Firewalls for NT survive tough battering
"NSTL bombarded seven top-selling NT firewalls with nearly 300 forms of attack and found no significant security loopholes." Related pages: Report Card A late entry in firewall assessment gets kudos for performance, speed. Every network manager worries about security, not just to keep out hackers but to keep erroneous information from flowing through the network.
Users say shift to FTS 2001 won't be a walk in the park
FTS' Sandra Bates is optimistic about the transition from FTS 2000 to FTS 2001, which, she says, might start in March. The good news about the FTS 2001 long-distance telecommunications buy is that it is still set for an October award, the Federal Technology Service's Sandra N. Bates said this month.
CIO Council will slowly take over IRMCO
The Chief Information Officers Council will co-sponsor the Interagency Resources Management Conference in Virginia Beach, Va., in the fall. The council decided to jointly manage IRMCO with the General Services Administration, which has run the conference for many years. The council will slowly merge IRMCO into a CIO Council event. As part of the co-sponsorship, agency CIOs will hold discussion panels.
Convergence of voice and data as IP services signals end of separate nets
Separate networks for voice and data will become extinct as voice traffic moves onto IP networks, telephone industry executives told a gathering of federal officials last week. "Voice is an application on the data network," said John T. Curran, chief technical officer for GTE Corp.'s Internetworking Division. But that does not mean it will be free, as voice-over-IP developers have claimed, he said.
Hello darlin'—you look great - DOD COMPUTING
The videophones, which cost about $400 each, use analog voice signals on traditional lines. Being separated from the family—it's a soldier's age-old lament. But the Air Force has found a way to unite soldiers and their families using full-color video technology. The service is using videophones at 22 air bases in Europe, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, to let service members see and speak with their families around the globe using standard telephone lines
SSA again tests PEBES for Web accessibility
The system won't be reinstated until SSA is sure it will provide the best service, SSA's Cheezum said. The Social Security Administration still wants to give citizens access to their Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate Statements via an interactive Web site. "We're continuing to test and evaluate the PEBES system," SSA spokeswoman Carolyn Cheezum said.
Justice awards contract for automated debt collection program
The contract, awarded by Justice's Office of Debt Collection Management, will help the office better coordinate thousands of collection cases nationwide. ODCM supports lawsuits Justice brings against companies and individuals that owe money to the federal government. The contract has a base term of 28 months and five one-year options. It has a fixed-price component and task orders.
Agriculture and U.S. Bank discuss recent IMPAC service delay issues
To prevent interruptions to its IMPAC service such as those that occurred during the past month, the Agriculture Department has agreed to work more closely with its card provider, U.S. Bank of Minneapolis. Agriculture and U.S. Bank officials recently met in Minneapolis to discuss the service halts that occurred on two days last month and one day this month.
Black Hawk pilots, mechanics stay informed via online program
Starting this month, the pilots who fly the Army's Black Hawk helicopters and the mechanics who maintain the aircraft can browse Black Hawk data stored on multiple Web servers. At a spring conference of Black Hawk users, Paul Behrens, project officer for the Army's Engineering Data Management Systems, described the response to the Web program as fantastic.
GSA revs its Advantage site
The General Services Administration will unveil GSA Advantage 5.0, a faster and more user-friendly version of its online store, GSA officials said. A new search engine in the upgrade will be faster and better designed to help buyers find what they need, said Ed O'Hare, GSA Advantage project manager. GSA's Federal Supply Service eventually wants to post 4 million products on GSA Advantage at http://www.gsa.gov/advantage.
ENTERPRISE COMPUTING | Beat the Clock
| Beat the Clock Oldies but goodies. The National Finance Center in New Orleans has managed its year 2000 project without a large contingent of extra contractors, dollars or automated tools. The reason is Ed McManus, who said he manages projects the only way he knows how: "the old-fashioned way."
FAA names new buying and R&D chiefs
Herman A. Rediess will fill FAA's long-vacant aviation research director slot and help manage aviation systems R&D duties. The Federal Aviation Administration recently hired a new procurement chieftain and a new research czar. The agency last month named Steven B. Zaidman its next associate administrator for research and acquisitions, a job that involves overseeing procurements for FAA's systems modernization.
PC Card modem handles ISDN and analog links
The first multifunction PC Card modem will make seamless links between an Integrated Services Digital Network line and the analog public switched telephone network. The MultiGear ISDN+56K+Phone card, from SysGear Technology Inc. of Rowland Heights, Calif., could be on the General Services Administration's Information Technology Schedule soon, SysGear vice president Mark Erickson said at a recent trade show.
V-One responds to agencies' concerns that pager communications aren'tsecure enough
At the request of agencies that use pagers for sensitive information, V-One Corp., a virtual private networking company in Germantown, Md., has introduced a wireless client for its flagship SmartGate VPN server. The SmartPage client secures traffic to, from and between alphanumeric pagers. "The level of interest shown by government organizations following several high-profile stories of compromised pager communications confirmed the need to extend our VPN security to wireless environments," said company president and chief operating officer
PTO tracks who's using what
A radio network inventory system running on handheld computers has brought the Patent and Trademark Office good grades from the Commerce Department's inspector general. In fiscal 1997, PTO did well in the IG's annual inventory inspection, said George Naughton, president of AMT Associates of Arlington, Va., which assisted in building the system. The inspector general's random tests measure an agency's ability to track valuable items such as computers.
DOT uses X.500 to mesh its four messaging systems
The system integrates e-mail and provides communication links to DOT's intranet, the Internet and electronic commerce. The Transportation Department's new e-mail system is letting employees in the department's 14 agencies communicate with one another, DOT officials said. "We had problems with our e-mail system in 1994," said George Ramick, Transportation's messaging and Internet manager, at the recent E-Gov '98 conference in Washington.
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Navy needs cohesive strategy for year 2000 fixes, GAO report says
The Navy's lack of management and oversight controls could prevent it from fixing its computer systems by 2000, a General Accounting Office audit has concluded. The report, Defense Computers: Year 2000 Computer Problems Put Navy Operations at Risk, said the Navy took a decentralized approach to remediation efforts without initially establishing an effective year 2000 program office to manage it.
Corps prepares to field wearable data systems
The Marine Corps is mulling a commercial security standard that would extend command and control applications over wireless LANs to handheld computers for Marines in the field. "It's not the guy with the biggest biceps who wins the battle but the one who can push the information around," said Maj. James Cummiskey, technical adviser to the commanding officer at the Tactical Systems Support Activity at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
coming UP
The buzz in the printing market is about color laser printers, how their prices have dropped in the past year and how their page-per-minute performance on the network demands a second look. That look is in the Aug. 3 issue's Buyers Guide. Proud of your agency's Web site? So are plenty of federal workers. In the Aug. 3 GCN we'll debut Webworks, in which we review outstanding government Web pages. Webmasters can pick up tips on
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