Outsourcing
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004: The Outsourcing Bogeyman
Daniel W. Drezner
According to the election-year bluster of politicians and pundits, the outsourcing of American jobs to other countries has become a problem of epic proportion. Fortunately, this alarmism is misguided. Outsourcing actually brings far more benefits than costs, both now and in the long run. If its critics succeed in provoking a new wave of American protectionism, the consequences will be disastrous -- for the U.S. economy and for the American workers they claim to defend.
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And done properly, the offshore outsourcing of call centers creates new jobs at home. Delta Airlines outsourced 1,000 call-center jobs to India in 2003, but the $25 million in savings allowed the firm to add 1,200 reservation and sales positions in the United States.
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C|net, 4/9/04: Gutless wonders of 2004
By Charles Cooper
Maybe the start of the baseball season occupied their attention, but eight months before a presidential election, the near-total silence of the technology industry's biggest luminaries about offshore outsourcing is quite remarkable.
With both of the two major parties latching on to the issue, political demagogues are already filling the void. So why aren't tech's best and brightest mixing it up? If for nothing else but their own enlightened self-interest, you would assume that the computer industry has a vested interest in defending its interests and offering an informed voice on the matter.
Don't hold your breath.
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Security
Computerworld, 4/8/04: Slow down the security patch cycle
Opinion by Bill Addington
There are many myths surrounding computer network security that are counterproductive to finding a true solution to the problem. One of these is the belief that vendors should speed up the process of producing and releasing patches for security vulnerabilities that have been discovered by security researchers. Instead, we need a completely different solution to the patch management problem, and part of the solution involves slowing down, not speeding up, patch releases.
Slow them down? What about hackers taking advantage of the vulnerability in the meantime? What about those "zero day" exploits? To answer this, we need to know how the researcher/patcher/exploiter cycle really works and the motivations of each party in the cycle. This cycle is where researchers discover vulnerabilities, software companies patch the vulnerabilities and hackers exploit the vulnerabilities.
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Infoworld, 4/8/04: Expert releases Cisco wireless hacking tool
Tool compromises Cisco's authentication protocol
By Paul Roberts
The tool, called "Asleap," allows users to scan the wireless network broadcast spectrum for networks using LEAP (Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol), capture wireless network traffic and crack user passwords, according to a message posted to the Bugtraq online security discussion group on Wednesday.
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