Browsing: Information Technology

Wired Magazine’s Danger Room blog has an interesting post today about the McLean, Va.-based consulting behemoth Booz Allen Hamilton. Danger Room’s editor, Noah Shachtman, essentially accuses Booz Allen executive vice president Mike McConnell of over-hyping cybersecurity threats so his firm can win government contracts to combat the dangers that he invented. Shachtman calls Booz “cyberwar Cassandras.” Now, I can’t speak to the motivations of Mr. McConnell or anyone else at the firm. However, the evidence Shachtman presents on Booz Allen’s supposed recent windfall in government contract spending seems a little thin. Booz Allen has raked in $400 million in deals…

Agencies’ plans for meeting the green government mandates outlined in President Obama’s October executive order aren’t due until June 2, but the Agriculture Department’s chief sustainability officer already has identified one of her top priorities: cutting energy consumption in data centers. Robin Heard, a lifelong conservationist who joined Agriculture in 1976, said she had no idea how much energy is consumed by data centers until she took on her new role as the department’s deputy assistant secretary for administration about a year ago. Speaking Tuesday on the opening day of the GSA Expo in Orlando, Heard said she wants to consolidate the…

The Congressional Management Foundation has released a new analysis of Congressional websites. The group gave its “Platinum Mouse” awards, for the best site in each of four categories, to: *Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska *Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y. *The House Committee on Science and Technology (makes sense) *The House Republican Conference For a full list of award winners, go here. One might think that the Democrats, who generally attract younger, more tech-savvy voters, would have better websites, but that’s not the case, according to CMF.

The White House held a modernizing government forum earlier this year, inviting more than 50 private-sector chief executive officers to share best business practices with government officials. The White House recently released a report of its findings from the forum — to view the full report, click here. The results reported aren’t too surprising. The best practices shared by the CEOs were pretty clear — be more transparent, plan your IT projects better, and don’t let IT projects drag on for five years. Do things quickly and implement IT projects in stages to test whether they’ll work, the CEOs said.…

The House passed a bill Wednesday banning the installation and use of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software on all federal computers, systems and networks. Peer-to-peer programs such as BitTorrent, Lime Wire and KazaA pose security risks for the federal government. Rep. Edophus Towns, D-N.Y., introduced HR 4098 after several publicized information breaches involving peer-to-peer programs last year. In one case, confidential House Ethics Committee investigation documents were posted online after a staffer loaded the documents onto her personal computer which had peer-to-peer sharing software installed. Towns praised the House’s 408-13 vote in a statement. While I understand that peer-to-peer file…

The Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee voted today to send a key cybersecurity bill to the Senate floor. The bill, S 773,would require the executive branch to work with the private sector to create cybersecurity standards and mandate audits to ensure compliance with those new standards. An earlier version of the bill would have granted the president authority to shut down the Internet in the case of a major cyber attack, but this new bill doesn’t include that authority. Instead, the government and the private sector would work together to address handling a major cybersecurity attack. Sens. Jay Rockefeller,…

Many agencies use a single e-mail messaging system across all departments and offices. That’s not the case at the Agriculture Department, which operates 27 different e-mail systems, USDA Chief Information Officer Christopher Smith told a House Agriculture subcommittee Wednesday. Only the largest departments within the USDA have modernized and use shared e-mail systems. The other departments and agencies operate as they have for years — separately and without collaboration. Each office is responsible for monitoring and maintaining its own e-mail system, which is time consuming and slows down the USDA’s modernization, Smith said. This fragmented approach has hampered USDA’s ability…

The White House has declassified much of a cybersecurity initiative developed during the George W. Bush administration. The release of Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative’s 12 key goals is part of the Obama administration’s quest for transparency, said Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt in a March 2 White House blog post announcing the declassification. Bush created the initiative in 2008 and few details were available about it before the March 2 release. Schmidt wrote: We will not defeat our cyber adversaries because they are weakening, we will defeat them by becoming collectively stronger, through stronger technology, a stronger cadre of security professionals,…

Most federal employees who have a work-issued smartphone have a BlackBerry. If you’re eligible to receive a work phone, do you want to trade your BlackBerry in for an iPhone but can’t because agencies don’t issue iPhones because of security concerns? I’m writing a story about the iPhone and the government market, and I’d like to hear from federal employees who wish they could use an iPhone at work. Please e-mail me at rneal@federaltimes.com, and as always, we don’t publish any e-mails or information without first getting your permission.

The Army is at the forefront of social networking, offering Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages to connect the public with soldiers in uniform. And while the military enjoys broad support online — the Army’s Facebook page has 173,000 fans — that doesn’t mean it’s immune from inappropriate posts from those who take issue with the military or politics. Policing racist, sexist or harassing comments is important to maintaining the military’s integrity, but deleting too many comments may make users suspicious of censorship, said Staff Sgt. Josh Salmons, emerging media coordinator at Fort Meade’s Defense Information School during a Feb. 24…

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