Digital Government

Deutch favors center to avoid 'electronic Pearl Harbor'

Predicting that the United States would face "very, very large and uncomfortable incidents' at the hands of cyberterrorists, CIA Director John Deutch last week pledged to boost U.S. intelligence gathering of foreign information warfare threats. In testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs

Digital Government

Census paves electronic paths

Take a test drive of the Census Bureau's new Electronic Subscription Service at http://www.census.gov/prod/www. Census' new service free for the next few months may pave the way for the Internet eventually to eclipse printed paper as Census' primary means for disseminating data to the public. A

Digital Government

Measure penalizes officials, targets dumped superCPUs

Federal procurement officials would lose their salaries if they purchased alleged 'dumped' supercomputers, under an appropriations bill provision offered by Rep. David Obey (DWis.). But the provision, included in the funding bill for NASA and the National Science Foundation, is being questioned by

Digital Government

Gateway Guide

If you want to know how your representative voted on a particular issue, the Library of Congress has it covered. Point your Web browser to http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/legislative/voting.html. The resource, located at the new Library of Congress Internet Resource Page, points users to a series of pr

Digital Government

Platinum Tech software chosen for NASA's EOSDIS

Electronic Data Systems Corp. has tapped Platinum Technology Inc.'s job scheduling software for a role on NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System. Planned to be one of the largest distributed data and distributed processing systems in the world, EOSDIS will assemble at least seven

Digital Government

NASA tracks heavenly bodies, reconstructs human faces

As scientists continue to scan the heavens for asteroids and comets moving in Earth's direction, NASA has developed a home page on the subject. NASA's "Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards" home page, at http://ccf.arc.nasa.gov, gives you the rundown on NEOs (near Earth objects) and a look at how sc

Digital Government

Informix to build 4-D database manager for EOSDIS

For Informix Software Inc., designing a NASA database means leaping into the fourth dimension. Tapped to supply a primary database management system (DBMS) for NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), the Menlo Park, Calif.based company has promised NASA it can catalog a

Digital Government

Report cites 'serious issues' in DISA oversight

The Defense Information Systems Agency's poor oversight of the White House Communications Agency has resulted in poor acquisition practices and overspending by the WHCA, according to a recent report by the General Accounting Office. The GAO report describes procurement and spending problems occurri

Digital Government

Bill directs DOD to focus on hardware

The Defense HighPerformance Computing Modernization Program must take funding out of planned software development efforts and apply it to buying more supercomputers, under the Defense appropriations bill.

Digital Government

In intergovernmental nets, ICN leads pack

The dream to build intergovernmental computer networks that link state, local and federal computer systems is taking shape in fits and starts.

Digital Government

House panel pitches U.S. center to fight cybercrime

In a report peppered with vivid accounts of breakins into government computers, a Senate subcommittee is pushing the creation of a new national center to guard vital government and industry systems from attack.

Digital Government

NRC report urges shift in info security policies

The National Research Council, in a report likely to have a significant influence on the ongoing information security policy debate, is calling on the government to align its national cryptography policy more closely with industry trends. The document was the second report released in May to recomm

Digital Government

Northrop Grumman wins $170M super deal

Northrop Grumman Corp. last week won a $170 million contract to run a highperformance computing center at the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVO) at Stennis Space Center, Miss.

Digital Government

SoftBoard teleconferencing system attracts federal users

A ceramic whiteboard fitted with lasers is the basis of a teleconferencing system that lets discussion leaders broadcast their whiteboard notes over networks to remote attendees in real time.

Digital Government

SunSoft announces Java toolkit, JavaOS

Hoping to appeal to government network administrators and others who work within hardtointegrate heterogeneous environments, SunSoft Inc. last week announced a Javabased toolkit for developing platformindependent network management tools.

Digital Government

Secure Computing to acquire Border Network

Secure Computing Corp., maker of highend firewalls and security products, announced last week that it will acquire Border Network Technologies Inc., the secondlargest Internet firewall vendor in the world.

Digital Government

Mission control, mission impossible

This summer's Senate hearings on computer crime and the National Information Infrastructure are sure to bring even more attention to the problems of malicious hackers on the Infobahn.

Digital Government

Consortium stumps for tech use

A federal consortium formed to promote use of the World Wide Web among U.S. agencies is positioned to become a major global player in the proliferation of Web technology and applications. The National Science Foundation's Federal Web Consortium, which was started three years ago, is growing rapidly

Digital Government

USGS, Caltech seismic data rocks the Internet

Here's a Java applet with a great name: the SeismoCam. Codeveloped by the California Institute of Technology and the U.S. Geological Survey, this applet emits realtime seismic data on the Internet. Point your browser to http://scec.gps.caltech.edu/seismocam/SeismoCam.html and watch the tremors (s

Digital Government

Radnet debuts low-cost,Web-based groupware

Targeting users who want a less expensive, easiertouse alternative to Lotus Development Corp.'s Notes, Radnet Inc. has introduced WebShare, a groupware product based on World Wide Web technology. "If people within your organization already have a network, then anyone with a standard Web browser