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This is the second of three columns relating to the recent story of Disney replacing 250 IT workers with foreign workers holding H-1B visas. Over the years I have written many columns about outsourcing (here) and the H-1B visa program in particular (here). Not wanting to just cover again that old material, this column looks at an important misconception that underlies the whole H-1B problem, then gives the unique view of a longtime reader of this column who has H-1B program experience.First the misconception as laid out in a blog post shared with me by a reader. This blogger maintains...

Bloomberg Businessweek has devoted an entire issue to a single article: Paul Ford's "What is Code?" I read the whole thing online this afternoon, and it's remarkable. I could see it being taught in journalism classes years from now, like Gay Talese's "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" or John Hersey's "Hiroshima." It takes something both very important and hard to understand, and makes it understandable to an audience of smart but nonexpert readers. It does this incredibly well. It mostly feels like fun, not work.

A hacker attack on the Bundestag (German parliament) earlier in 2015 means that an entirely new network will have to be built after experts failed to fix the breach. The Federal Office of Information Technology Security (BSI) decided that it could no longer defend against the attack and had to give up, broadcasters NDR and WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Thursday. Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday evening that data was still flowing out of the parliament to unknown recipients, and that rebuilding the network using completely new hardware would take months and cost millions. …

“Part of the problem is that we’ve got very old systems,” President Obama said on Monday, in a response to a question about the recent hack attack on U.S. government computers. He said making U.S. cyberspace more secure is “going to be a big project,” requiring “new systems and new infrastructure.” The intrusion involving the Office of Personnel Management apparently compromised the personal, identifying information of four million current and former federal employees. […] Speaking at the conclusion of the G-7 summit in Germany on Monday, President Obama refused to say that China is responsible for the massive intrusion into...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) —So much for the argument "Apple computers are safer and bug-free." It's not true. We're accustomed to annoying glitches in PCs. But the past few years have shown that Macs, iPads and iPhones have them too. So far in 2015, five major flaws have affected Apple products. Just this week, we encountered a nasty bug that lets hackers bury computer viruses so deep inside Macs, you'll never find it. A week earlier, a flaw appeared that lets a text message crash an iPhone. These are significant issues, and neither has been fixed yet. Faulty code is found...

The head of the Federal Communications Commission is proposing that the government agency expand a phone subsidy program for the poor to include Internet access. The FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, has emphasized that Internet access is a critical component of modern life, key education, communication and finding a keeping a job. With the net neutrality rules released earlier this year, the agency redefined broadband as a public utility, like the telephone, giving it stricter oversight on how online content gets to consumers. That triggered lawsuits from Internet service providers. The proposal Thursday to expand the Lifeline phone program to Internet...

President Reuven Rivlin was born on September 9, 1939, in Jerusalem. However, according to the Google search engine, the tenth president of the State of Israel was born in “Palestine.” The Mayor of Ra’anana, Ze’ev Bielski, made the shocking discovery. “While working on a speech for the arrival of President to Ra’anana, and I typed his name into Google in English, and then we were amazed to see that says he was born in Jerusalem—in the Palestinian state,” Bielski stated to Yediot Aharonot on Friday. […] This is not the first time that Google has leaned toward labeling parts of...

Monday's edition of the Federal Register contains new rules for government-sponsored school meal programs, disclosing the compensation of senior executives at certain banks, and acquisitions regulations for government agencies. Here's what is happening: Global warming: The Obama administration is proposing new acquisitions regulations for the Department of Defense, General Services Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These federal agencies will try to procure materials that do not contain high global warming potential hydrofluorocarbons. "This will allow agencies to better meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and reporting requirements," the agencies wrote. The public has 60 days to comment....

Love the new MacBook's svelte design, but not a fan of OS X 10.10 Yosemite? There's good news: According to a new test, Windows 10 apparently runs more smoothly on the new MacBook. Alex King, a computer science student studying at Tufts University, spent a month with the new 12-inch MacBook and provided some insightful new details about running the beta version of Windows 10 on it. See also: 5 things Apple didn't say about the new MacBook King installed Windows 10 using Boot Camp, meaning his new MacBook boots natively into Windows 10, as opposed to being emulated in...

If the U.S. intelligence community believes that Russia poses a greater cyber spying threat than China, what will it make of this? Russia and China signed a cyber-security deal on Friday, which experts say could firm up Russia’s ties with the east and may become a foundation for binding cyber security ties in the future. According to the text of the agreement posted on the Russian government’s website on Wednesday, Russia and China agree to not conduct cyber-attacks against each other, as well as jointly counteract technology that may “destabilize the internal political and socio-economic atmosphere,” ”disturb public order” or...

Former Department of Defense Official and Author Releases New Cyber Security Book New book, “Essays in Technology, Security and Strategy,” now available on KindleThis press release was originally distributed by ReleaseWireOlympia, WA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 04/28/2015 -- Technology security visionary Dr. Stephen Bryen has published a new collection of pivotal essays on national security and cyber security to help policy makers and citizens understand the real threats facing the security of the United States. "Essays in Technology, Security and Strategy," provides unique insight and new information from Dr. Bryen who has more than 40 years of experience in government and...

A US air strike in Yemen has killed the senior Al-Qaeda official who appeared in a video claiming the deadly January attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, who was killed in the April strike along with his eldest son and other fighters in the port city of Mukalla, also appeared in Al-Qaeda videos claiming the holding and death of US hostage Luke Somers, SITE Intelligence Group said. The announcement of his death came in a video posted on Thursday on Twitter by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - which Washington considers the international terror network's deadliest...

Credit: NASA Langley/David C. Bowman A team at NASA's Langley Research Center is developing a concept of a battery-powered plane that has 10 engines and can take off like a helicopter and fly efficiently like an aircraft. The prototype, called Greased Lightning or GL-10, is currently in the design and testing phase. The initial thought was to develop a 20-foot wingspan (6.1 meters) aircraft powered by hybrid diesel/electric engines, but the team started with smaller versions for testing, built by rapid prototyping. Imagine a battery-powered plane that has 10 engines and can take off like a helicopter and fly...

Microsoft expects its newest operating system, Windows 10, to be running on 1 billion computers within two to three years. The figure, which includes desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones, was repeatedly touted Wednesday at Microsoft’s annual conference for application developers. Microsoft has struggled to get companies to make apps for Windows mobile devices, part of a self-perpetuating cycle that makes Windows smartphones less attractive to consumers.

Imagine a glass window that's tough like armor, a camera lens that doesn't get scratched in a sand storm, or a smart phone that doesn't break when dropped. Except it's not glass, it's a special ceramic called spinel {spin-ELL} that the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has been researching over the last 10 years. "Spinel is actually a mineral, it's magnesium aluminate," says Dr. Jas Sanghera, who leads the research. "The advantage is it's so much tougher, stronger, harder than glass. It provides better protection in more hostile environments—so it can withstand sand and rain erosion." As a more durable...

Google introduced a feature earlier this year that lets users download their entire search history, but some have pointed out that you can also completely delete it, which might be a good decision from a security or data tracking standpoint. According to Venture Beat, Google released this download feature in January, but it just recently got attention when it made it onto the Google Operating System blog, which is an unofficial Google news and tips website.

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. sounded a battle cry Sunday, calling on law-enforcement agencies to battle Apple and Google over software that makes it impossible for authorities to “decrypt” cellphones seized in criminal investigations. The recently rolled-out “upgrades” haven’t attracted much general attention, which means police must start pressing elected officials to roll back the terrorist-friendly software, he said. “Apple has created a phone that is dark, that cannot be accessed by law enforcement even when a court has authorized us to look at its contents,” Vance warned on “The Cats Roundtable” show on WNYM/970 AM. “That’s going to be...

A protein which ‘turbo-charges’ the immune system so that it can fight off any cancer or virus has been discovered by scientists. In a breakthrough described as a ‘game-changer’ for cancer treatment, researchers at Imperial College found a previously unknown molecule which boosts the body’s ability to fight off chronic illnesses. Scientists at Imperial College London, who led the study, are now developing a gene therapy based on the protein and hope to begin human trials in three years. “This is exciting because we have found a completely different way to use the immune system to fight cancer,” said Professor...

Experts in health care and information technology agree on the future’s biggest opportunity: the creation of a new computational model that will link together all of the massive computers that now hold medical information. IBM is today staking its claim to be a major player in creating that cloud, and to use its Watson artificial intelligence to make sense of the flood of medical data that will result. The new effort uses new, innovative systems to keep data secure, IBM executives say, even while allowing software to use them remotely. Big Blue is certainly putting some muscle into medicine. Some...

Stanford University scientists have invented the first high-performance aluminum battery that's fast-charging, long-lasting and inexpensive. Researchers say the new technology offers a safe alternative to many commercial batteries in wide use today. "We have developed a rechargeable aluminum battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames," said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. "Our new battery won't catch fire, even if you drill through it." Dai and his colleagues describe their novel aluminum-ion battery in "An ultrafast rechargeable aluminum-ion battery," in...