Luis Rodríguez, CTO of Xygeni.io, joins host Robert Blumen for a discussion of the recently thwarted attempt to insert a backdoor in the SSH (Secure Shell) daemon. OpenSSH is a popular implementation of the protocol used in major Linux distributions for authentication over a network. Luis describes how a backdoor in a supporting library was recently discovered and removed before the package was published to stable releases of the Linux distros. The conversation explores the mechanism of the attack through modifying a function table in the runtime; how the attack was inserted during the build; how the attack was carefully staged in a series of modifications to the lz compression library; the nature of “Jia Tan,” the entity who committed the changes to the open source project; social engineering that the entity used to gain the trust of the open source community; what forensics indicates about the location of the entity; hypotheses about whether criminal or state actors backed the entity; how the attack was detected; implications for other open source projects; why traditional methods for detecting exploits would not have helped find this; and lessons learned by the community.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Abhay Paroha, an engineering leader with more than 15 years' experience in leading product dev teams, joins SE Radio's Kanchan Shringi to talk about cloud migration for oil and gas production operations. They discuss Abhay's experiences in building a cloud foundation layer that includes a canonical data model for storing bi-temporal data. They further delve into his teams' learnings from using Kubernetes for microservices, the transition from Java to Scala, and use of Akka streaming, along with tips for ensuring reliable operations.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Goran Petrovic, a Staff Software Engineer at Google, speaks with host Gregory M. Kapfhammer about how to perform mutation testing on large software systems. They explore the design and implementation of the mutation testing infrastructure at Google, discussing the strategies for ensuring that it enhances both developer productivity and software quality. They also investigate the findings from experiments that quantify how mutation testing enables software engineers at Google to write better tests that can detect defects and increase confidence in software correctness. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Itamar Friedman, the CEO and co-founder of CodiumAI, speaks with host Gregory M. Kapfhammer about how to use generative AI techniques to support automated software testing. Their discussion centers around the design and use of Cover-Agent, an open-source implementation of the automated test augmentation tool described in the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE) paper entitled “Automated Unit Test Improvement using Large Language Models at Meta“ by Alshahwan et al. The episode explores how large-language models (LLMs) can aid testers by automatically generating test cases that increase the code coverage of an existing testing suite. They also investigate other automated testing topics, including how Cover-Agent compares to different LLM-based tools and the strengths and weaknesses of using LLM-based approaches in software testing.

Jim Bugwadia, CEO of Nirmata and a committer to the Kyverno projects, joins host Robert Blumen for a discussion of policy-as-code and the open source Kyverno project. The discussion covers the nature of policies; policies and security; policies and compliance to standards; security scans that generate reports compared to tools that allow or deny operations at run time; Kyverno as a kubernetes service; the Kyverno helm charts; the components of Kyverno; bootstrapping a kubernetes cluster with Kyverno; installing policies; implementing policies; customizing policies; packaging and installing policies; kubernetes dynamic admission controllers; the Kyverno admission controller; securing Kyverno itself; observability of Kyverno; types of reports and messages available to cluster users.

This episode is sponsored by QA Wolf.

Stevie Caldwell, Senior Engineering Technical Lead at Fairwinds, joins host Priyanka Raghavan to discuss zero-trust network reference architecture. The episode begins with high-level definitions of zero-trust architecture, zero-trust reference architecture, and the pillars of Zero Trust. Stevie describes four open-source implementations of the Zero Trust Reference Architecture: Emissary Ingress, Cert Manager, LinkerD, and the Policy Engine Polaris. Each component is explored to help clarify their roles in the Zero Trust journey. The episode concludes with a look at the future direction of Zero Trust Network Architecture.

This episode is sponsored by QA Wolf.

Sriram Panyam, CTO at DagKnows, discusses SaaS Control Planes with SE Radio host Brijesh Ammanath. The discussion starts off with the basics, examining what control planes are and why they're important. Sriram then discusses reasons for building a control plane and the challenges in designing one. They explore design and architectural considerations when building a SaaS control plane, as well as the key differences between a control plane and a data plane.

This episode is sponsored by QA Wolf.

Steve Smith, founder and principal architect at Nimble Pros, joins host Jeff Doolittle for a conversation about software quality. The episode begins with a discussion of why software quality matters for businesses, customers, and developers. Steve explains some patterns and practices that help teams design for quality. They discuss in detail the practices of testing and quality assurance, and the conversation wraps up with suggestions for fostering a culture of quality in teams and organizations. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Nick Tune and Jean-Georges Perrin join host Giovanni Asproni to talk about their proposed approach to modernizing legacy systems. The episode starts with some high-level perspective to set context for the approach described in their book, Architecture Modernization (Manning, 2024). From there, the discussion turns to important details, including criteria for deciding which aspects to revisit; some of the activities, processes, and tools; and the importance of data engineering in modernization efforts. Nick and Jean-Georges describe how to successfully implement an architecture-modernization effort, and how to fit that work with the teams' other priorities. The episode finishes with some warnings about the typical risks associated with modernizing a legacy system, and suggestions on how to mitigate them.

This episode is sponsored by QA Wolf.

Cody Ebberson, CTO of Medplum, joins host Sam Taggart to discuss the constraints that working in regulated industries add to the software development process. They explore some general aspects of developing for regulated industries, such as healthcare and finance, as well as a range of specific considerations that can add complexity and effort. Cody describes how translating regulatory requirements into test specifications and automating those tests can help streamline software development in these regulated environments. 

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Jonathan Horvath of Z-bit discusses physical access control systems (PACS) with host Jeremy Jung. They start with an overview of PACS components and discuss the proprietary nature of the industry, the slow pace of migration to open standards, and why Windows is commonly used. Jonathan describes the security implications of moving from isolated networks to the cloud, as well as credential vulnerabilities, encryption using symmetric keys versus asymmetric keys, and the risks related to cloning credentials. They also consider several standards, including moving from Wiegand to the Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP), as well as the Public Key Open Credential (PKOC) standard, and the open source OSDP implementation that Jonathan authored.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Catherine Nelson, author of the new O’Reilly book, Software Engineering for Data Scientists, discusses the collaboration between data scientists and software engineers -- an increasingly common pairing on machine learning and AI projects. Host Philip Winston speaks with Nelson about the role of a data scientist, the difference between running experiments in notebooks and building an automated pipeline for production, machine learning vs. AI, the typical pipeline steps for machine learning, and the role of software engineering in data science. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Wed 24 Oct: Radioman + Q&A with filmmakers at London Brixton Ritzy

Washington, D.C. – The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is now accepting nominations for the 2021 NAB Marconi Radio Awards and will be accepting submissions until May 31. Established in 1989 and named for inventor and Nobel Prize winner Guglielmo Marconi, the prestigious awards recognize overall excellence and performance in radio.

WASHINGTON, DC -- A bipartisan coalition of 77 members of the House of Represenatives and eight Senators have joined together to introduce resolutions in Congress opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA) signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that would impose new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Eight members of the House of Representatives have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 87 cosponsors in the House and eight in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Twenty-five members of the House of Representatives and six Senators have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 112 cosponsors in the House and 14 in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Twelve members of the House of Representatives and one Senator have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 124 cosponsors in the House and 15 in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, DC -- Fourteen members of the House of Representatives and three Senators have added their support to the Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA) opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations bringing the number of cosponsors to 138 in the House and 18 in the Senate. The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) expressed their support for the resolution, which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, in a letter to congressional leaders on June 11.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Eleven members of the House of Representatives have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 149 cosponsors in the House and 18 in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Ten members of the House of Representatives have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 159 cosponsors in the House and 18 in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Ten members of the House of Representatives and four Senators have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 169 cosponsors in the House and 22 in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A dozen members of the House of Representatives have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 181 cosponsors in the House and 22 in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In response to polling conducted by musicFIRST regarding a performance royalty on local broadcast radio stations for music airplay, the following statement can be attributed to NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Eleven members of the House of Representatives and two Senators have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 198 cosponsors in the House and 24 in the Senate.

Washington, D.C. – Leadership changes were announced today for two key working groups of the National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC), a technical standards-setting body co-sponsored by National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Eleven members of the House of Representatives have added their support to a resolution opposing "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge" on local broadcast radio stations. The Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA), which signals members of Congress's opposition to any potential legislation that imposes new performance royalties on broadcast radio stations for music airplay, now has 208 cosponsors in the House and 24 in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt testified today before the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing on imposing a performance royalty on local radio stations for music airplay.

Washington, D.C. -- David Field of Audacy and Bob Pittman of iHeartMedia will discuss how they have transformed their business in response to the pandemic and with an eye to the future during a NAB Show session titled “Transforming Radio in the Audio Renaissance,” Monday, April 25, 2022 at 2:00 p.m. in Las Vegas, Nev.

Washington, D.C. -- The National Association of Broadcasters announced the 50 finalists for the 35th annual NAB Crystal Radio Awards.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) announced today the presentation of the 2022 NAB Marconi Radio Awards, honoring radio stations and on-air personalities for excellence in radio broadcasting, will take place during a special dinner program at NAB Show New York on October 19, 2022 at the Javits Center.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Bobby Caldwell, owner and CEO of East Arkansas Broadcasters, has been appointed to the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Board of Directors by Radio Board Chair Bill Wilson, in accordance with NAB by-laws. The appointment is effective immediately.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Radio Board of Directors voted unanimously on Friday, March 18 to approve an on-air campaign to educate listeners on the significant harm of legislation that would impose a performance fee on broadcast radio.

Washington, D.C. -- The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) today announced the 10 winners of the 35th annual NAB Crystal Radio Awards. Since 1987, the NAB Crystal Radio Awards have recognized radio stations for their year-round commitment to community service. The 2022 NAB Crystal Radio Award recipients listed below were chosen from 50 previously announced finalists.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) announced today that the 2022 Marconi Radio Award nomination window is open through May 31. Established in 1989 and named for inventor and Nobel Prize winner Guglielmo Marconi, the Marconi Radio Awards recognize overall excellence and performance in radio.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) today announced the finalists for the 2022 NAB Marconi Radio Awards in a livestreamed video. The winners will be announced October 19 at the Marconi Radio Awards Dinner held during NAB Show New York.

Washington, D.C. – A new three-part Radio Experience at NAB Show New York will feature a special Radio Insights Executive Seminar presented by Bloomberg. Exclusively for NAB members, the limited capacity executive program will take place in New York on October 19 at the Javits Center in the morning and continue in the afternoon at Bloomberg’s headquarters.

Washington, D.C. – The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) today announced the 2022 National Radio Award will be presented to research and consulting experts Fred and Paul Jacobs. The award will be presented at NAB Show New York during the Marconi Radio Awards on October 19. This marks the first time the award has been given to two people.

The National Association of Broadcasters today unveiled the schedule for the Radio Reimagined | Charting Radio’s Future conference, one of two radio-focused tracks taking place at NAB Show New York. Held Thursday, October 20th at the Javits Center, Radio Reimagined is geared towards station-level radio managers, programmers and operators from all market sizes.