Digital Government

Agencies victimized by more complex attacks

BRISTOL England Almost half the security incidents handled in the past eight months by the newly established Federal Computer Incident Response Capability team for civilian agencies were system intrusions according to recently released FedCIRC statistics obtained by Federal Computer Week at the F

Digital Government

CDSI snares $30M pact to overhaul grant system

The Education Department last week awarded a $30 million contract to CDSI Business Applications Solutions (BAS) Co. to reengineer operate and maintain the financial management computer system for the department's Pell Grant program one of the largest financial aid programs in the nation. The Clint

Digital Government

INTERCEPTS

Reform pork. The bulk of the Defense Reform Act of 1997 (see story Page 12) deals with all kinds of reforms but a clause tacked on to the end shows stopping technopork is not one of them. This section of the bill directs the Pentagon to install a fiberoptic metropolitanarea network (MAN) in at l

Digital Government

Roster

Charlie Self this month was confirmed as assistant commissioner of the General Services Administration's Office of Information Technology Integration a position he has held since last September. David Bittenbender former director of telecommunications at the Justice Department last week began work

Digital Government

Intercepts

The NT ceiling. My WesPac mobile unit reports that the Navy DMS Tactical Pilot on the USS Blue Ridge command ship of the 7th Fleet has run into a Windows NT reality that could crimp the style of IT21 power users. NT servers currently can't handle anything above 16G of stored files a real problem

Digital Government

IRS seeks $258M morefor Year 2000 solution

The Internal Revenue Service said last week that it will need an additional $258 million next year to make its systems centurydate compliant because it has uncovered new requirements since it requested $84 million for its Year 2000 upgrade in President Clinton's budget. 'The size of the need as we

Digital Government

NUMA productlaunched

Data General Corp. is targeting the General Services Administration schedule with its recently introduced Aviion AV 20000 an Intel Corp. microprocessorbased system that uses NonUniform Memory Access technology. The AV 20000 Data General's most powerful server is designed for largescale computing

Digital Government

NASA to purchase data from private-sector satellites

In a sharp break from its traditional method of using its own satellites to collect data on the universe NASA plans to purchase scientific data from the commercial sector. NASA's Stennis Space Center last month issued a request for offers to purchase weather and climate data gathered by privatesec

Digital Government

No justice for panicked fed

A case decided in December by the U.S. Court of Appeals makes a compelling argument for thinking carefully before you agree to give up your government job. The case involved a former communications specialist in a print shop that was operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Facilities Ser

Digital Government

ROSTER

John Koskinen deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget last week announced his retirement date would be July 9. Koskinen said he planned to 'take a sabbatical' with his wife to 'go see places we have always wanted to see.' As previously reported Koskinen has not yet reve

Digital Government

Micro Focus tool offers `windowing' support

Micro Focus last week introduced a Year 2000 software tool that embraces "windowing " an approach that offers timepressed organizations a faster way to fix the datechange problem. Micro Focus' SoftFactory/2000 tool and methodology provides an option to date expansion for preparing computer syst

Digital Government

Lockheed revamps DMS architecture

Lockheed Martin Corp. has revamped its Defense Message System architecture from a "messagingcentric" architecture to a "groupwarecentric" system that will better meet the needs of Defense Department users with "significant cost savings " according to company officials. Paul LeVesque a Lockh

Digital Government

Agencies grapple with Clinger-Cohen

As agencies began this month to prepare their budget submissions for fiscal 1999 they confronted for the first time the gap in knowledge about information technology and business management among IT professionals and nontechnical executives. Federal agencies are preparing their first IT budgets acc

Digital Government

GovNews forum grows;NASA site gets face lift

The National Science Foundation has revamped its International GovNews project to make it possible for anyone with World Wide Web access to read and post information to more than 200 government newsgroups. GovNews is a project that through the Internet Usenet broadcast platform creates a twoway me

Digital Government

Agencies hail browsers for information access

At the Department of Health and Human Services Bill Boyle financial systems analyst for the Program Support Center appreciates a key benefit of World Wide Web browsers: They reduce the need to teach communications processes so he can focus on teaching how to use key applications.The distinction is

Digital Government

Small firms provide expertise on NASA deal

Hughes STX is tapping two small disadvantaged businesses for their expertise on its recently awarded $148 million NASA Ames Software Support contract. Aerospace Computing and Recom Technologies Inc. are subcontractors to Hughes on the Ames deal. Both companies have previous business ties with NASA.

Digital Government

DEA to roll out booking system

The Drug Enforcement Administration next month plans to launch a longawaited program to automate the process of booking suspected drug runners. The agency says it will release in July a request for proposals for the Automated Booking StationLite (ABSLite) project which will digitize all the info

Digital Government

Paragon aims software at feds

Paragon Imaging Inc. Woburn Mass. this month rolled out to the federal market a new product that company officials say will mean saved time for federal imagery analysts. The new offering is a software package called Electronic Light Table 7000 R.3. The software surpasses its predecessor ELT/6000 in

Digital Government

Senate panel passes new bill requiring key-recovery technology

A Senate committee last week quickly passed a bill that would require any encryption product purchased by the federal government or with federal funds for use in securing government networks be based on the controversial keyrecovery technology. Without holding any hearings the Senate Commerce Scie

Digital Government

SRA's vice president, program manager makes work fun

If there is a secret to succeeding as a vendor in the federal marketplace it might be singlemindedness. Jeffrey Westerhoff a vice president and program manager at SRA International Inc. illustrates how an intense focus on a project results in achievement. He spends 13 hours a day on the job runnin