A cybersecurity czar this month — maybe
November 2nd, 2009 | Information Technology | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
The president has been accused of “dithering” on his Afghanistan strategy review. (Personally, I think he’s right to take his time: Escalating the war is not an easy decision, and when tens of thousands of soldiers are being sent into combat, better to take some extra time to get it right.)
But that’s not the only important decision on which Obama has delayed. There’s also the question of appointing a “cyber czar,” a White House official to coordinate cybersecurity policy. Obama announced the new position in May, during a White House speech on cybersecurity, but the position has remained vacant for more than five months.
The delay is starting to attract criticism. Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said last week that he was frustrated with the delay. TechAmerica, an IT industry group, put out a press release this afternoon calling on Obama to appoint a czar “at the earliest possible opportunity.”
Tags: Barack Obama, cybersecurity, Mischel Kwon, Rod Beckstrom
Free Firefox browser currently too expensive for State
July 14th, 2009 | Information Technology State | Posted by Elise Castelli
BoingBoing, the self-proclaimed “directory of wonderful things,†points out an interesting exchange in a State Department town hall meeting Sec. Hillary Clinton and Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy held Friday. Here is what BoingBoing quoted from the meeting’s transcript:
MS. GREENBERG: Okay. Our next question comes from Jim Finkle:
Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox? I just – (applause) – I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn’t use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don’t understand why State can’t use it. It’s a much safer program. Thank you. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, apparently, there’s a lot of support for this suggestion. (Laughter.) I don’t know the answer. Pat, do you know the answer? (Laughter.)
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: The answer is at the moment, it’s an expense question. We can -
QUESTION: It’s free. (Laughter.)
While today’s BoingBoing post ends there, we here at FedLine wanted to bring you the next line in the conversation– Kennedy’s explanation of what he meant by “it’s an expense question.â€
From the transcript posted on the State Department’s Web site:
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Nothing is free. (Laughter.) It’s a question of the resources to manage multiple systems. It is something we’re looking at. And thanks to the Secretary, there is a significant increase in the 2010 budget request that’s pending for what is called the Capital Investment Fund, by which we fund our information technology operations. With the Secretary’s continuing pushing, we’re hoping to get that increase in the Capital Investment Fund. And with those additional resources, we will be able to add multiple programs to it.
Yes, you’re correct; it’s free, but it has to be administered, the patches have to be loaded. It may seem small, but when you’re running a worldwide operation and trying to push, as the Secretary rightly said, out FOBs and other devices, you’re caught in the terrible bind of triage of trying to get the most out that you can, but knowing you can’t do everything at once.
What say you, dear readers, of Kennedy’s points about cost, budget and management?
Tags: capital investments, Firefox
Got Ideas?
April 27th, 2009 | Economic Stimulus Information Technology White House | Posted by Elise Castelli
Following on the earlier theme of open government and sharing ideas, FedLine brings you more ways you can contribute to President Obama’s national discussion on improving government.
Today the White House, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and the National Academy of Public Administration launched a site to gather input on how information technology can bring greater transparency to recovery spending.
The week long “National Dialogue” is soliciting ideas from the public on what Recovery.gov should do and how it should do it. Topics include data collection, data storage, data analysis, data presentation, Web site design, and waste, fraud and abuse detection.
At 3:30 p.m., there were approximately 75 ideas posted on The National Dialogue web site, www.thenationaldialogue.org.
Site users can view, rate and comment on ideas — as well as post their own — until May 3. And, as always, you can post your ideas at FedLine anytime.
Cybersecurity: Who's in charge?
April 23rd, 2009 | Homeland Security Information Technology | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
Melissa Hathaway, the official in charge of the White House’s 60-day cybersecurity review, gave a speech last night at the RSA conference in San Francisco. The review concluded last Friday, so there were high expectations around the speech: most experts expected her to announce her findings.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, apparently because the administration hasn’t read the final report yet. I’m told that the White House deputies committee is meeting to review it today or tomorrow. So we’ll probably see a final copy early next week.
Hathaway did confirm that the final report calls for the White House to coordinate governmentwide cybersecurity policy. (If you want to watch her whole talk, it’s posted here.)
There was one other item from the RSA conference that caught my attention — details after the jump.
Tags: cybersecurity
Cyberattacks: Where and how
April 14th, 2009 | Information Technology | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
Symantec has an interesting report out on government IT threats. I’ve uploaded a copy, in PDF form, here. Still digesting the whole (lengthy) report, but it seems like hackers are “diversifying” their attacks — using different approaches than they did in 2007.
U.S. government systems are still popular targets (nearly a quarter of attacks on government systems target the U.S.); most of the attacks come from China, it seems.
Tags: cybersecurity
FBI Tweets
April 3rd, 2009 | Information Technology Justice | Posted by Elise Castelli
Earlier this week I wrote about how FDA was using Twitter to tweet about product recalls. But that’s not the only agency that uses Twitter to share information in a crisis.
The FBI tweets too. And is tweeting right now to let folks know that agency hostage negotiators are on their way from Albany to Binghamton, N.Y. to respond to the shooting and ongoing hostage situation there.
Tags: FBI, social media, twitter
Nuts about social media at HHS
March 31st, 2009 | HHS Information Technology | Posted by Elise Castelli
The Health and Human Services Department is tapping some of the same social media tools used to spread the word about salmonella-tainted peanuts to handle the budding pistachio crisis.
Already, the Food and Drug Administration’s recall twitter feed, which helped to quickly spread information about the nearly 4,000 products recalled during the peanut crisis, is tweeting about recalled pistachio products.
Other tools HHS used during the salmonella outbreak in peanuts could come into play as the department shares information about pistachios, Andrew Wilson, a Web manager for HHS’s Web Communications and New Media division, told Federal Times today.
Tags: blogs, new media, social media, Web 2.0
GSA Chooses 59 firms for Alliant
March 27th, 2009 | General Services Administration Information Technology Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
The General Services Administration has chosen 59 of the 62 bidders for its $50 billion Alliant information technology contract, the agency announced today.
This could be the start of another round of protests for the already protest-plagued procurement.
This time last year, a federal court upheld the protest of eight bidders that claimed GSA didn’t properly evaluate their bids. All eight of those protesters were awarded contracts this time around, but it’s not clear if the losing bidders will seek to protest this latest decision.
The awardees are:
1. Abacus Technology Corporation
2. Accenture National Security Services, LLC
3. Advanced Management Technology, Inc.
4. Advanced Technology Systems, Inc.
5. Alion Science and Technology Corporation
6. Alliant Solutions, LLC
7. American Systems Corporation
8. Analytical Services, Inc.
9. Apptis, Inc.
10. ARINC Engineering Services, LLC
11. ARTEL, Inc.
12. AT&T Government Solutions, Inc.
13. BAE Systems Information Technology, Inc.
14. BAE Systems Science and Technology, Inc.
15. BearingPoint, Inc.
16. Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.
17. CACI, Inc. – Federal
18. Centech Group, Inc., The
19. CGI Federal, Inc.
20. Client Network Services, Inc.
21. Communication Technologies, Inc.
22. Computer Sciences Corporation
23. Dynamics Research Corporation
24. Electronic Data Systems, LLC
25. Engineering and Professional Services, Inc.
26. Federal Network Systems, LLC
27. General Dynamics One Source, LLC
28. Harris Corporation
29. Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc.
30. INDUS Corporation
31. International Business Machines Corporation
32. ITS Corporation
33. Keane Federal Systems, Inc.
34. L-3 Services, Inc.
35. LGS Innovations, LLC
36. Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems, Inc.
37. MacAulay-Brown, Inc.
38. ManTech Advanced Systems International Corporation
39. McNeil Technologies, Inc.
40. NCI Information Systems, Inc.
41. Nortel Government Solutions, Inc.
42. Perot Systems Government Services, Inc.
43. Professional Software Engineering, Inc.
44. Raytheon Company
45. Science Applications International Corporation
46. Serco, Inc.
47. Smartronix, Inc.
48. Southwest Research Institute
49. Stanley Associates, Inc.
50. STG, Inc.
51. SYS (DBA SYS Technologies, Inc.)
52. Systems Research and Applications Corporation
53. TASC, Inc.
54. TKC Communications, LLC
55. Trantech, Inc. (DBA T3 Alliance)
56. TYBRIN Corporation
57. Unisys Corporation
58. Vangent, Inc.
59. Wyle Information Systems, LLC
Tags: Alliant
Alliant awards tomorrow
March 26th, 2009 | General Services Administration Information Technology Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
The General Services Administration will finally re-award it’s multibillion dollar Alliant information technology contract tomorrow, the agency said.
The announcement comes about one year after a federal court upheld a protest against a previous set of awards GSA made, forcing the agency to re-evaluate the procurement meant to become the government’s premier IT contract.
Following the protest decision, Federal Times uncovered an apparent conflict of interest regarding the contractor GSA hired to collect performance information from the bidders. The GSA IG found other irregularities with GSA’s evaluation process.
One has to wonder whether this round of awards will spark new rounds of protests and more delays for the already troubled procurement.
Tags: Alliant
Updated: AP reports federal CIO on leave
March 12th, 2009 | Information Technology Justice | Posted by Elise Castelli
Update 2: The Associated Press is reporting that Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is on leave “until further details of the case become known” following the raid of his former office this morning.
While the raid was going on Kundra spoke at an IT conference today. He set out bold plans for reforming federal IT by opening up more information to the public for review and feedback.
During today’s White House press briefing, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the investigation into Kundra’s old office.
Stay tuned.
Update 1: The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia released some court documents related to today’s raid at the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer.
The documents accuse D.C. employee, Yusuf Acar of conspiring with a contractor, Sushil Bansal, to steal from city taxpayers. Both Bansal, president of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corporation, and Acar were arrested today.
According to the documents, Acar, acting chief security officer for the D.C. government, allegedly approved work orders for products and services from Bansal’s company that were in excess of what the city actually received. The difference between the actual cost to Bansal’s company and what the D.C. government paid was split by the two defendants, according to the documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Until February, the office where Acar worked was led by the new Federal Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra. Kundra is not mentioned in the court documents and sources said he is not under investigation.
View the original post after the jump.
Tags: chief information officer, FBI, Vivek Kundra