Modernization

Data mining

iPad cuts into apps development; transparency efforts reduce FOIA requests, experts fear a cyberattack is imminent.

People

4 Facebook lessons from DOD

Agencies need to learn some rules of the road before jumping into social media, writes communications consultant Fred Wellman.

Acquisition

Strategic sourcing: A good idea but...

Despite some success, the ultimate goal of strategic sourcing seems to have gotten lost, writes Bill Gormley.

People

SBA leader vows to crack down on small-business fraud

SBA plans to become more aggressive in suspending and debarring companies from receiving federal contracts, the agency's administrator tells a House committee.

Cybersecurity

Senate committee chairman suggests killing the virtual fence

Sen. Joe Lieberman questions the future of the SBInet virtual fence system is a failure.

Ideas

DHS Consolidates Databases

The Office of Infrastructure Protection at the Homeland Security Department is in the midst of consolidating its dozens of infrastructure security databases--and adding new ones to the pool--to help government agencies and private partners better monitor threats.

People

VA suspends spending on 188 IT projects

The Veterans Affairs Department has extended its program management system to all 280 IT projects and suspended spending on two-thirds of them.

Digital Government

CIOs turns to portfolio management to get IT efforts under control

CIOs from the Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs departments and the Social Security Administration are looking to foster teamwork across traditional boundaries.

Digital Government

Can agency systems handle new FISMA requirements?

New standards for reporting under the Federal Information Security Management Act are intended to further reduce paper, but not all agencies are well equipped to meet them.

Digital Government

NASA explores semantic search

Information Week

Cybersecurity

White House tells agencies to use same framework to exchange information

OMB says joint Justice-Homeland Security program should be basis for federal information-sharing.

Digital Government

In ironic twist, Adobe takes on Apple for not being open government friendly

The creator of the PDF claims a strategy to block widely used programs on the iPad and iPhone conflicts with President Obama's transparency goals and undermines Internet-era innovation.

Cybersecurity

Federal cybersecurity monitoring goes real-time and digital

New rules call for agencies to continuously collect data about security status and stream it to OMB monthly, rather than report quarterly by paper.