load01 10/14/2011

• Programming Languages: Survivors and Wannabes - New York Times

  Whether they are in the vanguard with new languages like Java, or toiling in the catacombs of Cobol, programmers speak a variety of tongues in their intimate conversations with computers. And each has its own vocabulary, mixing algebraic statements with simple words to tell the computer to perform repetitive tasks.

  tags: technology

• BlackBerry blackout: how it happened - Telegraph

  ngineers at its European headquarters in Slough, Berkshire, as well as its corporate base in Waterloo, Ontario, are still investigating what went so badly wrong. According to industry sources, however, a picture is beginning to emerge.
  While Slough is the site of RIM’s European headquarters, and is also in charge of operations in the Middle East and Africa, it is not the physical location of the stacks of networking equipment that actually serve the tens of millions of BlackBerry users in these regions.

  tags: technology

• Care and feeding of your computer hacker | MediaFile

  Under a proposed new law, the Obama Administration is planning to throw the book at hackers convicted of organized criminal activity or endangering national security.
  
  The maximum sentence for these crimes will be raised to 20 years to reflect how hackers have become “a key tool of organized crime,” with many hackers “tied to traditional Asian and Eastern European organized crime organizations.”
  
  But while law enforcement and the criminal justice system seek to impose ever longer sentences on hackers, they are missing a trick – we need hackers. They are an invaluable asset in the fight against cyber crime and cyber espionage at a time when there is a dearth of IT Security professionals able to deal with this threat.

  tags: culture

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