Is the Internet of Things a Thing for Gov – Plus the 7 Gov Stories You Need To Know

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• “You’ve been hacked.” That is the line that every person dreads waking up to in their inbox. But securing your identity and your privacy is no easy task. The government has been using identity and access management tools for years, commonly known as IAM. IAM uses a four part verification process that helps cut down on security breaches, but the system is not perfect. We get a status check with Dell’s Paul Christman.

Is the Internet of Things a thing for government?

What is the Internet of Things thing that everybody keeps talking about – and what does it mean for government

It is hard to read anything techie these day without reading something about the Internet of Things. But… what in the world is the Internet of Things, and, for our purposes, what does it mean to government? Imagine a world where roads can let you know if there are potholes or if where the cost of parking could adjust depending on demand.

The Internet of Things could also impact how the government carries out its mission. Brett Goldstein, who was the chief data and information officer for the city of Chicago and now is a senior fellow in urban science at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, said, “The idea is that using real-time data, regulation can change dynamically based on varying conditions in order to better achieve the desired outcomes.”

On March 19th at 2pm ET, we are going to pull together a group of people to talk about this topic. My guess is it will part explainer — what is the Internet of Things anyway — and then we can discuss why it matters.

I hope you will join us on Wednesday March 19th at 2pm ET.

The SEVEN stories that impact your life

1. WSJ: White House Weighs Options for Revamping NSA Surveillance – “Administration lawyers gave Obama four options for restructuring the NSA’s phone program. Administration lawyers have presented the White House with four options for restructuring the NSA’s phone-surveillance program, from ditching it altogether to running it through the telephone companies. President Barack Obama asked U.S. intelligence agencies and the attorney general to report by March 28 on alternatives for revamping the program in a way that would take it out of the NSA’s hands. None of the options for relocating the data have gained universal favor. Of the options for relocating the data, two of them—with phone companies or another government agency—appear most technically possible.”

2. USA Today: Army disqualified 588 soldiers after sexual assault review – “The number of disqualified soldiers from what are called “positions of trust” is 10 times higher than the initial number the Army reported last summer after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered that troops in sensitive positions be screened for previous criminal or unethical behavior.”

3. WSJ: Former White House cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke criticizes NSA – “Richard Clarke, the first cybersecurity czar at the White House, said Tuesday that ‘terrible’ internal cybersecurity at the National Security Agency was responsible for allowing former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to download about 1.5 million classified documents.”

4. Politico: Other states copy Arizona SB 1062 – “A Missouri state senator on Monday introduced legislation that could provide cover for businesses to deny service to same-sex couples. In Georgia, two versions of a similar bill in the state House and Senate are moving quickly through the Legislature. In Kansas, a similar bill already passed Republican-led House earlier this month.”

5. NextGov: IT Reform Bill Passes House – “The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act would limit each federal agency to one person with the title chief information officer and give that person authority over the agency’s IT spending. It would also create centers of excellence across government to assist with complicated IT acquisitions and require the government to publicly post performance metrics on a much greater percentage of its IT projects.”

6. Federal Times: New BRAC round needed for civilian workforce reductions, officials say – “The Defense Department’s ability to pare its civilian workforce hinges partly on getting the go-ahead to launch a new wave of base realignments and closures (BRAC), top officials said Tuesday.”

7. National Journal: Obamacare Enrollment Hits 4 Million – “The window to sign up for coverage closes at the end of next month, and crossing the 4 million mark is a key milestone. Enrollment has recovered much of the ground it lost in October and November, when technical problems plagued HealthCare.gov, and it now seems all but impossible that the law will collapse on its own, as its Republican critics predicted.”

DorobekINSIDER water-cooler fodder… yes, we’re trying to help you make your water-cooler time better too…

• Security expert Bruce Schneier – Break up the NSA: Security expert Bruce Schneier writes that the Edward Snowden leaks revealed an unbalanced, over-reaching National Security Agency. The “enormous beast” has its mitts in several huge programs: bulk surveillance, sabotage of commercial systems as well as the targeting of enemy’s computers. Everyone– citizens, the security infrastructure and the agency itself–would be best served if the NSA was broken up, he says. “Computer and network security is hard, and we need the NSA’s expertise to secure our social networks, business systems, computers, phones and critical infrastructure,” he writes. Surveillance, he suggests, should be left to the FBI.

  • Discussion: Is the NSA need to be re-organized? If so, how?

• The Wall Street Journal: Surviving the dreaded conference call: We all do them, we all hate them, and by in large, they are not very productive. Conference calls. The Wall Street Journal looks at one of the most familiar — and hated — rituals of office life: the conference call. From interrupting others to zoning out and forgetting to hit the “mute” button, people abuse conference calls in the most annoying ways possible. The Journal offers techniques to stop annoying behavior and make the call productive, such as increasing the use of videoconferencing.

  • Discussion: How do you ensure that conference calls are productive?

• DefenseOne: Top Pentagon Official Says the Military ‘Cried Wolf’ Over Sequestration: The Pentagon has overstated the effects of the sequester’s spending cuts in previous years, a top Defense official said Tuesday. “We cried wolf about this a lot in ‘13, as ‘13 was approaching,” said Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, at a defense budget conference discussing the sequester cuts. “What we did in ‘13 was sort of the death of a 1,000 cuts,” Kendall said, adding that cuts were made across the board, but none were significantly negative.

  • Discussion: Did the government overall exaggerate the impact of sequestion?