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Federal court strikes down Biden’s student loan forgiveness program

Posted on 27/01/2023

Washington
CNN
—

A federal judge in Texas has struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, declaring it illegal.

The lawsuit was filed by a conservative group, the Job Creators Network Foundation, in October on behalf of two borrowers who did not qualify for debt relief.

Biden’s program was already on hold due to a separate legal challenge.

The Biden administration has argued that Congress has given the secretary of education the power to broadly discharge student loan debt in a 2003 law known as the HEROES Act.

But the Texas federal judge found that the law does not provide the executive branch clear congressional authorization to create the student loan forgiveness program.

“The program is thus an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power and must be vacated,” wrote Judge Mark Pittman, who was nominated by then-President Donald Trump.

“In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone,” he continued.

The Justice Department said Thursday that it would appeal the decision, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that “we strongly disagree with the District Court’s ruling on our student debt relief program.”

“For the 26

A Compiler Writing Playground

Posted on 25/01/2023

“Create Your Own Compiler” is an interactive tutorial that shows step by step how to write your own simple compiler that transforms JavaScript into Lisp. Along with that, we take a look at what a compiler actually is and the state of the art that is Roslyn.

Compilers are important, but most people go day by day using their favorite programming language and tools without
thinking too much about them, ignoring what happens under the covers.

However peeking into that black box and learning to write a compiler gives you super powers. It will allow you to write custom tools, min languages/DSLs, make your own fully fledged language, or as in “Create Your Own Compiler”, transform one language to another!

A prime example of why the latter, in other words transpilation, has proved indispensable is the case of Babel. Since not all browsers are able to cope with all the latest Javascript language features, Babel translates the newest Javascript code into backwards compatible versions of JavaScript in current and older browsers or environments.

Yet another example is the case of Typescript which adds optional typing (on that matter make sure to also check Sorbet –

A new rule for those involved in federal acquisition

Posted on 23/01/2023

The best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Federal Drive’s daily audio interviews on Apple Podcastss or Podcast One.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy has been banging this particular drum for years now. Not only are agencies allowed to engage in discussions with industry before they craft procurements, doing so is usually a good thing. Now that principle is enshrined in the Federal Acquisition Regulation via a new rule issued just last week. To go a little deeper, Federal News Network Deputy Editor Jared Serbu talked with Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners, on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Jared Attack: And Larry, like we said, this has been an ongoing message from OMB for, gosh, going back at least a decade when the Obama administration was working on its Mythbusters campaign. What’s new here exactly, as a practical matter out of this new federal register notice, I guess, other than the message that “we really, really mean it this time?”

Larry Allen: Well, Jared, I think that’s a reminder, what we’re talking about here is a new FAR rule that just came out very recently that specifically promotes communication, in

Celsius Network defaults on payments to Core Scientific, causing financial unrest

Posted on 19/01/2023

Crypto lender Celsius Network’s legal journey has gained another chapter as Bitcoin (BTC) miner Core Scientific accused the company of refusing to pay its bills since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to court papers filed on Oct. 19.

Core Scientific, which is one of the largest publicly traded crypto companies, claims the default on payments is threatening its financial stability, already hurt by crypto winter and high energy costs.

In the court filings, Celsius alleges that Core Scientific delayed mining rig deployment and supplied them with less power than required under their contract. Celsius is reportedly seeking a court order holding Core in contempt and ordering it to fulfill its obligations. Meanwhile, Core requested the court to compel Celsius to pay past-due bills or allow it to serve the contract.

According to the bankruptcy court papers filed by Core Scientific:

“Celsius either needs to adhere to the contract, or Core and Celsius must terminate their relationship before Celsius causes yet another business partner to enter insolvency proceedings.”

As per the filing, Celsius owes Core $598,743.20 for post-petition PPT charges related to the August 2022 invoice, plus another $1,505,940.08 for post-petition PPT charges related to the September 2022 invoice, yielding

NSA Urges Organizations To Shift To Memory Safe Programming Languages

Posted on 17/01/2023

In a press release published earlier today, the National Security Agency (NSA) said it would be making a strategic shift to memory safe programming languages. The agency is advising organizations explore such changes themselves by utilizing languages such as C#, Go, Java, Ruby, or Swift. From the report: The “Software Memory Safety” Cybersecurity Information Sheet (PDF) highlights how malicious cyber actors can exploit poor memory management issues to access sensitive information, promulgate unauthorized code execution, and cause other negative impacts. “Memory management issues have been exploited for decades and are still entirely too common today,” said Neal Ziring, Cybersecurity Technical Director. “We have to consistently use memory safe languages and other protections when developing software to eliminate these weaknesses from malicious cyber actors.”

Microsoft and Google have each stated that software memory safety issues are behind around 70 percent of their vulnerabilities. Poor memory management can lead to technical issues as well, such as incorrect program results, degradation of the program’s performance over time, and program crashes. NSA recommends that organizations use memory safe languages when possible and bolster protection through code-hardening defenses such as compiler options, tool options, and operating system configurations. The full report is available here (PDF).