GovernmentExecutive.com

Headlines from around the Web for Friday, March 14, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

Bush Calls for Tighter Cybersecurity
USA Today
The increase and severity of data breaches in the United States in the past year have prompted Bush to recommend a 10 percent increase in cybersecurity funding for the coming fiscal year, to $7.3 billion. That's a 73 percent increase since 2004.

FCC Defends Its Database, Management Tools
InformationWeek
The Federal Communications Commission responded to a 53-page Government Accountability Office report that says the commission doesn't properly collect and analyze data, making it impossible to analyze the effectiveness of its enforcement. According to employees, the FCC has made some changes toward improvement and the GAO report is based on old information and inaccuracies.

D.C. Subway Moves Toward Cell Reception in Tunnels
The Washington Post
Metro is taking the first step toward building a new wireless system that would let all riders talk on their cellphones while riding the subway after years of customer complaints that only Verizon users can get reception underground. This network also would also support Metro's plan to provide real-time information and advertising on flat-panel monitors in rail cars, train stations and buses.

Project Management Skills Still in Short Supply, CIO Council Finds
Federal Computer Week
A CIO Council Information Technology Workforce Capability Assessment issued on Thursday found that the number of respondents who said they are project managers decreased by 3.4 percent since 2004, and their proficiency in the skills necessary has remained largely unchanged.

Congressman Issues Warning Over Contractor Bill
Washington Technology
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Thursday passed the Contractors and Federal Spending Accountability Act, and Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) is warning this could result in the removal of prominent government contractors.

Maxwell Air Force Base Has High-Tech Aims
The Montgomery Advertiser
The 754th Electronic Systems Group at Gunter Annex has changed its approach to cybersecurity. Recognizing that the enemy will, at times, access military networks, the group aims to protect information from within.

Md. Governor Joins Tech Tax Opposition
The Baltimore Sun
Gov. Martin O'Malley threw his support behind a growing effort to repeal a $200 million tax on computer services. The governor, a Democrat, said it was unfair to expand the sales tax to just one industry and echoed the sentiments of many lawmakers who believe the application of the levy was not thoroughly vetted when it was approved in November.

Cyber-Curious Seniors Explore the Digital Age
The Baltimore Sun
Senior citizens once adverse to the technology have begun exploring e-mail and instant messaging to stay in touch with friends, children and grandchildren. To aid them in their quest, senior centers, retirement communities and long-term care facilities have opened Internet cafes and have begun offering classes to teach older Americans what many of them swore they would never need.

FBI Found to Misuse Security Letters
The Washington Post
The FBI has increasingly used administrative orders to obtain the personal records of U.S. citizens rather than foreigners implicated in terrorism or counterintelligence investigations, and at least once it relied on such orders to obtain records that a special intelligence-gathering court had deemed protected by the First Amendment, according to two government audits released Thursday.

In an editorial in the New York Times Thursday, the paper calls the 2007 Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act, " a bad idea compounded by the notoriously bad state of federal government records."

The act would, among other things, "force all workers, including citizens, to prove they have a right to earn a living," by relying on the Social Security Administration to verify Social Security numbers for workers, the paper contends. The problem is that one SSA database has a 4 percent error rate, which would mean possibly thousands of workers would face firings and discrimination.

Other federal databases contain errors. The inspector general at the Justice Department reported last year that the Terrorist Watch List, which is used to screen 270 million people a month to identify possible terrorists, has a large error rate. "In an examination of 105 records, for example, the auditors found that 38 percent of the records contained errors or inconsistencies that the [Terrorist Screening Center's] own quality-assurance efforts had not found," according to a Washington Post article.

As the federal government relies more on information technology to support critical decisions, the importance of how clean its data is rises.

How confident are you that your data is error free?

Headlines from around the Web for Thursday, March 13, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

How Did H-1B Visas Get Such a Bad Reputation?
NetworkWorld
As the April 1 deadline to file H-1B visa applications nears, the debate is heating up among IT industry watchers and skilled workers over whether the often maligned program adequately serves U.S. companies or American workers as it was originally intended.

Harvard Grad Students Hit in Computer Intrusion
ComputerWorld
Harvard University is offering a year of free credit monitoring to over 6,000 individuals after their Social Security numbers were compromised when a Web server for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences was hacked in February.

CIOs Promote 'Fusion' Strategy
ComputerWorld
Forget about mere IT-business alignment. At many companies, the new name of the game is melding technology and business operations, with CIOs getting a say in setting not only IT plans but business strategies as well.

Microsoft Executives Urge More Long Term U.S. Investment in Tech
InformationWeek
The United States risks falling behind other countries in innovation if the government doesn't invest and shape policy to keep it ahead,Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and chief research officer Craig Mundie warned in a speech and discussion with Virginia's technology leaders Thursday.

United States, Germany Will Share Biometric Data
Federal Computer Week
The United States and Germany will share some biometric information in their respective fingerprint databases, officials from both countries announced Tuesday. It is hoped the arrangement will help stymie the efforts of known and suspected terrorists from entering each country.

Is Parallel Computing the Next Big Thing?
CIO Insight
Parallel computing has been hyped for years as the next big thing in technology. But now, Microsoft's chief research officer thinks it's time to set the company's long-term technological direction in line with this idea.

NTP Soon to Feature Extra Timeliness
Government Computer News
Internet Engineer Task Force engineers are sharpening the Network Time Protocol's granularity of time measurements, as well as making the veritable time-synchronization standard compatible with version 6 of the Internet Protocol.

Winter Olympics Security Hinges on Information Sharing
Washington Technology
Information sharing needs to improve between the U.S. and Canadian governments, and between public agencies and the private sector, to prepare for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, an industry expert told Congress yesterday.

Password-Stealing Hackers Infect Thousands of Web Pages
InfoWorld
According to McAfee researchers, hackers looking to steal passwords used in popular online games have infected more than 10,000 Web pages in recent days. The infected Web sites look no different than before, but the attackers have added a small bit of JavaScript code that redirects visitors' browsers to an invisible attack launched from the China-based servers.

Next Tax Proposed to Replace Md. Tech Tax
The Baltimore Sun
Support is mounting in the General Assembly for a plan to replace Maryland's new computer services tax with an income tax surcharge on top earners. If approved, the income tax would take effect July 1, the day the technology tax would otherwise go into effect.

Government Executive's Bob Brewin reports today that the Pentagon has come closer than ever to admitting it will engage in offensive cyberwarfare if provoked, including knocking out satellites and networks operated by adversaries. That's not a good idea, says Richard Clarke, former special advisor on cybersecurity for President Bush who spoke today at the inaugural Source Boston security conference, according to an InfoWorld article.

"The concept of mutually assured destruction that was employed by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the Cold War to discourage nuclear attack doesn't port well to the world of cyberspace, but the president's advisors seem to think that it will, he said," InfoWorld reports.

Says Clarke:

In cyber-space, who knows what capability anybody has? It's much more important to know what you could do if someone launched an attack on the U.S., how much could [someone] really shut down and what would be the effect, I suspect that the U.S. is much more vulnerable than other countries, because we are more wired and dependent on cyberspace. China has structured its infrastructure such that it can shut itself off, and create [its] own environment if it wants to; so it seems that there are asymmetries.

Clarke says the United States should focus more on telling American corporations and government agencies where common infrastructures and applications are vulnerable and how to patch them.

Richard Clarke, former special adviser on cybersecurity for President Bush and an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, recently criticized Bush's national electronic security initiative Bush signed in January. According to an article posted by InfoWorld today, Clarke raised the specter that Americans' privacy could be at stake because the imitative focuses on "securing the government's own computing and communications networks, and adopting a more proactive approach to engaging in cyber-warfare," according to the article.

If that is true, Clarke says:

There's the idea that somehow these are government networks that we're talking about, but they really aren't, all these government sites are running through the same network of routers and the same fiber channels as everything else, there's no segmentation on these carrier networks. This means that [the plan's authors] either don't know that and merely think they need to reinforce security on state-owned servers, or data in their own facilities, in which case thy are missing most of the problem, or that they plan to do monitoring of everything going through the carriers' systems.

Headlines from around the Web for Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

Bill Gates Says Immigration, Education Reform Needed For U.S. To Compete
InformationWeek
Bill Gates told members of the House Subcommittee on Science and Technology they need to to help America remain globally competitive by increasing funding for science and math education, basic science research, and to raise the cap on green cards and H-1B visas for foreign talent.

A Heart Device Is Found Vulnerable to Hacker Attacks
The New York Times
While the threat is largely theoretical, a team of computer security researchers plans to report that it had been able to gain wireless access to a combination heart defibrillator and pacemaker, reprogramming it to shut down and to deliver jolts of electricity that would potentially be fatal — if the device had been in a person.

Philadelphia Pays Consultant $200,000 for Wi-Fi Work
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia's CIO admitted on Tuesday that Wireless Philadelphia, the municipal Wi-Fi network that was to be built for free, has a $200,000 price tag in the form of a consultant serving as technical project manager.

Union Decries Increasing Number of Outsourced IT Contracts for California
The Sacramento Bee
A report compiled by the Service Employees International Union notes information technology contracts awarded by the state have tripled since 2003, and California could save up to $100 million annually by reducing its reliance on contractors.

New Collaboration Tools Provide Support to Soldiers Anywhere, Anytime
Government Computer News
The Army’s Telemaintenance Program, based at Fort Monmouth, N.J., can provide this direct support to warfighters by using a combination of Adobe Connect Professional, satellite communications, a headset and laptop PC. Similar satellite communications are proving essential for the U.S. Africa Command.

CDT Launches Health Privacy Initiative
InfoWorld
Privacy needs to be a higher priority as the U.S. government and other groups push for adoption of health IT as a way to improve the country's healthcare system, said the Center for Democracy and Technology , which has launched a health privacy initiative.

Box Repels Youths, but Adults Can't Hear It
The Baltimore Sun
A British inventor's security device repels youths with its high-pitched pulsating sound that can mostly be heard only by teens and people in their early to mid-20s. And it's being used and abused on both sides of the Atlantic now.

It’s Easy, and Expensive, to Forget About Old Equipment
The New York Times
Sloppy inventory control can cause major headaches for companies -- including potential tax and legal consequences. So one entrepreneur has started a company to develop a method for continuous tracking of assets from the warehouse receiving dock to the dumpster.

U.S. News & World Report outlines in an article posted today five ways you use your PC can get you fired. Of course, there's the viewing of inappropriate content and playing games like Solitaire. (New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired an employee after seeing the game on his computer monitor.) But also included on the list are some not-so-obvious uses, such as blogging, posting photos on your social network site and writing inappropriate or offensive emails. These offenses happen more than you may think: "Nearly one third of bosses have fired workers for misusing the Internet, according to a recent study by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute," U.S. News reports.

Headlines from around the Web for Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

Tech Companies Feel Skilled Labor Shortage
NetworkWorld
The National Foundation for American Policy released Monday its findings that U.S. technology and defense companies average 470 and 1,265 high-skilled job openings, respectively. Research was conducted between December 2007 and February 2008.

Senator Describes Black Market in H-1B Visas
ComputerWorld
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said yesterday that the White House isn't enforcing the H-1B program, and he cited a number of abuses in a letter to Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff asking him to detail what the department is doing to enforce the program.

Security Must Evolve, CERT Official Says
ComputerWorld
Security has to evolve into something that supports business, rather than the other way around, according to Lisa Young, senior member of the technical staff at Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency Response Team. She explains the tendency is to want to start locking things down, so security is something that disables, not enables, business.

Should You Hire a Convicted Hacker?
InformationWeek
The very skills that can land hackers behind bars are skills they share with high-achieving, law-abiding IT security professionals. However, convicted hackers looking for legitimate employment are not necessarily finding it in the enterprise after they complete their sentences. Some high-profile hackers have become teachers, lecturers and journalists.

Coast Guard Tests Fingerprinting at Borders
USA Today
In an ongoing test program, the Coast Guard has been taking digital fingerprints of people picked up on boats headed to Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic. The fingerprints are then checked against a government database that shows deportation orders and criminal records; this practice has led to more than 100 prosecutions in the past year.

Ohio Supreme Court Refuses to Interfere with Secretary of State's Directive for Paper Ballots
Government Technology
The Supreme Court of Ohio unanimously denied the Union County Commissioners' request for an order that would have prevented Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner from implementing a recent directive she issued to require county boards of elections using touch screen machines to have backup paper ballots available for voters who want them.

Candidates Use Predictive Analytics to Seek Votes
eWeek
With only so much money to go around, candidates are trying to court voters in smart ways. One emerging method is microtargeting, a means of helping campaigns target their funds toward the right voters — those who haven't decided to vote for another candidate achieved by analyzing combinations of demographic, marketing and other forms of data.

Cyber Storm II Underway
Federal Computer Week
Players from nine states, four foreign governments, 18 federal agencies and 40 private companies that work in information technology, telecommunications, chemicals, and pipe and rail transportation infrastructure have begum the weeklong exercise sponsored by the Homeland Security Department.

NSA Extends Access Control to Network Storage
Government Computer News
The National Security Agency is leading an effort to extend its access control work into the arena of network file storage. Their approach calls for deploying the NSA's security architecture so organizations can ensure that machine intruders don't hijack programs to execute malicious tasks.

Fed Networks Increasingly Under Siege
Federal Times
Last year, federal agencies reported more than 5,600 cases of computer attacks, intrusions, probes and plantings of malicious code from unseen enemies around the world. That’s up 56 percent from the previous year and up 80 percent from two years ago, according to a new report by the Office of Management and Budget.

Headlines from around the Web for Monday, March 10, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

IT Harnesses the Power of Project Management
Network World
With an ecomonic downturn in sight, Industry watchers argue project and portfolio management (PPM) processes - in some cases augmented with commercial tools - can help IT managers deliver more successful projects, prioritize projects based on business need, and maximize financial resources when deploying technology.

ICANN Looks Toward End of U.S. Agreement in '09
ComputerWorld
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is starting to look at how the organization might function after its current memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Department of Commerce expires in September 2009, suggesting it should become independent of Commerce Department oversight. Representatives from countries other than the U.S. question why the American government should have primary oversight of the organization.

U.S. Military Restricts Google Maps
InformationWeek
When the Department of Defense became aware that Google's roving photographic vehicles had taken pictures of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, and that images of the base were loaded onto Google Maps' Street View feature, military officials contacted Google to make clear that Google's image capture efforts are not allowed on bases and other restricted sites.

Online Vote Discussed for Florida
Miami Herald
While the Democratic Party debates redoing the Florida presidential primary, advocates of Internet voting say they could orchestrate a voting process that would offer security at least equal to that of an equally rare ballot by mail, while attracting more voters -- and at about half the cost.

New Sign Emerges of IT Job Weakness
CIO Insight
According to a CIO Insight analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, for the first time in nearly three years, the number of people employed by IT services firms has declined, ending a 32-month stretch of employment gains in the sector the government tags computer systems design and related services.

CREW: White House Misled Court About Missing E-Mail
Federal Computer Week
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group participating in a lawsuit against the Bush administration over the alleged loss of millions of e-mail messages, asked a federal court to hold administration officials in contempt, saying the Office of Administration’s chief information officer appeared to have knowingly submitted false, misleading and incomplete information to the court in January.

VA Adopts Microsoft's Rights Management Services
Government Computer News
When Veterans' Affairs employees send Word, PowerPoint or Excel files, or Outlook e-mail messages to others, they can set permissions on what the recipients can do with those documents. This is one measure the department is taking in hopes of increasing its data security.

States Falling in Line with Read ID
Government Computer News
All but four states have made preparations to comply with a May 1 deadline for compliance with the federal Real ID law, according to specialists inside and outside the federal government. However, a number of states are grappling with the technical issues of setting up systems that will ensure that applicants for driver's licenses are vetted for proof of identity and legal presence in the country.

AF Cyberstrategy to Focus on Disrupting Attacks
Washington Technology
The new Air Force Cyber Command issued a strategic vision statement Thursday outlining the military unit’s goal of strengthening cyberspace capabilities to defend national interests. The report noted The Cyber Command’s vision is to develop capabilities to defend against cyber attacks, to “create effects” in cyberspace against hostile attackers and to integrate those abilities with the military’s other systems.

Rural Internet Access in Maryland on Hold
The Washington Times
Though state lawmakers voted two years ago to set aside the money to build a "spine" of fiber-optic cable in three rural regions of the state where Internet-service providers don't always provide high-speed access, work has stopped at the Choptank River. Enivronment officials declare a $1-a-foot annual permit is required in order for the cables to put in place.

Food Industry Tests Techno-Tasters to Judge Flavor
The Washington Post
The successful test of an electronic tongue and nose was one of several in recent years hinting that automated food and beverage sensors may someday match, or even outperform, their human counterparts. Illustrating this point is the USDA, which has begun testing a machine to grade sides of beef.

Concerns that the Total Information Awareness system (a network to sift through Americans' personal data) never truly was killed, was resurrected (again) by the Wall Street Journal in an article published March 10. "According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency [National Security Agency] now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records," according to the article. The Journal cites a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data called the Digital Collection System, which has attracted the attention of Congress.

One of those speculating that this has been going on for some time has been National Journal's Shane Harris.

In case you missed the story yesterday, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims came down this week on the side of the companies protesting the awards of the General Services Administration's Alliant contract. The contract, estimated to be worth $50 billion over 10 years, provides agencies a way to buy information technology services.

Of course the big question now is: What's next? GSA is keeping mum for the moment and none of the parties involved in the case have been eager to comment on the decision's implications. However, Kelly Fleury, federal sales manager, with MTC Technologies in Dayton, Ohio, one of the original Alliant awardees, contacted me this morning to discuss her company's outlook following the decision.

During our phone conversation, discussion of the court's ruling and GSA's plans were off-limits, but I did get the impression that MTC remains confident that this program will move forward eventually and without radical changes.

"We have no reason to believe that we need to change our business plan," Fleury said. "We are moving forward with our business plan very aggressively." She went on to talk about the marketing efforts her company is planning for April. "It's a big push towards educating end users about what Alliant is and how it can be of benefit to them," she said.

Fleury also talked at length about the importance of informing all those involved in the procurement process -- from chief information officers and program managers on down -- about the advantages of Alliant.

Noticeably missing from our conversation was any mention of a definitive date for the Alliant kick-off. "We're in no position to comment on GSA's kick-off date," Fleury said. But she added, "As of now, GSA has not announced any date, but we believe we're in the home stretch."

When asked whether the company's educational outreach efforts were in violation of the judge's ruling that prohibits further work by contractors or GSA on Alliant, Fleury again declined to comment.

So it looks like there's more to come, especially regarding the GSA's reaction to the decision, which so far has amounted to the canned two-sentence response at the end of the article. While there is widespread speculation on what the GSA is planning, the two most likely options seem to be either negotiating with the eight protesting companies in hopes of finding a mutually satisfactory solution or revamping the entire awards process and starting over. Obviously the former would be much more palatable than the latter.

Headlines from around the Web for Friday, March 7, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

Washington Prepares for Cyber War Games
The Washington Post
"Cyber Storm II," the largest-ever exercise designed to evaluate the mettle of IT experts and incident response teams from 18 federal agencies, is set for next week in Washington. Escalating scenarios will test for weaknesses in the response methods of the companies and agencies.

Tech Leaders in Massachusetts Scramble to Make Hires
NetworkWorld
According to a state official, 30 percent of the IT professionals in the commonwealth plan to retire within the next five years. The dwindling number of computer science majors -- even at schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- is compounding the problem.

RFID Encryption Flawed in Smart Cards, Researchers Claim
NetworkWorld
Recent media attention given to University of Virginia research that showed with just $1,000 of technology RFID encrypted cards could be cracked has caused concern in Boston, where the subway system uses the technology for its CharlieCard.

U.S. Worried That High H-1B Demand May Tempt Some to 'Game' Visa Lottery
ComputerWorld
The U.S. is concerned that some companies, desperate to get an H-1B visa, may try to "game" the random visa lottery selection process to improve their odds. To prevent that sort of interference, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service is considering regulations that would penalize any company that attempts to seek an unfair advantage for its visa petitions in the selection lottery.

Who Needs IT Experts? Workers Take Control
InformationWeek
Describing the practice as "consumerization," industry observers say savvy workers frustrated with their on-the-job computer tools are not waiting around for IT to help them, but instead pulling what they need right off the Web.

Pa. County Switches from Touch-Screen to Optical Scan E-voting Machines
ComputerWorld
The Lackawanna County, Pa., board of commissioners decided to use optical scan voting machines instead of touch-screen machines not because concerns about the controversial touch screens, but because they couldn't resolve legal concerns with the Texas company that manufactures the touch-screen machines.

What Will a Recession Mean for IT Outsourcing?
eWeek
While it seems clear the U.S. has a rough economic road ahead of it in 2008, observers have mixed views about what this might mean for outsourcing. Some argue that a depressed U.S. economic climate will make the cost savings of offshoring less dramatic, which could save jobs that were otherwise at risk of being sent.

Technologists Present Policy Recommendations to Congress
Government Technology
Chief technology officers from the world's leading computer software and hardware companies have sent a letter to U.S. House and Senate leaders requesting their support of several pending policy measures, including full funding of important high-tech initiatives in the President's FY 09 budget.

DHS Tests Northern Border Security
Federal Computer Week
While the Homeland Security Department prepares a prototype solution for protecting the northern border, new technologies already are being tested in the field, according to a 20-page report from the department’s Customs and Border Protection directorate.

Arizona Legislators Push for Transparency on Budget, Spending
The Arizona Republic
A new resolution calls for a Web site maintained by the state treasurer and the treasurers of each county, city and town to be updated monthly with details of all spending and revenue, down to whether payments were made with cash, check or debit card. The databases would have to be available by July 2010.

Wired's Danger Room blog posted an item this morning about a memo issued by the Coast Guard's leadership forbidding its employees from posting messages concerning agency business on outside blogs. "The Coast Guard headquarters Communication Center (HQ COMCEN) is designated as the only authorized CG organization to post messages to the Internet," the message read.

The message was issued in response to the Unofficial Coast Guard Blog -- which Danger Room has called "awesome" -- which at times posts unclassified messages from the Guard's internal network. Danger Room wonders if this is a crackdown or something else. Peter Stinson of the Unofficial Coast Guard Blog says, "We'll just have to wait and see."

The Risk Factor blogger Bob Charette, a risk management expert who consults with federal agencies on risk management, picked up yesterday's story on the deep trouble that the Census Bureau's handheld computer contract is in. In his blog post, he questions the credibility of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®). Harris Corp.'s Government Communications Systems Division, which is the prime contractor on the $600 million handheld contract (now likely much more than $650 million after all the costs from changes, errors and delays are included), has a Maturity Level 3 rating. "The Level 3 rating denotes superior process maturity within the division's program management, engineering, quality assurance, and other disciplines, and achievement of this rating has become a competitive differentiator on many government programs," Charette quotes.

Charette wants to know: "At the very least, I think the division's CMMI rating may need to be re-evaluated, or maybe better, the U.S. government better start looking at what, if anything, SEI CMMI Level 3 actually means in practice."

Or it could mean, the customer, the Census Bureau, put too many demands on Harris -- so many, in fact, that no maturity designation, no matter how high, could have avoided the very problems that now threaten the viability of the U.S. census.

Headlines from around the Web for Thursday, March 6, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

IT Looks for Online Video to Boost Corporate Training, Collaboration, Marketing
ComputerWorld
While a number of companies struggle to keep employees from surfing sites like YouTube during business hours, others have embraced online video as a means of training employees and disseminating information both internally and to the general public.

Homemade Robot Drives Away Drug Dealers
InformationWeek
The 'Bum Bot,' a robot pieced together from junked motorized scooters and some other odds and ends by engineer and tavern owner Rufus Terrill, has been chasing drug dealers away from an Atlanta neighborhood with a high-powered water gun.

Law Enforcement Creating Vast Data Network
The Washington Post
Several thousand law enforcement agencies are creating the foundation of a domestic intelligence system through computer networks that analyze vast amounts of police information to fight crime and root out terror plots.

Optical Scan Voting Draws Few Complaints in Ohio
Government Computer News
More than 400,000 voters went to the polls yesterday in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, using a new optical-scan system that appears to have worked with no more than the usual number of complaints in an election day plagued by foul weather and a closely contested race.

U.S. Tech Leadership Seen as Wavering
CIO Insight
American CIOs would rather be followers than leaders when it comes to adopting new technology. Only 6 percent of American CIOs surveyed responded that they wanted to be leaders in adopting new technologies vs. 15 percent among European and 19 percent among Chinese IT leaders, according to a survey of 500 global CIOs conducted late last year.

DOD CIO: Network Configuration, Scanning Softened Cyberattack Blow
Federal Computer Week
Dennis Clem, chief information officer at the Pentagon and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, explained how his network's configuration helped lessen the impact of a cyberattack last June.

Tech Companies Fight Md. Sales Tax
WashingtonTechnology
The Maryland information technology community is fighting hard against a new sales tax requiring companies to pay a 6 percent tax on the sale of computer services scheduled to go into effect July 1. Though the state legislature passed the measure in November, even state comptroller Peter Franchot thinks its a bad idea.

Who Should Bear the Cost of Tomorrow's Broadband?
InfoWorld
A panel of industry executives and analysts discussed who should foot the bill for the mega-sized data pipes that will be necessary for the predicted increase in data expected over the next several years.

Colorado Voting Bill Advances Despite Opposition
Rocky Mountain News
A paper-voting proposal cleared its first legislative hurdle Wednesday, despite stiff opposition from county clerks and Secretary of State Mike Coffman. The bill calls for voters statewide to cast paper ballots at polling places but also would allow those who ask to use electronic voting machines.

South Carolina Legislators Seeking Real ID Solution
Spartanburg Herald-Journal
As South Carolina officials debate whether to ask the Department of Homeland Security for more time to prepare for the Real ID act, residents are wondering if they'll be able to board airplanes without their passports in the next few months.

The Census Bureau has had trouble managing the costs, time lines and, most important, the performance of a contract to develop a handheld computer to collect data during the 2010 census. The cost of the contract has increased from its original $600 million to $647 million, according to a General Accounting Office report released today. If all related costs due to the handheld contract's delay and mismanagement are taken into account, GAO estimates the increase in costs for the 2010 census could range between $600 million and $2 billion.

While those overrun costs are high, many government information technology projects (and private-sector IT projects) have suffered similar fates -- with little or no repercussions for the agencies. But Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and a member of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, has suggested something new that could set a precedent for other agencies. In a committee hearing held today on the problems with the handheld contract, Coburn suggested that any cost overrun in the contract be covered by the Census Bureau cutting the budgets for programs in future budgets. This is what he said:

For years, the Census Bureau has estimated that the 2010 count will cost between $11.3 billion and $11.8 billion. I hope that the Secretary of Commerce will work to ensure that the cost does not increase beyond that, even with these trying circumstances. However, let me be perfectly clear -- if the costs go over that amount, taxpayers should not have to subsidize this mismanagement more than they already have. If more money is needed, I fully expect that the department and the bureau will work internally and with [the Office of Management and Budget] to find offsets out of programs that already exist.

The Census Bureau's total budget for fiscal 2008 is about $1.5 billion, with larger budgets coming at the end of decades to pay for conducting the decennial census. Using even the conservative estimate of a $600 million cost overrun in the hand held contract would present a financial challenge, to say the least.

Headlines from around the Web for Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

Overwhelmed By Unstructured Data, IT Pros Seek New Platforms
InformationWeek
A survey of 200 IT professionals has found that nearly one-half of the respondents (47 percent) said content management offerings today require too much effort to implement.

CIOs Still Plan To Hire Despite Economic Slowdown
InformationWeek
According to IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology, the economic downturn is not affecting the hiring plans of CIOs. In a survey conducted in January, the company found most CIOs of the 1,400 polled planned on maintaining staff levels. While stock market tumbles and news of the weakening ecomony occurred after the data was collected, Robert Half officials said they haven't experienced dampening of demand for IT talent.

Maryland Lawmakers Vote to Create State IT Department
The Baltimore Sun
The Maryland House voted 105-31 on Tuesday to create a new Department of Information Technology to focus on coordinating the state's computer networks. Currently, an office in the Department of Budget and Management handles this task.

Denver Airport keeps Wi-Fi on the Mild Side
The Denver Post
Officials say they are using prudent judgment in a public, family-friendly atmosphere in blocking sites like Vanity Fair and popular blog BoingBoing from the airport's WiFi signal. But some see it as cyber-censorship that taints Denver's self-portrayal as a progressive economy.

DHS Tests of Radiation Detectors Were Inconclusive, Report Says
The Washington Post
Department of Homeland Security performance tests of new radiation detection machines last year did not show whether the costly devices performed well enough to be used as planned at ports and borders to protect the country against nuclear attacks or dirty bombs, according to a new report about the process.

Interest in Computer Science Degrees Has Plummeted Since 2000
eWeek
While there seems to be little question in anyone's mind that interest in degrees in computers and technology have declined since 2000, two new studies sought to quantify the decline by looking at declared computer science majors, undergraduate computer science enrollments and granted computer science bachelors degrees. Both emerged with sobering numbers.

Border Security in North to Rely on Tech, Chertoff Says
Federal Computer Week
The United States’ strategy for securing its border with Canada primarily will focus on using technology, while the Homeland Security Department’s strategy for securing the southern border also includes hundreds of miles of fencing, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff told senators on the Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday.

Data as defense against IEDs
Government Computer News
DOD’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization recently began using data analysis tools that detect and monitor connections between groups and individuals to identify the potential support networks of militants staging IED attacks.

Michigan Ranks 5th in U.S. in Electronic Prescriptions
Detroit Free Press
Michigan ranks fifth in the nation for doctors who write prescriptions electronically, up from 10th two years ago, according to new national rankings released today in Washington, D.C. Still, only 16 percent of the state’s doctors write prescriptions electronically.

If you've ever gone through airport security with a laptop (and one-quarter of the flying public does), you'll know just how stressful it is trying to juggle your overcoat, briefcase and shoes while trying to pull your laptop out of its carrying case to place it in one of those gray plastic bins. It seems the Transportation Security Administration feels our pain. The agency has issued a request for information asking industry to come up with its best ideas for laptop cases that would allow TSA to scan the guts of the laptop while still in its carrying bag, according to an article posted by Government Security News. TSA's reasoning for the new bag:

If TSA was able to eliminate this requirement, it could lower passenger stress levels, increase checkpoint throughput, and reduce the number of claims TSA receives for laptops that have been damaged during screening.

It's not as easy as it sounds. TSA will not allow any zippers, pockets, clips, pens, cell phones or other paraphernalia we all stuff into laptop bag pockets to block the X-rays from viewing the inside of the laptop.

Industry has until April 17 to respond.

Revealing some of the inside frustration that comes with leaks to the press, John Grimes, chief information officer and assistant secretary of networks and information infrastructure at the Defense Department, said a “disloyal” person was to blame for disclosing information about President Bush’s Cyber Initiative, reportedly totaling several billion dollars.

It was unclear whether the disloyal individual Grimes referred to in his morning session at the Information Processing Interagency Conference was the person inside government that leaked the information or the reporter with The Wall Street Journal that decided to run with the story. Regardless, he seemed to take personally the release of details on the White House cybersecurity directive signed by President Bush in January.

“We did not want this public until we got [various issues] resolved,” including those relating to privacy, Grimes said, referencing the numerous hearings that have been scheduled since the story broke. each hearing requires executives at Defense, the departments of Homeland Security and State, and the Office of National Intelligence to prepare to testify.

“This comes down to political [culture] of decisions,” Grimes said. “Whether an attack is an act of war or criminal -- who makes that decision?”

Reports from news outlets seem to have prompted the release of some details – though not many – about the cybersecurity initiative. Most recently, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff released remarks made to a roundtable of bloggers.

"We are beginning our cyberstrategy," he said. "That will not be done this year, but I'm hoping we can get it, a cybercenter, up and running, and have a full set of plans and a funding budget to move forward over the next several years to get to the next level of cybersecurity."

Headlines from around the Web for Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

Robots to the Nurses' Station, Stat!
NetworkWorld
Called "Tug" and "Homer," the robots from Aethon Inc. deliver drugs and track medical equipment at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst, N.C. CIO Dave Dillehunt estimates using the robots has already saved the hospital $150,000 a year.

Gates to Appear Again Before Congress on Eve of H-1B Visa Rush
ComputerWorld
Bill Gates will likely renew his appeal for more foreign workers to be allowed into the country when he testifies before the House Committee on Science and Technology on March 12. The timing of Gates' appearance on Capitol Hill is potentially explosive, as the start of the annual application rush for H-1B visas will begin less than three weeks after he testifies.

Virginia Supreme Court: No First Amendment Right To Spam
InformationWeek
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday narrowly upheld the felony conviction of Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., for illegal spamming, rejecting his claims that falsifying message headers is protected under the First Amendment right of free speech.

Minnesota Sues Maker of Breath Testers Used in DWI Arrests
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Minnesota has sued CMI Inc., maker of the state's 260 breath-testing devices, to turn over the machines' computer code as hundreds of defendents in drunken driving cases have sought court orders to inspect the code. CMI has refused, stating the code is proprietary information.

Companies Rally for More IT Work Visas
Federal Computer Week
With the April 1 application deadline for H-1B Visas approaching, the Compete America coalition, which includes many IT companies such as Boeing, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, are asking lawmakers to raise the 65,000 annual cap on the visas for highly skilled foreign workers.

Voting Technology Remains an Issue at the Polls
Government Computer News
Many voting precincts began dumping mechanical lever systems and paper ballots in favor of electronic systems following the 2000 election. But questions about the reliability and security of computer-based touch screen systems have led some precincts to abandon them.

McCain Calls Virtual Border Fence in Arizona a 'Disgrace'
The Arizona Daily Star
McCain said fence contractor Boeing Corp. did not consult with states, the U.S. Border Patrol and other agencies as it spent money on the 28-mile array of radars and surveillance cameras. He said it is disappointing when a major contractor gets a contract that turns into a failed effort.

A Virtual Travel Agent With All the Answers
The New York Times
Alaska Airlines Web site now features a virtual assistant named Jenn. Designed by the NextIT Corporation, she uses natural-language communications to retrieve information and even ask follow-up questions to clarify intent.

The administration’s top IT official bid an early farewell to government and industry IT workers at the 2008 Information Processing Interagency Conference in Orlando, Fla., Monday before announcing the winners of government project management awards.

Acknowledging the approaching end of the Bush administration, Karen Evans, administrator of the office of e-government and information technology at the Office of Management and Budget, called her fifth keynote at IPIC “bittersweet.” She then acknowledged the work of agencies to achieve the goals of the e-government initiatives, which identified several governmentwide programs to integrate agency operations and information technology investments.

“It isn’t work OMB has done; the work is done by vendors that help the agencies and the agency [IT administrators],” Evans said.

Recipients of government project management awards, some of which Evans announced Monday and others that will be announced at a Tuesday session, were recognized for programs that demonstrate excellence in project management:

Cost Savings/Cost Avoidance
Winner: NASA’s Shared Services Center
Winner: The Office of Personnel Management’s Human Resources Integration

Retooling the Infrastructure
Winners: The Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Campus Camera and Emergency Call Station System; and the Interior Department’s 104 Mainframe Efficiency Improvement Project

Service-Oriented Architecture
Winner: DHS’ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Enterprise Service Bus

Digital Trust-Infrastructure Security
Winner: GSA’s Managed Service Offering USACCESS Program

Identity Management-Biometrics
Winner: Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Quick Capture Platform

Delivering Mission Services/Practical Innovations
Winner: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ ATF Knowledge On Line

Delivering Mission Services/Practical Innovations
Winner: Small Business Administration’s Business Gateway Initiative

Amid congressional hearings accusing the White House of improperly saving electronic records, another federal organization is promoting services that provide access to all sorts of government (and non-government) resources.

In March, the Library of Congress will launch a monthly online newsletter as part of its National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program to provide a digest of recent news, with links to stories on the program’s Web site. The program is driven by a national network of partners -- government agencies, educational institutions, research laboratories, and commercial and nonprofit organizations -- dedicated to the collection and preservation of “born-digital content." That's content that was created digitally and exists in no other form, such as electronic journals and Web sites, films, television programs, sound recordings, maps and other media that are digitally produced.

Those interested can subscribe to the newsletter online.

Headlines from around the Web for Monday, March 3, 2008
Compiled by Melanie Bender

Government Records Incorrectly Kill off Thousands, and There’s No Easy Fix
MSNBC
Tens of thousands of living, breathing Americans have wrongly been declared dead by the Social Security Administration, causing their tax returns to be rejected and banks and credit cards to close their accounts, among other things.

Identity Management Critical for Security, Government IT Shops Say
NetworkWorld
A survey of 474 government IT professionals conducted by public-opinion research firm Pursuant found a majority of government IT organizations say identity management is very important to securing their networks and will become even more so over the next five years, but that funding to keep pace is a major impediment to growth.

Cyber Storm II Stirring for Governments
Federal Computer Week
The Department of Homeland Security is getting ready to lead foreign governments, corporations, states and federal agencies in a weeklong simulation designed to better prepare the players for cyberattacks. The event will focus on participants' abilities to respond to cyberattacks on information technology, communications, chemical and transportation infrastructure.

FTC Data: Telcos, Banks are Top Targets for ID Theft
CSO Online
Compromised accounts within just 25 companies account for nearly half of the identity theft complaints filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, according to recently released FTC data compiled by the University of California, Berkeley.

Red-Light Cameras: Safety Tool or Moneymaker?
The Daily Herald
Debate has cropped up around red-light cameras as towns across Illinois continue to contract the devices. Officials stress the goal of the electronic eyes is to modify driving behavior and reduce accidents, while critics say it's all about municipalities eyeing dollar signs.

Delegate's Obsession a Benefit to the Web
The Baltimore Sun
Maryland Del. Curtis S. Anderson obsessively creates profiles of his fellow state legislators for the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, garnering the bemusement of his colleagues in Annapolis.

Company Blames Poll Workers for Errors in Jersey Primary
The Star-Ledger
Sequoia Voting Systems, the manufacturer of New Jersey's voting machines, blamed poll workers yesterday for the errors discovered in the presidential primary results, claiming poll workers pushed the wrong buttons on the control panels causing the machines to report errors in the voter turnout.

SC: The Ultimate Online Experience? School
The Post and Courier
South Carolina Connections Academy, an Internet-based charter school, will enroll 500 students in its online kindergarten through 12th-grade program. The state's first virtual charter school, it will require students to meet all of South Carolina's standards and to take the same standardized tests.

Cyberspace Central to the New Art of War
The Washington Post
Testimony before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee last week centered on the need for preparedness for warfare conducted in space and cyberspace. Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, head of U.S. Strategic Command, highlighted U.S. Armed Forces efforts already geared toward protecting U.S. interests in cyberspace.