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What Does Transparency Look Like?
Obama has made <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090122_6430.php">transparency</a> a "touchstone" (his word) of his administration and promises to apply it to tracking stimulus spending. But more and more people are asking questions like, "Exactly what is it?" And, "How do you define it?"
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FBI Raids Kundra's Former DC Office
Ben Smith of Politico.com <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0309/FBI_raids_office_of_DC_CTO_Obama_appointee.html?showall">reports in his blog</a> tat the FBI has raided the Obama federal CIO's Vivek Kundra's old chief technology officer office in the District of Columbia.
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It's Here: The Security Comic Strip
How funny can data theft, data loss, fraud and identity theft be? Pretty funny, according to portable storage device (read flash drives) <a href="http://www.cososys.com/">CoSoSys</a>. IN a press release sent out this morning, the company said it launched "a series of comic strips intended to educate the public regarding the embedded threats of portable and lifestyle devices."
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Kundra: Dead Man Walking?
How should Vivek Kundra, the newly appointed federal chief information officer, approach his job? How can he bring about the <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090305_9385.php>change he talks about</a>?
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Cyber an NSA, Not a DHS, Thing
The debate over who controls cybersecurity in government is heating up. The news that Rod Beckstrom would resign this coming Friday as director of the National Cybersecurity Center elevated the struggle between who will control cybersecurity in the federal government.
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Stimulate This
TechAmerica, the technology industry association formed by the merger of the Information Technology Association of America and AeA, sponsored a luncheon today where they offered the industry's take on the estimated $100 billion set aside for IT in the recently passed economic stimulus bill.
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What Stimulus Spending Looks Like
If you're still confused what the economic stimulus spending will look like, consider this <a href=https://e-center.doe.gov/doebiz.nsf/d76fbc294818822885256d98006c63b6/0b37b72285cd2c7185257569006d57e6?OpenDocument>"notice of intent"</a> to issue a grant that the Energy Department posted on Thursday.
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$250B Ain't What it Used to Be
Obama's economic stimulus package has nearly tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars worth of information technology spending in it, but don't expect that to help out the IT industry.
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Obama Still Hearts YouTube
Tech Insider <a href="http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/03/no_more_youtube_for_obama.php">cited yesterday a report</a> that the White House had dropped YouTube as its platform for Obama's weekly addresses. "After taking some heat from privacy advocates, the Obama administration has switched from using YouTube to post President Obama's weekly addresses to Vimeo."
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No More YouTube for Obama
After taking some heat from privacy advocates, the Obama administration has switched from using YouTube to post President Obama's weekly addresses to <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>, <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10184578-46.html">according to CNet's Chris Soghoian</a>.
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A New Way to Manage an Agency
In this month's Government Executive magazine, Nextgov's Tech Insider blogger Robert Charette, a risk management expert who consults with federal agencies, <a href=http://www.govexec.com/features/0309-01/0309-01s2.htm>argues</a> that agencies would meet their missions better if they adopted risk management techniques as part of their strategic management plans.
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A Look at Agency Stimulus Tracking
A quick scan of the stimulus tracking sites shows that most agencies like to use text - a lot of text - to present information. That makes navigating a bit tedious. But some departments, like the <a href=http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/>Health and Human Services Department</a>, looks to have put a bit more effort into designing their site, using graphics and thinking about how to package content.
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Moving Tech Front and Center
The federal information technology community must still be pinching themselves to make sure they are not dreaming. Almost every administration relegated IT to the back rooms, thinking of the computer guys as propeller heads, and chief information technology officers as someone who were there to <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/20909/Federal_IT_Flunks_Out">fix the secretary's BlackBerry</a>.
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Cyberwarriors Fight the DOS Blitzkreig
The Defense Department has been conducting training exercises for cyberwarriors for years, but it finally formalized the operations in the National Cyber Range. From an article on MSNBC:
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Federal CIOs' Power on the Rise
For CIOs, some good news from the latest <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090224_9757.php CIO survey conducted by Tech America</a>, the industry association that was formed with the merger of the Information Technology Association of America and AeA.
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Headline of the Day
From the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Feb. 24 issue of TechBeat, the agency's biweekly tip sheet for journalists:
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