28 Apr 2005
Microsoft Chairman: End overseas hiring limits

Thanks, Mr. Bill. This makes it quite plain where your loyalities lie.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates urged the Bush administration and lawmakers Wednesday to abolish immigration limits on foreign engineers who can be hired by U.S. companies, a sensitive subject among American technology workers watching their own jobs increasingly move overseas.

(link) [CNN]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Fight fraud not ID theft

A very interesting point:

Schneier said that rather than focusing on making identity harder to steal it makes more sense to make information harder to use for criminal purposes. "The industry is going the wrong way in the US by worrying about keeping identity details secret. The focus should be on fraud. European countries, such as Holland [The Netherlands], are doing better than the US," he said.

There are some steps being taken in this direction, but overall the focus here has been on "identity theft" - which is the precursor to fraud in many cases, rather than on the fraud itself. Of course, identity theft is literally impossible to detect, until it's been used to commit fraud, so why is is all of the buzz about identity theft, and not the frauds it enables?

ID theft is a misnomer which is hurting the fight against fraud, according to encryption guru Bruce Schneier. Instead of talking about ID theft it's better to talk about fraud due to impersonation, he claimed.

(link) [The Register]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Beggars May Need Licenses in Minneapolis

Ja, sure, you betcha! Everybody has to have a license in Minnesota!

AP - Panhandlers on Minneapolis' busy street corners may soon carry more than the cardboard signs that spell our their pleas for money. If the police chief has his way, they'll have photo IDs hanging around their necks.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Bug killers making farmers buggy

Well, doh! I'd say there'd be more reason to report on folks who spend weeks inhaling organophosphates and don't get sick! Just by way of clarification, for weed control we use goats, sheep and vinegar, and for rodent control we have cats. The llama and the cattle keep larger predators (coyotes) pretty much at bay, but we're still armed humans, and have proven to be pretty deadly ourselves to things that view our livestock as a cafeteria... and so far none of our weed or pest control efforts have poisoned us! Go figure!

New research shows that farmers who used agricultural insecticides experienced increased neurological symptoms, even when they were no longer using the products. Data from 18,782 North Carolina and Iowa farmers linked use of insecticides, including organophosphates and organochlorines, to reports of reoccurring headaches, fatigue, insomnia, dizziness, nausea, hand tremors, numbness and other neurological symptoms. Some of the insecticides addressed by the study are still on the market, but some, including DDT, have been banned or restricted.

(link) [Science Blog]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link