February Coding News Roundup
In this roundup of the latest coding news that impacts our industry, we learn that the US arm of mobile device maker HTC got in hot water with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a new study says that software vulnerabilities were up in 2012 after a five-year lull, and a New York-based computer scientist built the first programming language whose source code is made up of Arabic scripts.
HTC America Strikes a Settlement with the Federal Trade Commission
If you’re a firm believer that bad code stems from organizations that misunderstand the importance of quality control, then you’re probably not all that surprised with the recent news involving HTC America, the US arm of Taiwan-based mobile-device maker HTC, and its settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over security compromises. The FTC alleged that HTC America compromised user information due to security flaws resulting from a shoddy development process.
On February 22, the FTC announced that under terms of the settlement, HTC America must develop and patch “vulnerabilities found in millions of HTC devices” and create its own security program to counter any risks that might arise when the company develops any new product.
Reuters reports that HTC has “addressed the identified security issues on the majority of devices released in the United States after December 2010, ” and plans to continue releasing updates. Additionally, Reuters points out that the problems plaguing HTC America were the first software security issues that the FTC has had to deal with.
Software Vulnerabilities Found in 2012 Are Up by 26 Percent since 2011
Security research firm NSS Labs' 2012 Vulnerability Threat Report gives us some sobering news “that after a five-year decline, the number of vulnerabilities disclosed in 2012 rose 26 percent compared to 2011.” The report is based on “analyzed flaw disclosures from 1,330 software vendors,” as CRN describes. Some of the flaws come from the tech titans of Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe, among others.
Over at CRN, Robert Westervelt writes that while new vendors made up 30 percent of 2012’s reported vulnerabilities, “Reoccurring vendors still represented the bulk of the flaws reported.”
For a good look at which companies have vulnerabilities, check out NSS Labs’ handy YouTube video, which “shows a day-by-day representation of the vulnerabilities disclosed throughout 2012 per software vendor.”
Computer Scientist Builds First Programming Language with Source Code Made Up of Arabic Scripts
New York based-computer scientist Ramsey Nasser captured the tech media’s attention this week by creating the world’s first programming language with its source code comprised of Arabic script.
The Register has some nice details on the Scheme-like language named قلب (you can pronounce it as “alb”), which Nasser says “is the first programming language that is a conceptual art piece.”
To see how the new language functions, look at the following YouTube clip that highlights the aesthetic beauty of Nasser’s creation.
The story ends on a thought-provoking quote by Nasser who claims that for us to really rally behind coding literacy, “we have to be aware of what the cultural biases are and what it means for someone who doesn't share that background to be expected to be able to reason in those languages.”
