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Army Col. John Diaz: Creating Combat-Ready Cyber Warriors

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This is the first in a series of profiles featuring 2012 U.S. Government Information Security Leadership Award (GISLA) winners. The winners received the awards in October from (ISC)2 a nonprofit serving certified information security professionals and administrators.

During a time of significant demand for — and an equally significant shortage of — skilled cyber security professionals, Commander of the Army Reserve Information Operations Command (ARIOC), Col. John Diaz assembled and led a 10-person cadre that set a training strategy into motion that systematically transforms ARIOC’s workforce into elite combat-ready cyber warriors. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 6, 2012 at 11:00 AM

Gadgets Answer Key Election Questions: Where Do I Go? Who’s On My Ballot?

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This week, millions of voters will confront not only the decision of who to vote for, but also the more mundane questions of where and when to vote, whether they need to bring identification, and who or what exactly will be on the ballot.

Despite the march of technology that makes that information available online to more and more people, finding the correct information for a given voting district has been a continuing challenge for veteran and prospective voters alike, as well as state and local election officials. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 5, 2012 at 8:00 AM

Chevron, NASA Team Up For High-Tech Exploration

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Chevron has teamed up with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to bring space-age techniques to down-to-Earth energy exploration and production involving increasingly harsh environments. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 2, 2012 at 2:00 PM

After Sandy, Intelligence Agencies Scramble To Feed Maps, Data To Rescuers

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As FEMA, firemen, police and the National Guard wade into the devastation visited upon us by Hurricane Sandy, many of them are using maps and other information made available to them by intelligence agencies.

While intelligence analysts and their technical specialists usually spend their time targeting bad guys and helping troops plan to get them, some of them have gotten the rare and welcome chance to help their own countrymen at home several times since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 30, 2012 at 4:45 PM

Google Offers Mashup Lessons For Hurricane Sandy Disaster WebSites

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The National Weather Service, FEMA, and other federal agencies have come along way in using the Internet and mobile applications to inform and interact with citizens during natural disasters.

The ability of agencies and other relief organizations to rally during a crisis, however, is frequently hamstrung by technical and organizational challenges that inevitably arise in the midst of the crises. Large volumes of traffic can overwhelm or crash websites. Key personnel may themselves be unable to access networks remotely due to the impact of disasters. And data sources can also get backlogged. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 29, 2012 at 11:45 AM

Day of Reckoning For Open Source Software May Be Coming

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Open source software has long been touted as the antidote to monolithic, buggy, and security-challenged software packages developed by the industry’s 800-pound gorillas.

But a presentation from the National Security Agency (NSA) during a technology symposium last week presented a stark warning for the proponents of open source software: Get your house in order because sooner or later government and industry customers are going to demand verifiable information about where your software came from, who developed it, who had access to the code, and whether or not you can vouch for its security. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 29, 2012 at 9:01 AM

Pentagon Issues Buying Rules For Zombie Apocalypse (Hint: Parody)

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Everyone knows the global zombie apocalypse is coming soon. I’m here to tell you the military acquisition community needs to take it as seriously as the CDC does. If we’re going to survive the Day / Night / Return / Dawn / Shaun of the Living / Evil / Walking Dead, we’re gonna need some rules. For the convenience of my fellow military technologists, I respectfully offer the following:

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This story comes courtesy of our colleagues at Breaking Defense.
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Rule 1: Small Business
More than 1.05 million people are employed in the US aerospace and defense industry. These individuals are often found in big companies and are regularly described as having “big brains.” This concentration of larger than average cranial volume makes these companies prime zombie targets. The most reliable projections indicate complete zombification of all major defense contractors within 28 hours of the initial outbreak. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 26, 2012 at 4:35 PM

Opportunity In Open Source Data

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Richard Haycock, Director of Government for BAE Systems Detica, talks about the explosion in system, third party and open source data available to government .


He also describes how it provides an opportunity to offer better services to citizens, at lower cost and with a reduced risk of fraud and error. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 26, 2012 at 2:00 PM

Memo To Incoming Leaders: Think Virtual Reorganization And Turbocharged IT

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The federal government is on the brink of a perfect storm of management challenges. For better or worse, that also presents the nation’s leaders with an opportunity to dramatically reshape how it delivers services, in part by embracing digital technology in new and more powerful ways.

Either way, national leaders moving into new positions at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in the coming few weeks will have to look seriously at real and “virtual” ways of reorganizing federal bureaucracies, say a group of public administration experts. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 25, 2012 at 7:46 PM

Former Officials Urge OMB To Update Federal Cybersecurity Policy

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“Our (cyber) adversaries are well equipped and agile. Our defenses must be equal to the
threat, and they are not.”

So concludes a new report from a group of former Office of Management and Budget officials and cybersecurity experts who argue OMB and the administration “have ample legal authority to adopt reforms that would materially reduce risk and enhance response” in protecting federal systems. The report urges OMB to take steps that would result in spending scarce taxpayer dollars on security programs that work. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 24, 2012 at 7:30 AM
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