TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
02/27/09 05:33 pm ET
That's the view of Joel Brenner, National Counter-Intelligence Executive, who said he views the use of thumb drives on national security information systems as "the electronic equivalent of unprotected sex and the biggest sources of what I call ETDs, or electronically transmitted diseases.">>
02/26/09 05:51 pm ET
The $534 billion fiscal 2010 budget for the Defense Department, which the Obama administration released on Thursday, contains few details, particularly on major programs such as the IT-rich $230 billion Army Future Combat Systems project intended to network myriad vehicles and sensors on the battlefield.>>
02/25/09 06:03 pm ET
Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, provided a grim statistic in his testimony on Wednesday at a hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He said 15 percent of all networked computers in the world are in botnets, computers hijacked and remotely controlled to deliver spam or launch distributed denial-of-service attacks.>>
02/24/09 06:12 pm ET
Last week I referred to AHLTA, the Defense Department's electronic health record system, as an acronym that stood for Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application system. It did when AHLTA was introduced in 2005.>>
02/23/09 01:24 pm ET
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, seems to be using trips to bases nationwide to reinforce his view on thumb drives and removable media.>>
02/20/09 04:57 pm ET
I'm picking up strong and high level signals that Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki plans to push the Defense Department to use the VA's Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture (VistA) electronic health record system instead of the Military Health Systems Armed Forces...>>
02/20/09 01:44 pm ET
Buried deep in conference report for the The 2009 American Recovery and Investment Act, is a goody for anyone attending college this year or next -- a tax write off for computer purchases. Section 1005 of the bill, found on page 526 of the...>>
02/19/09 02:55 pm ET
Dr. S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, has used the Military Health Systems Web site both as a bully pulpit and a two-way communications tool with corpsmen, medics, doctors and nurses worldwide since he took the job April 2007.>>
02/18/09 03:17 pm ET
Val Kilmer -- the actor who has portrayed Jim Morrison in the movie "The Doors," Batman in "Batman Forever," Moses in "The Prince of Egypt," and a naval aviator in "Top Gun" -- now has his eyes on a new real life role, governor of New Mexico.>>
02/17/09 02:45 pm ET
Some folks may look at the Defense Information Systems Agency as the antithesis of techno-cool. But, it sure has latched on to a speaker for its Customer Care conference in April who embodies cutting edge social networking technology:>>
02/13/09 01:53 pm ET
That's the message from the thinking man's Marine, General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce confab in Washington yesterday that the Defense Department may lose its edge in space because of a policy that has led to slow development of costly satellites.>>
02/12/09 12:15 pm ET
The best technologies are ones that work in the background and don't have to think about making them work. That approach applies to the National Communications System and its wired and wireless emergency communications systems, which withstood the test of Inauguration Day.>>
02/11/09 05:11 pm ET
The Navy has nominated Rear Adm. (lower half) Charles E. Smith for promotion to Rear Admiral (upper half) and promoted Rear Adm. Janice Hamby for the same boost in rank.>>
02/11/09 05:05 pm ET
The headquarters of at least one Combatant Command - which I will leave unnamed - has expanded the Defense Department ban on storage devices that use flash media to include digital photo frames, which are just like regular picture frames except they display a digital, not paper, photo, a reader told me in an e-mail sent from his home computer.>>
02/10/09 05:48 pm ET
I had great hopes that President Obama's memo on transparency and openness in government, as well as the new Freedom of Information Act memo would at last help me pry out the hidden details on the billions of dollars on task order contracts let by all three services, the Defense Information Systems Agency and other Defense agencies.>>
02/09/09 06:14 am ET
It looks like my Marine Corps has gone yuppie. The Corps plans to issue every Marine a set of running suits better suited for K-Street lobbyists than "The Few, The Proud, The Brave," based on this Pentagon Channel clip I just watched.>>
02/06/09 02:06 pm ET
Lisa Schlosser, who runs the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Information Collection, who also serves as a reservist with the Amy's 1st Information Operations outfit, told me that she believes thumb drives serve a real function in easily transporting data from point "A" to point "B." Stick a drive on one computer, download a file, take the drive, go to another computer and copy a file from the thumb drive to that computer.>>
02/06/09 01:37 pm ET
President Obama has nominated W. Scott Gould, currently vice president for public sector strategy at IBM Global Business Services, as the next deputy secretary of Veterans Affairs.>>
02/05/09 06:53 pm ET
At first it may seem bizarre why the state of Kentucky would ask National Guard units based in the Sunshine State of Florida for help in dealing with the aftermath of last week's ice storm, described by Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear as the worst natural disaster in that state's history.>>
02/05/09 06:46 pm ET
I recently had a chat with Dale Meyerrose, former chief information officer for the Director of National Intelligence, and since last month the vice president and general manager of Cyber and Information Assurance for Harris Corp. I want to pass on some of his insights on cyber czars and how clever Marine NCOs can figure out how to do end runs on security policies.>>
02/04/09 01:16 pm ET
The Obama administration is studying shifting control of the national laboratories operated by the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration to the Defense Department, the Albuquerque Journal reported on Wednesday in a copyrighted story by John Fleck.>>
02/03/09 02:20 pm ET
That's not the kind you wear. It's the kind you put on your computer to protect data at rest from bad guys.>>
02/03/09 01:45 pm ET
That's the bottom line on cyberspace from the Quadrennial Roles and Missions Review Report signed by the secretary of Defense last week. And it seems to put an end to Air Force hopes of running the cyber show.>>
02/03/09 06:51 am ET
I turn 65 on Feb. 8 (e-cards welcome), and with some dread I went to the local Social Security Administration office here in the Original Las Vegas (as in New Mexico) to fill out my application for Medicare hospital benefits.>>
02/02/09 02:41 pm ET
Last week, Lisa Schlosser, director of the Office of Information Collection at the Environmental Protection Agency, told me that she thought blogs and wikis would be a good way to increase participation in the regulatory process, meeting President Obama's call for the use of technology to boost openness in government.>>
02/02/09 02:33 pm ET
Army Lt. Gen. Carroll F. Pollett, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency since last month, did not make the Jan. 30 AFCEA Washington gabfest, but Tony Montemarano, the agency's component acquisition executive, telegraphed Pollett's priorities. Pollett, Montemarano said, has made "getting capabilities to operational commanders in the field" his first priority, a statement that gladdens my old Marine grunt-type radio operator heart.>>
