Ideas
Google's Cookies, A .Gov Model?
Google set a precedent for the use of cookies - website tracking devices - that the White House should follow, some privacy advocates said, reacting to the news that the search giant will now allow site owners and users to opt out of its service that tracks traffic on websites.
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You Too Can Explore Space
Just when you though there was an automated process for everything, one of the most forward-thinking areas of science decided to ditch computers for some good old-fashioned human problem-solving.
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GSA Adds Tech Office
The General Services Administration is redesigning its Office of Citizen Services and Communications, the division responsible for the agency's public-facing websites and information, to include a technology-focused office.
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DHS' Coose Likes What He Sees at NASA
The Homeland Security official responsible for driving new White House requirements for continuous monitoring of networks across government endorsed NASA's <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100519_6677.php?oref=topstory>bold move</a> to ditch existing policy of certifying network systems as compliant with an unpopular security law.
Ideas
What CISOs Have Been Waiting For
When NASA's chief information security officer issued a memo on Tuesday directing network managers to stop writing reports on certifying systems complied with a security law and instead focus on canning systems for ways hackers could infiltrate their systems, you could hear security experts exhale a big sigh of relief. This is huge. One security expert told Nextgov that this is what they've been working toward for the past 15 years.
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Hello World, Meet the United States
Federal agencies are all over the social media craze, using Twitter, Facebook and other tools to connect with the American public. But what if an agency has a different audience? Do the same strategies apply?
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Saving NASA's Constellation Program
Lawmakers last week blocked President Obama's plans to liquidate the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Constellation program, reigniting hopes that the agency would be able to send astronauts up to the moon again.
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Web Design Done Well
Nextgov <a href=http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2010/04/web_design_duds.php>wrote</a> a few weeks back about the best and worst of government websites. Now one more organization has jumped on the improvement bandwagon: The Federal Judiciary, home of the U.S. Courts, on Saturday launched a <a href=http://www.uscourts.gov/Home.aspx>redesigned website</a> complete with additional tools and a whole new look.
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Banning Sex Offender E-mail Addresses
The Justice Department on Friday allowed states to exclude certain personal information about sex offenders from public notification websites in a move to increase compliance with the law.
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Another IRS E-mail Scam
This time of year brings out <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080325_3349.php?oref=search">scams aimed at tricking taxpayers</a> to give up personal information through e-mails. The latest landed in my inbox on Friday. The e-mail had the subject "Internal Revenue Service - Tax refund (28831290) $620.50," and it said it came from "Irs.Gov." It's message:
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Outsourcing to the Insourced
An Australian data management company has hired 200 inmates in a jail there to process data. iTNews <a href=http://www.itnews.com.au/News/174631,indian-outsourcing-firm-looks-to-prison-for-data-entry-work.aspx>reported</a> that the prisoners "will handle banking information 24 hours a day using a shift system." They'll be paid (U.S.) $2.20 a day.
Ideas
MiLand, Your Land
Virtual worlds may be the way of the future, but government isn't quite ready to cede its methods to this particular technology.
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Virtual Worlds -- Virtually?
Today I'm covering the <a href=http://www.ndu.edu/irmc/fcvw/fcvw10/index.html>Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds conference</a> here in Washington. Sure, it's being held just a few miles away from Nextgov's offices, but I decided to try attending the conference about virtual worlds virtually. I had high expectations for this experience -- after all, isn't Second Life, one of the more widely used platforms for virtual interaction, cool?
Ideas
CIO, Who's Your Boss?
For years, chief information officers have been trying to gain respect in the C-suite. That meant reporting to the leader of the agency or office in which he or she worked. That relationship was enshrined in the 1996 Clinger Cohen Act, which established the CIO position and required the chief to report to the head of the agency. <a href=http://www.cio.com/article/20909/Federal_IT_Flunks_Out>Almost everyone ignored it.</a> (The Obama administration, so far, has been the exception, with the Veterans Affairs Department putting a lot of stock in CIO Roger Baker and John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090914_5915.php>elevating the agency's CIO</a> to report directly to him.) But for the most part, it's been a struggle for the CIO to earn boardroom cred and move out from under the CFO's thumb.
Ideas
File Under Ironic
Max Palevsky, described as a baron of the early computer industry who helped found the giant chip maker Intel Corp., died on May 5 at 85. Here are the last three sentences in the nearly 1,800 word <a href=http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-0506-max-palevsky-20100506,0,5625708.story>obituary</a> that ran in the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>:
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Transparency in Hiring Reform?
The long-awaited reform of federal hiring procedures is finally underway, and the public soon may be able to follow the government's progress in deploying new practices.
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Don't Ask, Don't Tell Box
A new online inbox to solicit anonymous comments from service members and their family members about the impact of reversing the ban on openly gay soldiers in the military went live this month.
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Tech To Trap Stim Violators
New rules from the White House aimed at penalizing stimulus recipients who fail to report on their spending instruct agencies to probe a report-tracking database every day for potential offenders.
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Broadband Legal Battles Loom
A legal battle looms on the horizon after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski released plans today on how the agency would fight to restore regulatory powers over the Internet.
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