OS security benchmark can be downloaded free
The Center for Internet Security has released the first security benchmark for an operating system. It sets minimum configuration requirements for Sun Microsystems Solaris.
CIA funds pilot for GIS utilities
A pilot funded by In-Q-Tel Inc., the CIA's venture capital arm, has demonstrated a suite of interoperable geographic information system services.
Carriers need more time to develop ways to find, map 911 call locations
Nearly a third of all 911 emergency calls today come from wireless phones, said Thomas J. Sugrue, chief of the Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Bureau.
Study says CIA's In-Q-Tel is on right track, but needs fine-tuning
An independent panel evaluating the Central Intelligence Agency's information technology incubator company said that In-Q-Tel should be given a chance to prove itself, but that the CIA should develop a better process for implementing new technology in the agency.
Son-of-Code-Red brings new risk to vulnerable servers
A new Internet worm that exploits the same vulnerability as Code Red is installing back doors on servers that leave infected machines wide open to future exploitation.
Cabletron's stackable token-ring switches let users pick up speed on slownetworks
The stackable SmartStack switches come in four models. The Rochester, N.H., company also makes a higher-end SmartSwitch 9000 token-ring chassis switch. "We are targeting the wiring closet," said Tedd Frechette, Cabletron's token-ring product manager. The 20-port SmartStack units combine to provide as many as 224 ports. They will be useful on small network segments of 20 to 30 nodes, he said.
Energy labs hook into video
For 10 years, managers and researchers at the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratories have held regular videoconferences with peers at distant Energy labs and universities. Sandia has more than 70 videoconferencing systems in use, from auditorium facilities with dedicated links between the labs' Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., sites down to LAN systems built from inexpensive PC-mounted cameras and free software.
Agencies say security is a bigger task than Y2K
The extent of network security vulnerabilities will dwarf the year 2000 problem, predicted industry and agency officials late last month at a General Services Administration seminar in Washington. Readying systems for 2000 has monopolized agency resources. Now the crisis in Kosovo, computer virus attacks and insider leaks of U.S. nuclear secrets are spotlighting security instead.
Strengthen security by putting CPUs on lockdown
The Austin, Texas, company's Remote Desktop product multiplexes the keyboard, mouse and monitor signals as far as 1,300 feet over Category 3 or 5 unshielded twisted-pair cable. Several CPUs can be co-located with minimal impact on the users, according to the company. The Postal Service is testing Remote Desktop at its processing and distribution facility in Buffalo, N.Y., to keep PCs off the main floor of a truck terminal.
Upgrades equip products to handle fully redundant copper-to-fiber conversions
Transition Networks Inc. designs products that mediate between copper and fiber cabling on mixed networks. The Minneapolis company has upgraded its existing Conversion Center with a fully redundant copper-to-fiber converter for Fast Ethernet, a T1/E1 copper-to-fiber converter and a better management module. Transition Networks president and chief executive officer C.S. Mondelli said 85 percent of the company's business comes from fiber upgrades to existing networks, but new networks often cannot afford all-fiber cabling, either.
FTS 2001 vendors meet with federal users
KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Against a Star Wars-esque background of flashing lights, FTS 2001 contractors Sprint Corp. and MCI WorldCom Inc. last week pitched their competing high-bandwidth network services at the annual Federal Technology Service users conference. Both vendors will have to wait until they are allowed to enter local telephone markets before they can offer full end-to-end voice and data services.
GSA expects to leave no Millennia money unspent
Its experience with an existing systems services buy tells the General Services Administration that the government will likely hit the $25 billion ceiling on the new 10-year Millennia information technology services program. GSA's Federal Technology Service awarded 12 contracts last month for Millennia, the follow-on to the Federal Systems Integration and Management Center's 9600 IT services program.
Feds inch closer to privatizing Net management
The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers has named five new domain registrars to work the bugs out of the new Shared Registry System during a two-month test. The registrars will be the first to compete with Network Solutions Inc. of Herndon, Va., which has been exclusive registrar for the .com, .net and .org top-level domains under a 1993 agreement with the Commerce Department.
Digital signature software lets agencies write off paperwork
Striving for the same level of trust accorded to ink on paper, two digital signature vendors recently announced advances in their software products. Silanis Technology Inc. of Dorval, Quebec, in March released ApproveIt 4.0 software. Earlier ApproveIt versions are in use by several military organizations to take the paper out of workflow. Cyber-Sign Inc. of San Jose, Calif., is entering the government market with its biometric signature authentication software after getting a start among health care
GSA gears for gas tax system| GCN
Federal employees will charge an estimated $100 billion worth of goods and services to government credit cards over the next 10 years. The General Services Administration wants to make sure that, in the process, agencies do not pay any state or local taxes on gasoline charged to its fleet cards.
Trailblazing feds lead the move to distance learning
Videoconferencing is moving to the LAN, distance learning is driving that move, and the government is in the forefront of both trends. "The feds seem to be leading the commercial world by about 18 months," said Craig Reichenbach, vice president of federal sales for PictureTel Corp. of Andover, Mass. The reason, he said, is that government LANs have more bandwidth and more use of asynchronous transfer mode, which provides the necessary quality of service for video.
Agencies test a voice-activated telephone system
Bell Atlantic Federal enlisted federal users to test its voice-based dialing system that automates internal telephone directories of up to 20,000 listings. Connect@once can find names, place calls and manage voice mail by spoken commands. It uses speaker-independent voice recognition and natural language technology from Nuance Communications Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif.
Postage is on sale on the Web
E-Stamp Corp., the first company to sell U.S. postage over the Internet to desktop PC users, plans a midyear nationwide rollout of its SmartStamp software-hardware postage product. The Palo Alto, Calif., company began beta-testing SmartStamp with about 500 users last year. A PC acts as a meter to download and store the postage and print out the indicia—or postal marking—on envelopes, labels or documents.
SSA will round up stray domains to brand them with common NT
The Social Security Administration, one of the government's largest and most geographically dispersed agencies, wants to rein in its so-called rogue domains—LANs running Microsoft Windows NT that do not conform to the common field office LAN structure. "We have 14 domains out there that we want to consolidate into a single domain," said Ron Cooper, a computing specialist in SSA's Client-Server Division.
EPA, HUD webmasters offer up lessons learned
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Housing and Urban Development Department, two agencies that pioneered the dissemination of information online, had to make up the rules as they went along. EPA started its Web site as a "science experiment—no rules had been written," said Emma McNamara, the agency's webmaster. In the summer of 1994, she posted the site's first page.
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