Digital Government
OMB saddles feds with state Y2K data links
The Office of Management and Budget this week is expected to issue a memo directing federal agencies to take the lead role in making sure that social services programs will not be interrupted because of Year 2000 computer problems in state government systems. In the memo to agency heads, OMB Direct
Digital Government
IRS installs new software to guard electronic tax data
The Internal Revenue Service is installing new storage software to safeguard the staggering volume of electronic tax information stored in the agency's computer system. By 2007, the IRS plans to handle 80 percent of its tax filings electronically. The agency believes increased use of electronic fil
Digital Government
ITI unveils space-saving PC
Initiative Technology Inc., which specializes in building custom computers, last week gave FOSE visitors a look at its latest product: a fullfeatured PC designed to take up as much space as a keyboard with a wrist rest. ITI built the Leprechaun PCinakeyboard system as a custom order for a gover
Digital Government
TriStrata to enhance its PKI alternative
TriStrata Inc. this week will release a major enhancement to its suite of security software for securing digital transactions. The company is positioning this enhancement as an alternative to publickey infrastructure. PKI is an increasingly popular security solution that combines digital certifica
Digital Government
Reseller targets small buys
At a time when most computer vendors are targeting enterprise or agencywide opportunities, CDW Government Inc. (CDWG) is focusing on the smaller, daytoday purchases made by many federal employees. Large contracts or blanket purchase agreements are the more traditional sources of profit in the fe
Digital Government
Vendors stress ownership cost
Many vendors at last week's FOSE trade show and exhibition in Washington, D.C. marketed their offerings, new and old, as a means for federal agencies to bring down the overall cost of owning and managing IT products. Purchase price is still an issue, but from office software suites to servers, almo
Digital Government
Industry hesitant about detection system
A top official of a group charged with investigating electronic threats posed to the U.S. critical infrastructure said last week that efforts to gather critical asset information are running into objections from private companies. Douglas Perritt, deputy chief of the National Infrastructure Protect
Digital Government
MapInfo partner marries maps and video
A partner of software vendor MapInfo Corp. is staking a claim in the federal market with a new product that lets users merge maps with video on their desktop computers. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Defense Department and the U.S. Geological Survey have recently started pilots using
Digital Government
OFPP readies new GWAC rules of the road
The Office of Federal Procurement Policy has begun working with agencies on a new set of principles for running governmentwide acquisition contracts that would help agencies determine when such procurements are appropriate and how they should be structured. Deidre Lee, OFPP's administrator, last we
Digital Government
Industry groups take past-performance complaint to OFPP
The Pentagon should consider changes to policies that currently prohibit the Defense Department from mounting a counter cyberattack if its computers are attacked, the National Research Council recommended in a report released today.
Digital Government
DOD to step up defense of GPS signals
The Defense Department plans to add a new set of military antijam frequencies to the next series of military Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites to protect its users in what a top DOD official called 'navwar,' or navigation warfare. New generations of precision munitions as well as U.S. att
Digital Government
HUD removes walls between its databases
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has five program offices and more than 10 support offices, all of which maintain completely separate information systems. Any request for information that crosses office boundaries now takes days to fill, but the agency is testing a system that will f
Digital Government
OMB report: Agencies near Y2K finish line
According to the Office of Management and Budget's eighth quarterly report, 79 percent of the federal government's missioncritical systems are fully compliant, up from 61 percent in December. The Clinton administration expects more than 90 percent of the major systems will be compliant by March 31, the governmentwide deadline to have all systems fixed and reinstalled.
Digital Government
DOD nears launch of departmentwide PKI
The Defense Department soon plans to release guidelines that will lead to a departmentwide publickey infrastructure architecture that would ensure the integrity and confidentiality of data throughout the agency. For months DOD has wanted to move from multiple, small PKI pilots to a single PKI arch
Digital Government
Set-Asides
Set of standards needed for egrants Federal agencies that want to receive grant applications from the public electronically should agree on a set of common data elements and develop one common user interface, according to a report issued this month. In its final report to the National Partnership
Digital Government
Data warehousing unites agency data
Data warehousing solutions have not had broad use among federal agencies, but they have proven extremely successful at helping a number of agencies achieve their missions. Agencies using data warehousing, which combines databases across an enterprise to support management decisionmaking, report th
Digital Government
Small enhancements give IE5 a big boost
With last week's release of Internet Explorer 5.0, Microsoft Corp. has not added any major features to its World Wide Web browser, but the company has made dozens of lesser enhancements that add up to a smoother ride on the Web for end users and fewer headaches for systems administrators. Among the
Digital Government
LOC's Digital Library to expand
The Library of Congress next month will choose the final winners from among a variety of institutions competing to make their historical collections available on LOC's World Wide Web site. In 1997, LOC's National Digital Library received a $2 million grant from the Ameritech Foundation to sponsor a
Digital Government
SSG flies through reform
The Air Force Standard Systems Group thrust itself to the forefront of the federal information technology procurement community last week with the fasttrack award of six blanket purchase agreements potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The six BPAs, for PCs and peripherals, mark the f
Digital Government