Another 9/11 anniversary passes quietly

burningWTCI’ve been quiet lately, I know. My sons’ Kickstarter campaign has taken a toll on their Venture Capitalist… me. I never before appreciated the physical effort that goes into managing what is, for me, a significant investment. They do the work but I pay for a lot of it and that brings with it the need to oversee — something I’ve never been very good at doing. You’ll see the result, hopefully, next week.

While I’ve been so preoccupied a lot has happened in the technology world. Apple introduced a slew of new products and Alex Gibney released his Steve Jobs documentary. I’ll comment on both of these shortly. Yahoo was […]

By |September 12th, 2015|2015, Government, history, Predictions|33 Comments
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Who is your IT outsourcing firm working for?

outsourcing-for-dummiesWhile the U.S. Government has been remarkably opaque about the recently discovered security breach at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), we know that personal information on at least 21.5 million present, former, and prospective federal employees was lost. The Feds claim Chinese hackers are at the bottom of it, which is disputed by the Chinese government. This, to me, raises a number of questions, especially about the possible role of IT outsourcing firms and implications for organizations beyond OPM. Does IT outsourcing make your data more vulnerable? Yes, I believe it does.

It’s easy to blame the Office of Personnel Management for its own troubles. Oversight was lax. The agency failed a security audit and […]

By |July 30th, 2015|2015, Government, Outsourcing, Privacy and Security, Uncategorized|127 Comments
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The H-1B visa program is a scam

h1b visas by companyThis 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 that we […]

By |June 15th, 2015|2015, competition, Education, Government, Outsourcing|173 Comments
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Disney’s IT troubles go beyond H-IBs

DisneyLetterDisney has been in the news recently for firing its Orlando-based IT staff, replacing them with H-1B workers primarily from India, and making severance payments to those displaced workers dependent on the outgoing workers training their foreign replacements. I regret not jumping on this story earlier because I heard about it back in March, but an IT friend in Orlando (not from Disney) said it was old news so I didn’t follow-up. Well now I am following with what will eventually be three columns not just about this particular event but what it says about the U.S. computer industry, which is not good.

First we need some context for this […]

By |June 12th, 2015|2015, Companies, Government, Outsourcing|53 Comments
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Your PBX has been hacked!

phreakThis past week a very large corporation on the east coast was hacked in what seems to naive old me to be a new way — through their corporate phone system. Then one night during the same week I got a call from my bank saying my account had been compromised and to press #4 to talk to their security department. My account was fine: it was a telephone-based phishing expedition. Our phone network has been compromised, folks, and nobody with a phone is safe.

Edward Snowden was right we’re not secure, though this time I don’t think the National Security Agency is involved.

Here’s how this PBX hack came down. Step one begins with looking for […]

By |May 2nd, 2015|2015, Government, law, Outsourcing, Phones, Privacy and Security|65 Comments
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