Ideas
Defense Giant Passes Away
The defense acquisition, systems and software engineering communities lost one of the true giants this week with the passing Monday of retired Rear Adm. Wayne E. Meyer at the age of 83.
Ideas
VA Touts Results for Telework Day
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's office today promoted the results of the Commonwealth's <a href="http://www.teleworkexchange.com/teleworkdayreport/">Telework Day</a>, which took place on Aug. 3. According to Kaine's spokesperson Lisa Torphy, 95 percent of the more than 4,200 employees who took part in the event were Virginia-based employees, including more than 2,200 federal employees.
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O Gov Directive Making a Comeback
A White House transparency initiative announced the day after the Inauguration -- the details of which have been <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Data-from-Public-Consultation-on-Open-Government/">delayed for months</a> -- is about to make a comeback, according to officials with the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
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U.S., Mexico Sign Telecomm Agreement
Public safety and law enforcement organizations in Mexico and the U.S. will soon be able to communicate across the border. The departments of Homeland Security and State announced Wednesday that senior officials on the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Consultative Commission on Telecommunications signed a bilateral telecommunications agreement to support a cross border communications network that will provide cross-border voice, data and video channels to strengthen border security and incident response.
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School Districts Face Unsecure Networks
The Homeland Security Department has talked a lot about testing network security in federal government and critical infrastructure markets, but one network administrator warns about vulnerabilities in K-12 school districts. In an email to Nextgov, he had the following to say about his own experience:
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Is Gmail Ready for Government?
In case you've been out of pocket this afternoon (or don't have <a href="http://twitter.com/Nextgov">Twitter</a>), Google's popular free email service <a href="http://mail.google.com">Gmail</a> <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137384/Gmail_hit_by_widespread_outage">has been down</a> for much of the afternoon. While it's fun to debate whether the outage (and the absence of the ubiquitous Gchat) has increased or decreased productivity for office workers across the country, the outage brings up a salient point about cloud computing and the wisdom of having the government rely on consumer technology.
Ideas
Internet Turns 40
Robert Charette, a risk management consultant and a contributor to Tech Insider and <em>Government Executive</em> magazine, <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/blog/computing/it/riskfactor/internet-turns-40-">noted</a> on his Risk Factor blog that Sept. 2, 2009, marks the 40th anniversary of the "official" creation of the Internet, or its predecessor, <a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/">ARPANET</a>.
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Crowdsourcing Court Records
Last week I made a visit to the District of Columbia's federal courthouse to look up some documents for a story I've been working on. Since I don't have an account for the federal court records database known as PACER, heading down to the courthouse was the only way I could download and print the records I needed at a cost of eight cents per page. I sat down and dutifully printed out the first lengthy set of documents, only to find that somehow all of the text printed out backwards on the page.
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Storm Spike Due To Stronger Tech
On the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the agency charged with weather forecasting recently found that more storms have been identified since the late 19th century because of advances in information technology, not because there are more storms.
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DHS Announces Laptop Search Policy
The Department of Homeland Security today <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1251393255852.shtm">released</a> three new directives aimed at clarifying the agency's policies on Customs <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080624_3037.php">searches of laptop computers</a> at the U.S. border:<blockquote>"Keeping Americans safe in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully screen materials entering the United States," said Secretary Napolitano. "The new directives announced today strike the balance between respecting the civil liberties and privacy of all travelers while ensuring DHS can take the lawful actions necessary to secure our borders."
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Apps for America 2 Finalists Announced
This week the Sunlight Foundation announced the finalists in its <a href="http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/08/24/apps-america-finalists/">Apps for America 2</a> contest, which challenged the public to come up with innovative applications using the data feeds from the recently launched <a href="http://www.data.gov">Data.gov</a>. Sunlight Labs received 47 entries since the contest <a href="http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/05/fbi_fugitive_concentration.php">launched in May</a> and has narrowed the field down to three finalists:
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Bernanke on IT and Productivity
After Ben Bernanke was appointed to his first term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, he gave a commencement speech on the connection between information technology and economic prosperity to the class of 2006 at his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The man that President Obama on Tuesday reappointed for another term as chairman observed three years ago that IT investments don't always translate into productivity gains immediately.
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Cloud computing as security measure
Usually people equate the terms "open standards" and "cloud computing" with weak security -- whether legitimately or not. But McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt argued the exact opposite during a morning session at the GFirst Conference, hosted by the Homeland Security Department's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team.
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Hand-Cleaning CDC Social Media
The administration quickly should spread hand-cleaning and other public health messages through social media to prepare young people for the expected 2009-H1N1 epidemic, a presidential advisory group reported on Monday.
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No New Networx Extension
In response to a <a href="http://federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=35&sid=1744646">confusing report</a> published this week, I would like to take a moment and pass on a clarification I just received from GSA regarding the deadline for agencies to transition to the Networx telecommunications contract.
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Classification Comments from Public?
A coalition of public interest groups has yet to hear from the national security adviser about its request that he allow public comment on a review of classification policy before delivering it to the president next week.
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HHS Issues Breach Notification Rules
The administration on Wednesday announced safeguards intended to protect consumers from health information technology breaches, as the White House moves forward on its healthcare overhaul.
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McClure to Lead Office of Citizen Services
GSA just confirmed that they will be naming David McClure will be named an associate administrator, heading up the Office of Citizen Services and Communications. OCS manages all of GSA's public outreach efforts, including the federal web portal <a href=http://www.usa.gov>USA.gov</a> and the Federal Web Manager's Council.
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Who's on Board for Windows 7?
Software giant Microsoft will release the latest version of its Windows operating system in October, and the company can only hope that this go around is smoother than the last.
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