Federal IT executives must move quickly to apply patches for the recently discovered Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities, but should also be on the lookout for potential performance hits and unforeseen glitches associated with the bug fixes. […]
If you’re looking for reference material on domestic sludge, gold nanoparticles, or peanut butter, a move by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to modernize its e-commerce portal should make it easier to get the information you’re seeking. […]
President Donald Trump last week issued an Executive Order on veterans’ health care that included an announcement that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would adopt the same electronic records systems as the Department of Defense (DoD), signing off on what was already a done deal. Emphasis on “deal,” because although the departments are on board with a project that could cost $10 billion over 10 years, history raises doubts as to whether a unified health records system can actually be achieved. […]
Last year brought a great deal of change to Washington, D.C., from a new administration moving into the White House to D.C. United building a new stadium. As 2018 starts up with seemingly limitless IT opportunities ahead, MeriTalk takes a look back on the top Federal IT stories from 2017. […]
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) push toward greater adoption of commercial cloud computing could raise some questions for the military services and component agencies, including what type of cloud environment would work best while meeting unique DoD needs such as security and high-volume transactions. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) took a stab at answering those questions last week while offering a plan for enterprise cloud adoption. […]
After years on the backburner, electronic warfare (EW) is moving up the ranks as an integral part of the Pentagon’s military focus. The Army last month received approval to move ground-based EW efforts into the Terrestrial Layer Intelligence System, joining cyber, signals, and other intelligence as part of the Multi-Function Electronic Warfare (MFEW) structure. The service wants to include airborne EW later this year. […]
Communication is key–especially for the Federal government. One of the most important ways the government communicates with citizens is through agency websites. In fact, the Federal government has roughly 4,500 websites on more than 400 domains. However, the vast majority of those websites aren’t meeting industry standards. […]
When Joby Emmons arrived for his first day as general counsel at IdeaScale, he was told: “Your first job at IdeaScale is to get us FedRAMP authorized.” […]
North Korea’s persistent efforts on nuclear weapons development and some loose talk about red buttons have raised new fears internationally about the possibilities of nuclear conflict. At home, government agencies also are addressing the questions about what to do in the case of a nuclear detonation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example, will hold one of its Public Health Grand Round teaching sessions Jan. 16 on how medical professionals should respond–and although the event has been planned for months, it’s timing suddenly seems to be on the mark. […]
The Intelligence Community wants to develop a kind of universal translator that will search documents across a full range of media and make sense of them for English-speaking analysts. […]
Usually agencies want to speak highly of their IT operating systems, so to hear Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Steve Censky call the USDA operating model “splintered and out of date” on Dec. 14 was a bit of a shock. […]
As the new year begins, Alfred Rivera, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Development and Business Center, will retire from the Federal government. Rivera, who stepped down today, has been in the Federal service for 35 years, and spent all but 10 of those years at DISA. Rivera will begin consulting following his retirement from the public sector. […]
Turning that job over to robotic systems is the idea behind the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) latest competition, the Subterranean Challenge. DARPA is inviting teams from around the world to develop new ways of mapping, navigating, and searching underground environments, and is offering $2.75 million in prize money to the eventual winners. […]
In a data scientist’s dreams, the Internet of Things (IoT) would cover the Earth. And in fact, that dream might not be that far off–ground-based sensors, unmanned vehicles, mobile devices of all kinds, and satellites already combine to offer a pretty clear picture of what’s going on around us, and the resolution is only going to improve. […]
With the Internet for transportation, a lie can get all the way around the world before truth can blink itself awake. And that’s a challenge for those who seek to stem the proliferation of false information, be it accidentally misattributed quotes, political propaganda, or malicious “fake news.” Artificial intelligence can help combat the problem, by using machine learning algorithms to detect the patterns used in phony stories and ads designed to stir up fear or outrage, or, in the case of Russian disinformation, unsettle people’s faith in American institutions. […]
Despite an air of uncertainty coming from the Trump administration, the Department of Energy’s research arm is forging ahead with what it calls “transformational research,” putting up $100 million to try to ensure that it doesn’t miss a trick when it comes to potentially disruptive energy research. […]
An alliance of government agencies is taking a deep dive, as it were, into the world’s oceans as part of a larger project to develop a comprehensive environmental Earth model that could more accurately make predictions about weather and climate. The new model could enable forecasting events ahead of time, by days or even decades. […]
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), faced with a growing and diverse threat of chemical and biological attacks, is ramping up efforts to use technology to detect and, when possible, prevent attacks. […]
Password manager company, Dashlane, has added a twist with its list of the “Worst Password Offenders” of 2017, naming high-profile people and organizations that fell into the bad-password trap. President Trump was deemed the worst offender, primarily because of simple passwords reportedly used by cabinet members and policy directors. Outside parties were also the culprits for the Department of Defense, specifically for its contractor, Booz Allen, as well as the Republican Party (stemming from a careless data analytics firm). Paul Manafort, for using “Bond007” as a password, and Sean Spicer, for apparently tweeting his passwords, also came in for scorn. […]
Email is a core network application for both the private sector the and government, and has become an essential business communication tool. Since email is nearly ubiquitous and often poorly secured, it also has become a vector for fraud and data theft. Phishing emails can compromise not only Federal networks and databases, but also trust in government communications. […]
Last July, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) revamped the provisional authorization process to make life easier for cloud service providers (CSPs). The change let CSPs use a simple web form to delineate their business cases to FedRAMP’s Joint Authorization Board (JAB). […]
In a report released on Dec. 7, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that while Veterans Affairs (VA) has made some progress on key IT initiatives under Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) requirements, it has nonetheless fallen short of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) targets regarding consolidating and optimizing its data centers. […]
The White House wants to clear the way for Federal agencies to adopt commercial cloud computing, even if that means tweaking acquisition rules to help them get there. […]
SAP’s National Security Services (NS2), a U.S. subsidiary of the international software company, has secured a FedRAMP JAB authorization for its cloud-based human capital management (HCM) suite. SAP NS2’s SuccessFactors HCM suite offers a variety of products, including talent acquisition and management tools, analytics tools, and core human resource tools, all running on the Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) GovCloud platform. […]
When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulations, should the government focus on protecting the rights of its citizens or position the United States as a global leader on the technology? This was the central question during the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet’s Dec. 12 hearing. […]
The flood of surveys and reports detailing the shortage of qualified IT and cybersecurity professionals is unrelenting. Estimates put the shortfall at anywhere between 1.8 million to 3.5 million in the next five years. […]
Since 2001, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has tried three different modernization programs for its healthcare system. So when the department announced another plan to modernize by adopting the same system as the Department of Defense (DoD), the Subcommittee on Information Technology was skeptical and interrogated them in a Dec.7 hearing. […]
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is upping the ante in automated analysis of satellite images, offering $100,000 in prizes in a competition designed to spawn breakthroughs in imagery analysis. […]
Bruce Greenstein, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) CTO knows Feds need help combating the Opioid crisis. That’s why HHS convened the Opioid Symposium last week at the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, bringing Federal, state and industry players together to brainstorm on one of the nation’s toughest issues. Fourteen sessions later, and sharing data, innovating, communicating, and remembering the human impacts emerged as the key takeaways. […]
Since blockchain first appeared in 2009 as the digital ledger for Bitcoin cryptocurrency transactions, it has steadily taken the online world by storm, in the process practically becoming a synonym for security. Even if a lot of people still don’t know what it is, they’re beginning to hear it more and more. IBM, for instance, has taken to mentioning “blockchain for security” in its TV ads. And in a sure sign of pending mainstream acceptance, a “Blockchain for Dummies” book is now available. […]