The United States Government (USG) is in dire need of strong, visionary CIO leadership to fix the myriad of Information Technology (IT) issues which plague the numerous disparate government agencies such a position is designed to oversee. The USG has long needed visionary leadership, but the current proliferation of IT assets deployed throughout the agencies is at a boiling point – a point requiring reconciliation before a major collapse occurs.
Currently browsing Posts Tagged “government”
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U.S. Government Needs Visionary CIO Leadership for 21st Century Success
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
RECOVERY[dot]gov – The Transparency Experiment
Posted by Rich Chuckrey in Articles
Taking into account the substantial improvements made in technology through to this 21st century, we can easily say the US Government is long overdue in bringing its people a transparent look into civil service dealings.
President Barack Obama appears set to reverse the tide of secrecy and ambiguity in how the US has does business — starting with — Recovery.gov.
Obama had this to say:
We’ll launch an unprecedented effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov.
Obama’s New Blackberry? Ugly Gets The Job Done!
Posted by Jim Mills in Articles
There’s a lot of talk lately about Obama’s Blackberry and what choices he will have once he enters his presidency. What initially shocked me was the lack of understanding by the general public when it comes to secure devices.
Engadget shed some light on the only two devices NSA has approved for use by government and DoD personnel.
Fleecing of the Government – IT Contractor Severely Overcharging for Classified Spillage Cleaning
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
Another day, another fine example of an IT contractor unnecessarily fleecing the government. This time we have EDS, the technology services company who administers the Navy/Marine Corp Intranet (NMCI), severely overcharging for “classified spillage” cleaning efforts.
The Navy report from October disclosed that in fiscal 2008 there were 52 incidents of classified data being placed on unclassified electronic systems, about half of them Pacific Fleet and Naval Education and Training Command systems, and a total of 37 were on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, the massive unclassified computer network used for command and control on more than 350,000 military computers.
Current reports have EDS charging the Navy to the tune of approximately $5 million annually, a figure roughly 10 times the cost of merely replacing the infected hard disk drives with new ones.
Why Obama Losing His Blackberry Is Asinine
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
Like most folks in the beltway, President-elect Barack Obama is a Blackberry addict. Obama lives on his handheld, using the device to stay in touch with the “outside” world. With all the idle time sitting in a vehicle, transiting in helicopters and airplanes, a Blackberry is an essential device for staying in touch with everything from information to important people. Unfortunately for the President-elect, government lawyers are poised to issue an opinion may ultimately force Obama to give up the one habit he should be allowed to keep, even if such a policy is completely asinine!
DoD Has No Desire to Mitigate Windows Dependency
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
The United States Department of Defense is one of the largest consumers of Microsoft’s Windows family of operating systems. There are certainly a small number of organizations with a larger install base, but definitely not one as distributed, inter-connected and solely dependent upon Windows to complete just about every facet of work accomplished. The reliance solely on Windows, from the end-user workstation to the back-end server farm, is a huge risk which DoD has shown no desire to mitigate.
There are a staggering number of workstations required for the warfighters throughout DoD. Approximately 95% of these systems are WinTel, with only a very small number being Unix based. However, even the Unix based workstations are merely virtual Windows sessions – although the host OS is Unix, the user is performing all work within Windows!
The reliance on Windows is the single biggest weakness in the DoD information assurance strategy. Our adversaries know what we run and use that knowledge to craft specific attacks aimed directly at Windows. The Windows family of operating systems are riddled with vulnerabilities if not properly maintained – this delicate foundation has allowed attackers to compromise DoD networks at-will.
One Portal, Under God
Posted by Rich Chuckrey in Articles
Just as the Pledge of Allegiance stirs up controversy, so does the United States’ e-government effort to serve up a viable web portal for its citizens.
After a search [for what I expect should be a Yahoo!-like portal] on the [dot] GOV network, I found USA.GOV. The URL itself holds significant marketability and it makes for top billet and easy recognition in a web search. But, after entering the USA.GOV site, I was sent off into an one-way labyrinth of chaos and calamity.
The $100K Tech Contractor
Posted by Rich Chuckrey in Articles
It is hard to believe what IT engineers expect in the way of compensation nowadays — especially those in civil service. I would moreover expect a sense of urgency and introspect from anyone pulling down a decent salary [especially from the United States Government]. However, the complacency madness marches on.
With the U.S. economy crumbling and jobs evaporating, it is time to listen to the alarms and rise to the occasion. What makes you worth your weight in pay? Let’s take a look at just a few points-
Ramping IT Up
Posted by Rich Chuckrey in Articles
Rich Chuckrey here. The agenda is simple: blog on current real-world technology employing critical analysis, fair reporting and raw opinion. The goal is to leave no IT stone unturned. We will look at topics like Microsoft’s attempt to buy Yahoo [now without the Jerry Yang roadblock], upcoming IT initiatives under Barrack Obama’s administration, current Web 2.0 vs. The Semantic Web vs. Web 3.0, and anything else technical and worthy of bringing into the TechMiso spotlight.
Involved in IT policy and planning for an organization inside the U.S. Department of Defense, I consider government a prime target for criticism and review. A good chunk of my content will also be spent targeting IT issues in and around government — Uncovering deficiencies [and efficiencies] in projects, procurement, budget, security and staffing while closely inspecting their influential factors — good and bad. I will provide comment on IT decisions made in government offices from the President on down to our small town Mayors.
IT Fleecing of the Government
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
It is commonly understood that the United States government pays hand over fist for even the most minute product, regardless whether tangible or otherwise. I grew up hearing stories about nuts and bolts for production aircraft purchased by the Air Force costing thousands of dollars when the company should have charged the government orders of magnitude less. Even after being bombarded with story after story, I chalked it all up to competitor jealousy.
My entire perspective was forever changed after I started working with the government as a contractor for the United States. Even though I was in the Navy for almost 9 years, and worked hand-in-hand with many contractors, I never really was privy to what you see when you work directly for a company who has a contract with the government, especially the Department of Defense.
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