Digital Government

FileMaker aids shuttle missions

More than 350 users at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi are using a desktop database software application from FileMaker Inc. to manage and document repairs to all space shuttle main engines and to verify approvals of these repairs before the engines are fired up for use. NASA is using Fi

Digital Government

Center takes on cyberterrorism

The nonprofit Institute for Security and Defense this month opened a technology center to work with federal agencies to help them defend against the growing threat from cyberterrorists. The Center for Technology and Terrorism Studies, based in Los Angeles, will train employees from the Defense Depa

Digital Government

OMB mulls budget to fight cyberterror

The Clinton administration is considering including in its next budget funds for a governmentwide system that would detect intrusions into key agency networks and some federal World Wide Web sites and then send reports of possible threats to the FBI. The Office of Management and Budget received the

Digital Government

NASA begins cooking up SEWP III

NASA has begun preliminary planning for a followon to its popular $1.8 billion governmentwide contract for workstations, peripherals and networking gear. The Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement III (SEWP III) contract would replace the 2yearold SEWP II, which NASA's Goddard Space

Digital Government

NASA aids in virtual surgery

Scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center have developed a computerbased tool that allows surgeons to practice reconstructive head and brain surgery and to visualize the outcomes more accurately. The 'software scalpel' works with 3D images of the head and brain that are created by combining a ser

Digital Government

Deadline set for security plans

The Clinton administration this month tapped the General Services Administration to lead the federalsector effort to protect critical infrastructures and designated 14 lead agencies and eight secondary agencies to design a plan to protect the government's critical assets from cyberattacks and phys

Digital Government

Stage set for first ODIN pact

NASA is set to award in the next two weeks the biggest portion of its groundbreaking desktop PC outsourcing contract, a project vendors say will be a crucial step in determining whether agencies consider desktop outsourcing in the federal market. The Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA (ODIN) i

Digital Government

Network Associates ramps up after buying spree

Network Associates Inc., the world's largest independent information security company, has seen its federal government business grow faster than the company as a whole, with the company's chief executive officer setting an even loftier goal for future growth in the federal arena. Fueled by a recent

Digital Government

Kerrey to seek IT security lab, panel

Sen. Bob Kerrey (DNeb.) plans to introduce a bill next year that would set up an information technology laboratory to help defend against threats to the nation's IT infrastructure and to ensure an exchange between government and industry about security threats. Kerrey, the ranking minority member

Digital Government

NASA to test info tech in deep space

As part of an upcoming mission into the distant reaches of the solar system, NASA will shift its focus from carrying out science experiments to testing cuttingedge technology as it sets the stage for future space exploration. The unmanned Deep Space 1, the first mission in NASA's New Millennium Pr

Digital Government

Lockheed wins $3.4B NASA prize

In one of the largest information technologyrelated procurements in civilian agency history, NASA last week awarded Lockheed Martin Space Operations Co. a $3.4 billion contract to manage the space agency's entire space operation infrastructure. The Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC) cal

Digital Government

Aldmyr aims to intercept DOD travel biz

With the Defense Travel System still several years from full deployment, software vendor Aldmyr Systems Inc. has been steadily developing Defense Department clientele for its own travel management system, which company officials are positioning as a DTS alternative, at least for the short term. DTS

Digital Government

Reinventing for results

While the nation's attention was riveted this month on Mark McGwire leading the quest to break baseball's single-season home run record, Morley Winograd's attention was drawn to remarks made by Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rossotti regarding the possibility that the fan who caught the record-breaking homer would owe taxes.

Digital Government

Interoperability key to CIO plan

The CIO Council this month voted to adopt a plan for a governmentwide information technology architecture designed to help agencies meet a mandate to align computer systems with agency business and mission needs. The plan is identical to a draft plan the CIO Council floated earlier this summer in w

Digital Government

Panel slams EOSDIS

Congress last week threatened to pull a major NASA program and transfer it to another agency because of cost overruns, software glitches and substantial delays in the space agency's effort to create what would be the world's largest civilian database. At a hearing before the House Subcommittee on S

Digital Government

Centrax brings NT-based security to fed market

Armed with an executive team with roots in the government technology market and an intrusiondetection product designed specifically for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT, Centrax Corp. is the newest player in the federal information security arena. Centrax last week formally announced its operations an

Digital Government

OAO ranked top ODIN bidder

While NASA awarded contracts to all seven bidders in the recent Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA (ODIN) contract, OAO Corp. outpaced the other vendors in all the main categories analyzed in the competition, according to a recently released sourceselection document. NASA officials briefly di

Digital Government

NPR fashions info gateway

Within 30 days, the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) plans to launch a single massive gateway for the public to search all of the federal government's World Wide Web sites to pinpoint information on government resources and services.

Digital Government

GITS Board seeks funds for second encryption tests

The Government Information Technology Services (GITS) Board is working to secure $11 million to fund a second round of tests of a controversial encryption technology that has a builtin mechanism to allow data to be unscrambled. The board is seeking the funding to support 15 projects in 12 agencies

Digital Government

Entrust clears fourth hurdle in FIPS validation

Entrust Technologies Inc., which is steadily growing its federal market penetration in the security arena, has received its fourth certificate validating that its products meet a federal government standard for protecting unclassified information. Version 4.0 of the company's cryptographic module