Digital Government
Flooding the airwaves
Wireless technology may be the current rage, and the wireless Web its flashy offspring, but underlying the craze is the need for fat data pipes. Just as traditional voice, video and data services will need highspeed connections, the wireless Internet depends on the development of its own broadband links.
Digital Government
Securing the airwaves
When broadband wireless does come to handheld devices, providing security for them will be a big headache. Using cell phones to make calls is one thing, but when they are being used to send potentially sensitive information across a network, that's altogether different.
People
Help desks front and center
As agencies embrace electronic government and look to deliver more of their services online, the role of the lowly help desk might easily be overlooked. But it promises to be an increasingly important focus for government's move to the Internet.
Digital Government
How FBCA works
State and local governments are only beginning public-key infrastructure plans, but they already have a looming problem.
Digital Government
States seeking bridges so PKI can span systems
State and local governments are only beginning public-key infrastructure plans, but they already have a looming problem.
Digital Government
Unix: Not dead yet
In some ways, disparities in the computer workstation market have disappeared.
Digital Government
NASA lab rethinks Unix
The Solar System Visualization Project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is as much of a powerUnix shop as there is.
Digital Government
Will Linux steal the party?
Linux once was seen as a 'Windows killer,' but that potential seems to have faded.
Digital Government
Creating a digital Earth
A new project may transform how we find and view information online
Digital Government
Digital Earth: A political sphere
As with everything else in 2000, presidential politics is affecting the course of Digital Earth. Given the current political atmosphere, there's no guarantee that Digital Earth will have the necessary support to go forward, even if Vice President Al Gore is elected president.
Digital Government
Bumps along the road
Experts say the government must overcome several technological challenges before Digital Earth takes shape
People
Agencies team to bring business training to vets
Veterans will gain access to a slew of Internetbased courses and services aimed at budding entrepreneurs in an agreement signed last month between the Small Business Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Digital Government
Portable learning
This past spring, when Maine Gov. Angus King announced a plan to provide every seventh-grade student in his state with a laptop computer, he dramatically highlighted a national trend that has been gaining momentum.
People
A bridge too far?
The use of public-key infrastructure to enable secure electronic transactions has been expanding in government, but so far it's been limited to isolated programs aimed at individual agency applications.
People
Citizen PKI project under way
A distant cousin to the Federal Bridge Certificate Authority (FBCA) is the General Services Administration's Certificate Arbitrator Module (CAM)
People
Bridge players
The Treasury Department is overseeing construction of the Federal Bridge Certificate Authority
People
Secure middleman
When one agency receives an electronic transaction created using a private key that corresponds to a public key issued by the sender's certificate authority (CA), the receiving agency has to determine that the certificate carrying that public key originated from a trusted source.
Digital Government
Vendors bicker about control
Most of the major U.S. application and World Wide Web server vendors have licensed Enterprise Edition of Java 2 (J2EE) from Sun Microsystems Inc., the original developer of Java.
Digital Government