Google Sponsors 2 Full-Time Devs To Improve Linux Security

Worried about the security of Linux and open-source code, Google is sponsoring a pair of full-time developers to work on the kernel’s security. From a report: The internet giant builds code from its own repositories rather than downloading outside binaries, though given the pace at which code is being added to Linux, this task is non-trivial. Google’s open-source security team lead…

Jeff Bezos To Step Down as Amazon CEO

Amazon announced on Tuesday that AWS CEO Andy Jassy will replace Jeff Bezos as CEO during the third quarter of this year. Bezos will transition to executive chair of Amazon’s board. In a statement, Bezos said: I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec…

Why AWS Is Forking Elasticsearch and Kibana

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes at ZDNet: When Elastic, makers of the open-source search and analytic engine Elasticsearch, went after Amazon Web Services (AWS) by changing its license from the open-source Apache 2.0-license ALv2) to the non-open-source friendly Server Side Public License, I predicted “we’d soon see AWS-sponsored Elasticsearch and Kibana forks.” The next day, AWS tweeted it “will launch new forks…

Federal Judge Blocks Parler’s Bid To Be Restored on Amazon Web Services

A federal judge has denied Parler’s request for a court order blocking Amazon from kicking the social media app off its platform, marking yet another setback in Parler’s efforts to get back online. From a report: Judge Barbara Rothstein issued a ruling on Thursday saying that Parler had not met the legal requirements for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction….

Amazon and Facebook Staff Warned of Threats To Safety

Amazon and Facebook have warned staff about threats to their safety amid fears of a backlash against “big tech.” From a report: Amazon Web Services (AWS) employees were told to “be vigilant” after the firm removed Parler from its web-hosting service. The app is popular with some supporters of President Donald Trump. Facebook staff were also instructed not to wear company-branded…

Parler Booted Off Amazon’s AWS Hosting Service, Suspended by Apple

“Apple has suspended Parler until the makers of the app solve its content moderation challenges,” reports Forbes, citing a statement from Apple saying “there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity. Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats…” Meanwhile, BuzzFeed News reports: Amazon notified Parler that it would be…

Are We Experiencing a Great Software Stagnation?

Long-time programmer/researcher/former MIT research fellow Jonathan Edwards writes a blog called “Alarming Development: Dispatches from the User Liberation Front.” He began the new year by arguing that software “is eating the world. But progress in software technology itself largely stalled around 1996.” Slashdot reader tonique summarizes Edwards’ argument:
In 1996 there were “LISP, Algol, Basic, APL, Unix, C, Oracle, Smalltalk, Windows, C++,…

An Interview With an Anonymous Amazonian

Logic magazine has interviewed an anonymous engineer at Amazon Web Services. An excerpt from the story, which touches a wide-range of topics including controversial work with the military and police and takes on other cloud providers: So when you use AWS, part of what you’re paying for is security. Right; it’s part of what we sell. Let’s say a prospective customer…

AWS Introduces New Chaos Engineering as a Service Offering

When large companies like Netflix or Amazon want to test the resilience of their systems, they use chaos engineering tools designed to help them simulate worst-case scenarios and find potential issues before they even happen. Today at AWS re:Invent, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels introduced the company’s Chaos Engineering as a Service offering called AWS Fault Injection Simulator. From a report: The…

Amazon Plans To Help 29 Million People Grow their Tech Skills With Free Cloud Computing Training by 2025

cusco shares a blog post from Amazon: As part of our efforts to continue supporting the future workforce, we are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to provide free cloud computing skills training to people from all walks of life and all levels of knowledge, in more than 200 countries and territories. We will provide training opportunities through existing AWS-designed programs,…