Hacking the Pentagon or an iPhone Makes Feds Happy

The Department of Defense wants you to hack The PentagonSpring hit our offices the other day, but we didn’t need a calendar or any technology to tell us that. No, the constant dusting of pollen on our cars, our homes and in our sinuses heralded its arrival. And we signal its arrival with every sneeze.

But today we’ll brush the pollen off of our clothes and keyboard to highlight tech news of the past several weeks. We look for interesting news in the journals, websites, newsletters and other online sources.

This Tech Blitz blog feature a round-up of the latest tech news, announcements, opinions and insights. We take a special interest in news about software development and self-service business intelligence.

Tell us what we missed. If you know much more important news or  something that belongs in our next Tech Blitz blog, send us your ideas by email.

FBI Wants Software Developers to Do its Bidding

A couple of privacy lawyers believe the FBI wants to change federal law that they say restricts the government from forcing Apple to change its security systems to enable access to an iPhone used by a terrorist.

Lawyers from Edelson PC say the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act could restrict the FBI from getting this kind of action forced on Apple.

The FBI certainly wants access to whatever information remains on that phone. But lawyers from Edelson PC say what the federal agency really wants is to change law to require manufacturers to take this kind of action. Every software developer would be required to provide the FBI with this access whenever a request was made.

Hacking a Car Easier than an iPhone

Last year researchers took over a 2014 Jeep Cherokee driving down a St. Louis highway. They shut down its transmission remotely. Eight months later, the FBI warns that car hacking risk is real.

The FBI warns you might lose control of your car to cybersabotage. Hacking into an iPhone once appeared impossible without Apple’s help. But technology writers say hacking the San Bernadino killer’s iPhone may happen with an Israeli company’s help.

A forensics expert believes “NAND mirroring” could result in access to the iPhone’s data. This method involves making multiple copies of the iPhone storage to input possible passcodes until the correct one is found. This enables them to circumvent the limited number of attempts at entering the correct passcode before the device permanently locks the data.

Not so, says FBI Director James Comey. That method won’t work, but the agency has another method it’s trying.

Uncle Sam Wants You – To Hack the Pentagon

Most of the time hacking into the Pentagon puts you into prison. But a pilot program invites the commercial sector to try to get into what should be secure areas. The DoD initiated this pilot program to conduct vulnerability identification and analysis on its public web pages. So even if these qualified participants manage successful hacks, their efforts won’t expose sensitive information.

“I am always challenging our people to think outside the five-sided box that is the Pentagon,” said Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in a statement about the bug bounty program. “I am confident this innovative initiative will strengthen our digital defenses and ultimately enhance our national security.”

Add a Dose of Ionide for F#

A development tool called Ionide gives F# developers a modern IDE. The open source tool includes capabilities such as autocomplete, document formatting and syntax and error highlighting.  Find Ionide packaged as an Atom Editor and Visual Studio Code-compatible suite of plug-ins for cross-platform development.

SQL Server 2016 Closer and Closer to Release

Microsoft recently made its second SQL Server 2016 release candidate available for download.

The SQL Server 2016 Release Candidate (RC) 1 reached an important milestone as it became nearly feature complete. Microsoft plans to publish multiple release candidates more frequently as part of its rapid release model.

Outsourcing Firms Legally Game the H1-B System

Presidential candidates joined the discussion about problems with the H1-B visa system. Creators of this system intended for it to help U.S. companies find high-tech foreign employees to fill vacancies that no American worker could fill.

The law only allows 85,000 H1-B visas, which is much lower than the 5.5 million job openings in the beginning of this quarter. But seven Indian outsourcing companies found a way to game the system, getting a disproportionate number of visa approvals.

A Labor Condition Approval form must be submitted by employers, but it allows firms to put a dozen or more workers on one document. So those seven companies submitted approximately 200,000 of those applications. Since the visas are granted by a computer-run lottery if the number of applications tops the quota of 85,000, the odds increase in your favor if you submit more applications.

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