Does Python Need to Change?

The Python programming language “is a big hit for machine learning,” read a headline this week at ZDNet, adding “But now it needs to change.” Python is the top language according to IEEE Spectrum’s electrical engineering audience, yet you can’t run Python in a browser and you can’t easily run it on a smartphone. Plus no one builds games in Python…

Iranian Hackers Found Way Into Encrypted Apps, Researchers Say

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Iranian hackers, most likely employees or affiliates of the government, have been running a vast cyberespionage operation equipped with surveillance tools that can outsmart encrypted messaging systems — a capability Iran was not previously known to possess, according to two digital security reports released Friday. The operation not only targets…

US Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps To Track Phones

A small U.S. company with ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities has embedded its software in numerous mobile apps, allowing it to track the movements of hundreds of millions of mobile phones world-wide, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter and documents it reviewed. From the report: Anomaly Six, a Virginia-based company founded by…

Trending online courses in business, data science, tech, and health

With more world-class content launching every week, there are always new topics to explore, new skills to learn, and new ways to achieve your goals. These latest courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and MasterTrack™ Certificates cover everything from AI, blockchain, and cybersecurity, to contact tracing, social work, and UX design. What will you learn next?  Business […]
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Only Three of the Top 100 International Airports Pass Basic Security Checks

Only three of the world’s Top 100 international airports pass basic security checks, according to a report published last week by cyber-security firm ImmuniWeb. From a report: The three are the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, the Helsinki Vantaa Airport in Finland, and the Dublin International Airport in Ireland. According to ImmuniWeb, these three “may serve a laudable example not…

Self-Sovereign ID Tech Is Being Advanced By Security Failures, Privacy Breaches

Lucas123 writes: There is a growing movement among fintech companies, banks, healthcare services, universities and others toward disintermediating the control of online user identities in favor of supporting end-user controlled decentralized digital wallets based on P2P blockchain. Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a term used to describe the digital movement that recognizes an individual should own and control their identity without intervening…

FaceApp and Other Russian Apps Pose Potential Counterintelligence Threats, Says FBI

The FBI warned in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Monday that it considers mobile applications developed in Russia, including the popular photo-aging app “FaceApp,” to be “potential counterintelligence threats.” Axios reports: FaceApp is a Russian-owned mobile application that allows users to upload photos of themselves and see what they may look like at a different age. Experts…

iOS Apps Could Really Benefit From the Newly Proposed Security.plist Standard

Security researcher Ivan Rodriguez has proposed a new security standard for iOS apps, which he named Security.plist. From a report: The idea is simple. App makers would create a property list file (plist) named security.plist that they would embed inside the root of their iOS apps. The file would contain all the basic contact details for reporting a security flaw to…

Is Agile Becoming Less and Less Relevant?

OneHundredAndTen shares “an interesting Forbes article that posits that Agile software development is losing relevance, it is not the silver bullet that some claimed, and it has become a sort of religion — ‘If Agile doesn’t work for you, you are not doing it right.'” Writer/data scientist Kurt Cagle even describes passing around “the holy hockey stick” while begging the scrum…

7,000 Developers Report Their Top Languages: Java, JavaScript, and Python

“JetBrains released its State of Developer Ecosystem 2019 report, which found while Java is still the most popular primary language and JavaScript is the most used overall, Python is gaining speed,” reports SD Times: The report surveyed about 7,000 developers worldwide, and revealed Python is the most studied programming language, the most loved language, and the third top primary programming language…