyped. The good thing is that the ‘g’ components are competitively priced with ‘b’ components. When 54 Mbps isn’t 54 Mbps: 802.11g’s Real Speed [Slashdot]