Digital Government
ALMRS sked criticized again
Incomplete plans continue to plague an enormous project to modernize the system that the Bureau of Land Management uses to manage millions of acres of federal land and mineral resources, the General Accounting Office said. According to a GAO report released this month, BLM has not developed adequat
Digital Government
Directive orders feds to safeguard systems
President Clinton last week announced a massive new national security program that would require federal agencies to inventory key information systems and work closely with the private sector to develop a plan for protecting against cyber and physical threats to the nation's critical infrastructures.
Digital Government
Editorial: Access vs. security: a balancing act
The Internet has made it possible for agencies to share information across government and with the public with previously unimaginable ease and relatively little cost. But recent cases have underscored the fact that agencies have the right to share information electronically only if they provide the means to protect it.
Digital Government
lLetters
EPA's public access You reported in Fedwire May 4: 'EPA unveils new publicaccess site.' That is true; however, you misstated the Environmental Protection Agency's public access efforts in the last sentence. You reported that the 'pilot project is the EPA's first attempt to format information from
Digital Government
NASA system tracks pre-launch shuttle preparations
NASA's Kennedy Space Center is developing a system that will integrate databases so that engineers can track via the Internet space shuttle work that was previously the space agency's responsibility but that now is performed by contractors. With the new system, called Insight, engineers can view da
Digital Government
Agencies test waters of wireless Net access
With the Internet playing a larger and larger role in many operations, federal agencies recently have started investigating alternative methods of communication to provide remote users with dedicated links to the global information infrastructure.
Digital Government
Commerce, DOD launch tech info service
The Commerce and Defense departments have launched an online subscription service for contractors who can use the Internet to gather technical information on the military's 12 million separate supply items. Working with Denverbased Intessera Inc., Commerce's National Technical Information Service
Digital Government
Intercepts
Reform thyself. That's the advice Rep. Floyd Spence (RS.C.) and his buddies on the House Committee on National Security delivered to Secretary of Defense William Cohen in the House version of the 1999 Defense authorization bill. Taking a look at one of Cohen's pet projects, the Defense Reform In
Digital Government
USDA's Leo sows seeds of change
Joseph Leo, team leader of the administrative convergence implementation planning team at the Agriculture Department, explained his function as analogous to that of a basketball coach. As he explained it, he must quickly motivate people to work together as a team and convince them that change will
Digital Government
SMS unveils e-mail management package
SMS Data Products Inc., McLean Va., last week introduced an email management application focused on storing the millions of messages agencies send and receive daily. Unveiled last week at the Special Interest Group on CD Applications and Technology conference in Baltimore, the package bundles soft
Digital Government
Federal Bytes
An enviable position Charles Rossotti, the new Internal Revenue Service commissioner, said recently that his wife came up with an interesting theory as to why he would want to leave his privatesector job and take on a post at the muchmaligned IRS. Apparently Rossotti and Paul Tagliabue, commissio
Digital Government
Xybernaut fashions wearable PC
Xybernaut Corp. earlier this month announced plans for the production of its next Mobile Assistant, a wearable computer that looks like the ultimate in computer geek fashion. Sony Digital Products Inc. later this year will start manufacturing Xybernaut's Mobile Assistant IV, which is composed of a
Digital Government
Navy mulls lease for bases, ships
NORFOLK, Va. The Navy's Atlantic Fleet (LANTFLT) recently completed the installation of a highpowered Microsoft Corp. Windows NT network for its headquarters here through a leasing deal that the command believes can serve as a model for other federal agencies. The network allows the LANTFLT staf
Digital Government
GAO: GSA's performance plan 'falls short' of results act
The General Accounting Office reported this month that the General Services Administration's fiscal 1999 performance plan, which is required by the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), fails to take into account that problems in the agency's administrative information systems will have a
Digital Government
Y2K czar: $5.5 billion enough
Year 2000 czar John Koskinen last week said the federal government should have more than enough money earmarked in fiscal 1999 to fix the millennium bug.
Digital Government
Lights out for original 'fastest super'
The lights will go out on a piece of computing history May 29 when the California Institute of Technology pulls the plug on the first scalable parallel supercomputer to earn the title of fastest in the world. Built by Intel Corp. as a prototype seven years ago, mostly with federal funds, the 512pr
Digital Government
Spies turn to high-tech info ops
With the Internet playing a larger and larger role in many operations, federal agencies recently have started investigating alternative methods of communication to provide remote users with dedicated links to the global information infrastructure.
Digital Government
CD-ROM technology approaches a turning point
While industry vendors continue to up the ante with CDROM drive performance, many users realize they are seeing diminished returns as the technology nears the limits of its performance and new disc solutions enter the market. The romance of speed always has been part of the PC business; processors
Digital Government
Booz-Allen nabs $200M info assurance pact
BoozAllen & Hamilton Inc. last week won a contract potentially worth $200 million to staff and operate the Defense Department's Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center, the focal point of the department's information assurance initiatives. IATAC, part of the Defense Technical Information
Digital Government