Digital Government

How Cool Is Your Job?

The SANS Institute has released a list of "<a href="http://www.sans.org/20coolestcareers/">The 20 Coolest Jobs in Information Security</a>." Many of the jobs on the list are exclusive to public service, while others span multiple sectors. Did your job make the cut?

Digital Government

Social Media Use Explodes

Forty-three percent of the online community now uses social networking Web sites, including Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, according to a <a href="http://www.conference-board.org/economics/consumerBarometer.cfm">report</a> released on Tuesday by the Conference Board and TNS. That figure represents a significant increase from 2008, when 27 percent of the community used such platforms.

Digital Government

Group tackles definition of 'meaningful use' for e-health records

Health Information Technology policy committee recommends a phased-in approach for electronic medical record systems.

Digital Government

Activists call on U.S. to provide unfettered Internet access to Iranian citizens

Certain software tools could protect users' identities and the information they access to provide a range of news stories and opinions, not just American perspectives.

Digital Government

China's 128 Cyberattacks a Minute

As the Defense Department slowly moves toward development of a cyber command (see previous blog item), it sure looks like the United States needs some kind of defense against cyber aggression from China, even though no one in the Pentagon, quite diplomatically, pins such cyberattacks directly on the Chinese government.

Digital Government

No Cyber Command Announcement

Though my colleagues in the chattering classes have pumped out megabytes of <a href=http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=cyber%20command&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn>copy</a> on formation of a new Defense Department cyber command over the past couple of days -- it's not happened yet.

Digital Government

To Spacebook and Beyond

Linda Cureton, chief information officer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, <a href="http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Goddard-CIO-Blog/posts/post_1244861198431.html">wrote</a> in the Goddard CIO Blog late Friday that the center has launched Spacebook, an employee intranet that encourages group collaboration and social bookmarking. The new site mimics Facebook, except that only employees of Goddard can access it.

Digital Government

Boost in DHS' IT Ranks

Federal Computer Week <a href="http://fcw.com/Articles/2009/06/12/DHS-infrastructure-unit-hiring-621-more-workers.aspx">reports</a> that the Homeland Security Department's infrastructure protection directorate is looking to hire 621 new employees in the next 18 months to help balance its federal and contracting workforces.

Digital Government

GSA: Trouble at the top

The procurement agency has had four top leaders in just 14 months.

Digital Government

Benefits of information sharing outweigh vulnerabilities

The Markle Foundation’s Task Force on National Security in the Information Age has written “Nation At Risk: Policy-Makers Need Better Information to Protect the Country,” which focuses on five simple recommendations that center on leadership to change bureaucracy, enforce already existing rules and seize the moment to make change happen.

Digital Government

Health care records should be user-friendly, patients say

Advocates for patient-centered health care are trying to get those principles incorporated into the upcoming regulations for spending $19 billion in incentives for health information technology. But some wonder if crafting health IT goals to give more power to patients is too big a pill to swallow.