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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.

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.

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."

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.

The following item was posted by Anne Laurent, former executive editor of Government Executive magazine.

The folks over at Evolution of Security, the Transportation Security Administration's new blog, want you to know just how much nasty language and how many mean-spirited attacks they've suffered through. So, starting today, they've added a ticker showing how many posts to the blog its moderator has decided not to let see the light of day. The meter stood at 105 on opening day and will be updated weekly.

Just beneath it on the blog appears a link to the evil doing that will get you blocked, such things as personal attacks, profanity and threats, of course, but also, long embedded url strings, sensitive information and the ever pesky off-topic comment. Author "Glen" says that other than the proscribed topics, "all's fair in love and blogging."

In truth, Evolution of Security isn't bad for government work. One post details the story of the priest with razor blades in his Bible and others reveal the growing presence of security "zip lanes" that allow travelers with only carry-ons that will fit under the seat to "zip on through." What's more, TSA fearlessly links to Schneier on Security the blog of security guru and self-proclaimed curmudgeon, Bruce Schneier, as well as to Homeland Security Watch, neither of which are always complimentary.

A lesson in how the law has yet to catch up to the Internet era is playing out in San Francisco. A federal judge there has ordered the domain registrar for a Web site that allows users to post leaked confidential information in the hopes of "discouraging 'unethical behavior' by corporations and governments, according to a New York Times article. The case involves a former employee for a Cayman Islands bank who provided the Web site (Wikileaks.org) with documents that violated a confidentiality agreement and banking laws. The documents show the bank allegedly involved in money laundering and tax evasion.

While the order has been portrayed as a test of First Amendment rights in the Internet Age (and for the Web site, called ), it's also an example of how unsuitable judicial authority is when it comes to the Internet. As the Times points out:

Judge White ordered [domain registrar] Dynadot to disable the Wikileaks.org address and “lock” it to prevent the organization from transferring the name to another registrar.

The feebleness of the action suggests that the bank, and the judge, did not understand how the domain system works, or how quickly Web communities will move to counter actions they see as hostile to free speech online.

The site itself could still be accessed at its Internet Protocol address (http://88.80.13.160/) — the unique number that specifies a Web site’s location on the Internet. Wikileaks also maintained “mirror sites,” or copies usually produced to ensure against failures and this kind of legal action. Some sites were registered in Belgium (http://wikileaks.be/), Germany (http://wikileaks.de) and the Christmas Islands (http://wikileaks.cx) through domain registrars other than Dynadot, and so were not affected by the injunction.

Fans of the site and its mission rushed to publicize those alternate addresses this week. They have also distributed copies of the bank information on their own sites and via peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

The following item was posted by Anne Laurent.

More news about NASA and virtual worlds.

This weekend's Virtual Worlds and Immersive Environments conference was held at the space agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Two days with some big names in virtual worlds should place NASA even more squarely on the virtual government map than it has been. NASA already has issued a call for help creating its own synthetic world and multiplayer immersive game.

Here are the organizing principles for the confab:

1. We all get to go: The ability to engage anyone in being a part of or contributing to an experience (such as a space mission), no matter their training or location. A new paradigm for education, outreach, and the conduct of science in society that is truly participatory.

2. Remote Exploration: The ability to create high-fidelity environments rendered from external data or models such that exploration, design and analysis that is truly inter-operable with the physical world can take place within them.

3. Become the data: A vision of a potential future where boundaries between the physical and the virtual have ceased to be meaningful. What would this future look like? Is this plausible? Is it desirable? Why and why not.

NASA is hosting some big virtual world names. Among the lecturers will be Corey Bridges, who founded Multiverse, a company of former Netscape folks who want to put the tools of synthetic world creation into the hands of the masses, so to speak.

Underlying NASA's growing interest and presence in the virtual world appears to be a belief that it's more than just a place to attract kids to science. NASA seems to be envisioning a future in which space missions occur not just in physical outerspace, but simultaneously in the ethernet.

Here's a telling quote from the conference welcome: “This workshop will focus specifically on the convergence of underlying technologies necessary to achieve high-fidelity virtual environment experiences, and possible architectures of that convergence. There will be a particular emphasis on how these technologies can support scientific and engineering visualization and analysis.”

Kind of gives new meaning to the idea of “space,” eh?

The following item was written by Anne Laurent.

NASA wants to do more than just seek new worlds, it wants to create one.

The day after Valentine’s Day, the space agency hopes to receive a pile of five-page proposals detailing how it should go about creating a synthetic online world and a multiplayer game within it. The goal is to lure more youngsters into science, technology, engineering and math professions that NASA needs to achieve its lofty plan to return to the Moon and to build a spacecraft to carry humans to Mars.

In its Jan. 16 request for information, NASA seeks the input of organizations that already operate immersive synthetic environments that would be interested in partnering to develop a new online world and educational role-playing game.

“A high quality synthetic gaming environment is a vital element of NASA’s educational cyberstructure,” according to the RFI. “This new synthetic world would be a collaborative work and meeting space as well as a game space of a kind familiar to increasing numbers of American students. Games and challenges in the [massively multiplayer online educational game] would engage students in a way that is both familiar and comfortable for them.”

It won’t be NASA’s first foray into the synthetic universe. The agency already has a presence in the best known of the dozens of virtual worlds, Second Life. NASA’s “island” in Second Life houses a virtual CoLab, a digital version of a program begun at the agency’s Ames Research Center in San Francisco to allow collaboration between NASA and individuals in support of space missions.





Other federal agencies also have outposts in Second Life. Perhaps the best known is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Meterora, where visitors can ride a submarine, view tsunami demonstrations, ride a weather balloon and a hurricane hunter plane and interact with a real-time 3-D weather map of the United States.





The Crawford Auditorium on NOAA’s island hosted the virtual version of the first gathering of the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds, “Exploring Virtual Worlds,” in November and held live at the National Defense University in Washington. (175 people attended in the real world, 182 in NOAA’s auditorium.) The Centers for Disease Control, which has had a Second Life presence since August, also was on hand.

Web sites developed by U.S. senators and representatives still have a long way to go to take full advantage of the Internet, according to a recent report released by the Congressional Management Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan group advocating a more effective Congress.

In its fourth report on congressional Web sites, CMF concluded, "Despite some bright spots, overall the quality of congressional Web sites continues to be disappointing. The most common letter grade earned by congressional Web sites in 2007 was a “D”— the same as in 2006." (While CMF identified the gold, silver and bronze winners -- those Web sites that received an A+, A, or A-, respectively , it did not identify those Web sites receiving an F or a D, which accounted for about 42 percent of all congressional Web sites.)

Who are more technically adept, Democrats or Republicans? House Democrats slightly edged out their Republican colleagues in getting a larger share of CMF's top award, the Gold Mouse Award, given the proportion of seats they hold. Democrats were awarded 57 percent of the gold awards vs. 43 percent for the Republicans. (Democrats hold 54 percent of the House seats.)

It was the opposite story in the Senate, with three of the four Gold Mouse Awards going to the Republicans. (Democrats hold a slight majority in the Senate, 51 - 49.)

Also, only 6 percent of all U.S. representatives received a Gold Mouse Award, while only 4 percent of senators did.

Those receiving CMF's Gold Mouse Award for 2007 include:

Rep. Tom Allen (D-ME)
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA)
Rep. John Boozman (R-AR)
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL)
Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN)
Rep. Christopher P. Carney (D-PA)
Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL)
Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA)
Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-NJ)
Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA)
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA)
Rep. John Linder (R-GA)
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY)
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA)
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
Rep. Jerry Moran (R-KS)
Rep. Patrick J. Murphy (D-PA)
Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ)
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA)
Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-CA)
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT)
Sen. John Thune (R-SD)

CMF, in partnership with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, the University of California-Riverside, and Ohio State University, measured Web sites in six areas: legislative content, press resources, state or district information, constituent services and communication tools.

Starting tomorrow, the first of the 78 million baby boomers become eligible for early retirement benefits, and the Social Security Administration hopes the more computer savvy of the boomers will turn to the agency's Web site for information, according to The Dallas Morning News.

"Look online first," Wes Davis, a Social Security spokesman in Dallas, told the paper. "If that's not possible, call our toll-free number [1-800-772-1213] or make an appointment to visit one of our offices."

Phone calls and office visits are more likely to be the preferred choice to gather retirement information, we think. Unlike their children (maybe their children's children?), who grew up with easy access to cell phones, laptops and other electronic gadgets, the first boomers (born in 1946) were well into their thirties before desktop PCs and cell phones were commonplace, and over 50 before the Internet was used routinely. We'll track SSA's Web traffic to see if it experiences any unusual traffic. But we're guessing the traffic will be more on foot and over land lines.

A group called Techno Patriots in Southern Arizona has set up its own version of the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative Network, called SBInet, replete with wireless cameras. The group says its do-it-yourself version has a better response time than the problem plagued Boeing-built DHS system, according to an article in the Sierra-Vista, Ariz., Herald.

Techno Patriots, which describes itself on its Web site as “basically a high tech Neighborhood Watch group on the border,” said it has installed a commercial grade wireless Internet infrastructure in Cochise County, Ariz., the most highly trafficked smuggling area in the United States.

The group said it has installed video cameras on this infrastructure, which are then monitored by its members, who keep an eye out for illegal immigrants. Techno Patriots said it can easily shift the cameras from one location to another and intends to eventually operate the system 365 days a year.

John Healy, the group’s director, told the Herald that the cameras used by Techno Patriots can be controlled remotely with a joystick, with only a two- to five-second delay from joystick touch to camera movement, compared to a 30- to 40-second delay for the SBInet cameras.

Techno Patriots may have some pretty nifty camera technology, but its Web site needs some work. I tried to use the “Contact Us” page to send an email to the group, only to receive a dreaded HTTP 404 “page not found” message.

A senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University has characterized federal agencies’ efforts to post data and documents online as a perfunctory exercise and calls for legislation to force agencies to make more information available and searchable online. That way, public policy can be improved because more people can access and manipulate government information.

Jerry Brito, in his working paper “Hack, Mash & Peer: Crowdsourcing Government Transparency,” writes:

Unfortunately, many of the statutory requirements for disclosure do not take Internet technology into account. For example, the 1978 Ethics in Government Act requires the disclosure of financial information -- including the source, type, and amount of income -- by many federal employees, elected officials, and candidates for office, including the president and vice president, and members of Congress. The act further requires that all filings be available to the public. One might imagine, then, that every representative or senator’s information would be just a Web search away, but one would be wrong.

He adds that, “Even when public information is available online, it is often not available in an easily accessible form. If data is difficult to search for and find, the effect might be the same as if it were not online.”

Brito attributes the lack of online, searchable information to “bureaucratic inertia” and to “no incentive, and often a disincentive, to make public information easily accessible.”

Brito calls for agencies to make information “meaningfully publicly available and in today’s day and age this means it should be made available online” and to put “data online in structured, open, and searchable formats.”

To do this, Brito calls for legislation. “The most obvious route to this goal is legislation that mandates online disclosure. Any such legislation, however, must take care to ensure that it lays all parts of the foundation.” He also argues for why it is government’s role to do this, and not the private sector:

First, government holds the digital originals of the data and can ensure the integrity and quality of the data made available online. ... Second, while exact figures are difficult to estimate, the marginal cost to the government of presenting its data in a useful format is certainly less than the cost incurred by third parties to devise and maintain clever hacks [defined by Brito as “a modification of a program or device to give the user access to features that were otherwise unavailable to them”] to siphon otherwise difficult-to-access government data. Finally, not all desirable government data can be hacked and made available by third parties. The major obstacle is that the government has not made some data available online. Online availability is a foundational piece that can only be addressed by government, and to the extent it makes new information available online, as we have just seen, it makes most sense for it to do so in useful formats.

The following item was posted by Government Executive's Jill Aitoro.

AmeriCorps, a network of local, state, and national service programs, is considering jumping into social networking. According to Matt Harmon, Webmaster for the Corporation for National and Community Service, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are perfect venues for recruitment and awareness, with social networking members typically ranging in their late teens to mid-20s. While still only in the idea stage, Harmon hopes to develop a Web page or pages that would bring service alums together to talk about their experiences and provide first-hand knowledge to those interested in getting involved in AmeriCorps. At the risk of shameless self promotion, recruits could download from the page necessary forms, link to the agency’s Web site, write blogs, and so on.

Some consumer groups in the United Kingdom are concerned that Wi-Fi signals may be harmful to young children and have convinced the a U.K. public health advisor to take on a $600,000 study to determine if the signals can harm health, according to an article posted by telegraph.co.uk. The groups are concerned that Wi-Fi signals, which "are very low power, typically 0.1 watt in both the computer and the router," according to the article, could affect children in classrooms where the Wi-Fi signals are emitted to experience "fatigue, memory and concentration problems, irritability and bad behaviour." And that would be different from . . . ?

That’s just one of the messages delivered yesterday by Hugo Teufel III, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, at a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) conference in Washington.

Teufel said the privacy Web site, shows the agency is as serious about protecting privacy as it is about protecting borders. But Teufel wishes more people would visit the site; he said it may be one of the least visited federal Web sites out there.

Tuefel, who has the only privacy gig in any federal agency or department mandated by law, turns out to be a passionate advocate for privacy. DHS, Tuefel said, needs to ensure it protects privacy and civil liberties so it can succeed in its mission in combating terrorism. Teufel says this includes transparency, data minimization and accountability to make sure projects such as those that would use RFID for personal identification (like the planned Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative), don’t erode civil liberties through technology assessments such as last year’s paper on the use of RFID for human technology verification.

Teufel says he is well aware that the United States was founded by “people with a profound distrust of the government” and strives to insure that DHS policies and practices do not cause distrust today.

I admire his strong stance and position, but have to contrast it with DHS efforts to ram through the Real ID Act, which requires high-tech driver's licenses meet federal standards and which is opposed by an increasing number of states. This summer DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff told the National Conference of State Legislatures that residents of states who do not comply with the REAL ID Act by May 2008 will need to show their passports for all "federal purposes,” including, presumably, entering any federal building including local post offices.

Somehow, the thought of having to produce a passport to buy a stamp at the post office in my hometown of Las Vegas, N.M., (if New Mexico does not adopt Real ID driver's licenses) does not make me feel more secure, or that DHS really cares about privacy or that top DHS management understands citizens still have a deep distrust of government.

The online spoof news mag The Onion likes to routinely poke fun at NASA, and today brings another installment. The Onion staff makes fun of NASA's technological aptitude, writing that NASA has "an ambitious plan" to make the Johnson Space Center in Houston wireless. Within a decade. For only $655 million. "While the building that houses the public affairs office can currently pick up a weak Wi-Fi signal from a Starbucks across the street," The Onion cracks, "the Johnson Space Center as a whole is far from being the 'giant Wi-Fi hotspot' [NASA Administrator Michael] Griffin envisions." More yucks from the article:

Griffin said that the agency has also recruited seven information technology specialists from some of the nation's top white-collar regional workplaces. The seven mission specialists in the newly dubbed "Internet Explorer" program are being rigorously trained to install the theoretical wireless devices in an Earth-gravity environment in which they could encounter potentially arduous conditions such as poor air ventilation and lifeless workscapes.

My colleague Tom Shoop has chronicled other Onion parodies, one on the Department of Evil and another on NASA's plan to launch $700 million into space.

The State Department's official group blog for diplomats worldwide took it on the chin today. Washington Post columnist Al Kamen, in his "In the Loop" column, wrote, tongue in cheek, that the Dipnote blog's goal -- to offer an alternative to mainstream media reports on U.S. foreign policy -- "is what we've all been waiting for! ... Unbiased news directly from the federal government, a news source long noted for truthful, unbiased reporting."

However, Kamen acknowledges that "the blog appears to be getting a tremendous response worldwide and -- with the exception of people complaining that the type is too small and that the white print on a black background makes it hard to read -- readers have been overwhelmingly positive."

Dipnote didn't receive any tip of the hat from Wonkette, the Washington, D.C., political blog. Wonkette posted an item today calling Dipnote "an almost comical failure" and that the blog is a "fine new diplomatic propaganda effort."

Typically, in the interactive world of blogs, you'd expect a response. None from Dipnote, yet.

The State Department wasn't the only agency that launched a group blog this week. The Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC), part of the General Services Administration's Office of Citizen Services, went online this week with GovGab. (The FCIC, according to its Web site, "provides the answers to questions about the federal government and everyday consumer issues whether citizens write, call or log on.”)

“The purpose of our blog is to highlight government services and information that many people may not know about and show them how to use it in their everyday lives," according to an email Government Executive received about the blog. GovGab’s five bloggers so far have written about online apartment hunting resources, international travel tips, lost luggage, free online photo services, and saving energy.

Another new blog comes from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who started blogging Sept. 12. In the first entry of his blog Leadership Journal, Chertoff wrote, "I’ve started this journal to open a dialogue with the American people about our nation’s security."

In that blog post, titled "Is 9/11 Fading?," Chertoff also writes, "I know these family members [of passengers killed on the planes used in the terrorist attacks] and responders will never forget what happened to our country six years ago. I am concerned, however, that for some Americans, the reality of 9/11 is fading."

Right off the bat, Chertoff seems to have met his goal to open a dialogue with Americans. That first post had received 33 comments by this afternoon. The comments ranged from avid support ("The fact that there has not been another terrorist attack on America since 9-11 speaks well of you and your department. Thank you," an anonymous commenter wrote) to sharp criticism ("[E]verytime an illegal alien escapes across our border and assaults our children ,we Americans are reminded about 9/11 and the terrorism your dept , does not protect us from. We live in fear," wrote jorge, and "Why do you think people are finding it harder and harder to believe anything you say?" wrote durandel.).

In another blog post, Chertoff takes on a New York Times editorial criticizing DHS for a poor organizational policy for FEMA. Chertoff’s latest post is about privacy. ("We view privacy as a fundamental human right and that’s why preserving it is an integral part of our mission.") The only commenter as of this afternoon links to a sharp critique of Chertoff's post.

So far, most comments in the Leadership Journal blog reflect an American public fearful, frustrated and skeptical about DHS' ability to fight terrorism. How Chertoff and DHS use this feedback (understanding that most people who comment are motivated by negative emotions, not positive ones) will determine how successful the Leadership Journal blog is. That goes for State's DipNote and the less controversial Gov Gab.

This post was updated at 2:09 pm, Thursday, Sept. 27.

Update: The State Department now has made it clear on its Web site how to access its diplomatic group blog, Dipnote. Look for this link in the middle of the page:

This post was updated at 12:43 pm, Wednesday, Sept. 26.

Update: It looks like the State Department did launch its Dipnote blog yesterday, as promised, with the hope that "Dipnote will provide you with a window into the work of the people responsible for our foreign policy, and will give you a chance to be active participants in a community focused on some of the great issues of our world today." The site is already attracting comments, with 18 comments posted so far. Entries include one from Tara Rigler, a civil servant working as the Deputy Press Attaché at U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India, on what it's like "to live overseas for the U.S. Department of State." Another post from Kristen Silverberg, assistant secretary for International Organization Affairs, who writes about the U.S. agenda at the United Nations.

The public has commented on most of the blog posts. "Brianna in Wisconsin" wrote in response to Dipnote's question of the week ("What should determine who should be allowed to possess nuclear technology and who should not?"), "If one country is able to posses nuclear weapons I feel another country should be able to, to. Fair is fair we don't govern the world and we should stop acting like we do."

And Joe wrote in response to the blog's introduction, "We'll see if this is gonna be another partisan hack job."

Now, if State could just make it easier to find Dipnote.

The original post follows:

As reported by the Associated Press, the State Department intended to launch yesterday a group blog written by "senior [State Department] players in Washington and abroad." Called "Dipnote," the blog, according to the AP, aims to give an insiders view into the diplomatic process and a way for Americans to comment on foreign policy. State intended for the first blog items to be written on "the annual [United Nations] meeting in New York City and the role that the department's diplomatic security agents play in protecting the foreign dignitaries that swarm Manhattan for the event," according to the AP.

But Dipnote does not appear on the State Department Web site, and a search does not return any results. Blogging Lesson One: For those who blog, finding time in a busy day to write frequent posts is the first challenge. We're sure it was a long day for the security agents.