Has government examined cloud computing sufficiently?
John Foley, editor of InformationWeek, wonders if the government is ready for cloud computing.
- Cloud Computing As Government Panacea, by John Foley, InformationWeek (September 10, 2009).
...government agencies are moving fast into an area where fundamental issues have yet to be resolved. It may only take one data breach, major service outage, or other cloud mishap to slow things down.Continue reading
Scope of openness is a big, big issue
When we talk about government being more "open" and "transparent," what information are we discussing? In a digital environment it is possible, and even essential, that we think beyond PDF files and "publications." For example, the advent of data.gov has made raw data more of an explicit part of public information dissemination than it ever has been before. In a survey of federal managers earlier this year, NextGov reported a number of roadblocks to transparency. While managers agreed that agencies should post raw data, they balked at doing more than they already have done. They expressed concerns about computer security, and "the loss of control over their agency's message" and complained that they do not have adequate resources to make more data accessible. In an article just yesterday (The Risks of Open Government, NextGov, By Allan Holmes, 09/14/2009), that same survey revealed that, while almost 90 percent said transparency involved posting facts and figures that agencies collect, "they are less interested in disclosing how policies are formed, such as providing minutes of meetings, and who were included in meetings and as part of the decisions." Although we have heard discussions of these issues before, there is another kind of government information that is rarely discussed: software. NTIS has offered government produced software for years, but the kind of software I'm concerned about is that software that is used to make decisions. The algorithms embedded in software document how decisions are made. If we do not have access to that information, we cannot be sure decisions are being made well. It is hard to know what we do not have because, as far as I know, there is no inventory of this kind of resource. So, it is particularly revealing to see real world examples of decision making software when they do come to light. Here is an example that is self-evidently important:
- Eye on the Bailout: The Secret Test That Ensures Lenders Win on Loan Mods, by Alexandra Andrews and Emily Witt, ProPublica
The Net Present Value test is a complex computer model used by loan servicers to determine whether a homeowner qualifies for the federal loan modification program. The test compares two scenarios – modification and foreclosure – and determines which would be more profitable for the lender. If it’s foreclosure, the lender has no obligation to modify the loan. But the model is a black box. What goes in isn’t entirely clear, and what comes out isn’t always reliable. The Treasury Department has refused to release the exact formula for the NPV model...Information like this should definitely be made available for examination and preservation. Continue reading
Feds go for the Clouds
In an statement today on the Whitehouse blog, Vivek Kundra, the Federal Chief Information Officer, announced the launch of Apps.gov, "an online storefront for federal agencies to quickly browse and purchase cloud-based IT services." Apps.gov is not a government built and managed computing environment available to all agencies. It is a storefront of services offered to government by private companies. If I understand this correctly, apps.gov offers government agencies a way of quickly finding an approved service and getting it quickly. If you suddenly need a terabyte of storage more than you needed yesterday, you can just get it, rather than go through a lengthy procurement process and installing storage in your own IT center. If you have a temporary need, you can get just what you want when you need it. These kinds of services are traditionally called "Infrastructure as a Service," "Software as a Service," and "Platform as a Service." In addition, Apps.gov offers social media tools from Web 2.0 providers as free services. These are governed by a Terms of Service (TOS) Agreement. Social media services include blogs, video hosting, photo-sharing, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, and music sharing. Click on the Apps.gov FAQ for more detail. This has a lot of potential for making agencies more flexible and more cost efficient. As Kundra says,
Like a utility such as electricity or water, cloud computing allows users to only consume what they need, to grow or shrink their use as their needs change, and to only pay for what they actually use. With more rapid access to innovative IT solutions, agencies can spend less time and taxpayer dollars on procedural items and focus more on using technology to achieve their missions.But it also outsources a lot of government information technology in ways that make it unclear who will be ultimately responsible for the dissemination and stewardship of government information or for the privacy of users. This is certainly one big step forward for government IT. We'll have to see if it is a step forward or backward for government information. See also: The US Government Is Going Google, by Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable (September 15th, 2009). Update: In an article in Tech Daily Dose (U.S. Gov't Takes Cloud Computing Leap, By Andrew Noyes, September 15, 2009), Kundra is reported to have said that moving the government toward a cloud computing climate could require changes to the 2002 Federal Information Security Management Act and that officials must ensure that agencies are not "held hostage" by one particular technology vendor. Continue reading
Lunchtime listen: video of Carl Malamud at Gov2.0 summit
In case you missed last week's lunchtime listen of Carl Malamud at the gov2.0 summit, the video's now been put online. Check it out. I defy anyone to say he wouldn't make a great public printer!
Privacy: Flash video has its own cookies, even at the Whitehouse
A group of researchers has released a report on 'Flash cookies' -- persistent identifiers used by popular Adobe Flash presentations on the web.
- Soltani, Ashkan, Canty, Shannon, Mayo, Quentin, Thomas, Lauren and Hoofnagle, Chris Jay, Flash Cookies and Privacy (August 10, 2009).
This is a pilot study of the use of 'Flash cookies' by popular websites. We find that more than 50% of the sites in our sample are using flash cookies to store information about the user. Some are using it to 'respawn' or re-instantiate HTTP cookies deleted by the user. Flash cookies often share the same values as HTTP cookies, and are even used on government websites to assign unique values to users. Privacy policies rarely disclose the presence of Flash cookies, and user controls for effectuating privacy preferences are lacking.For advertisers and others who want to track user behavior, the ability of users to control, block, and delete traditional HTTP cookies is a problem. The authors quote one company as saying that while all advertisers use HTTP cookies for targeted advertising, "cookies are under attack." That same company announced that it had, "developed a backup ID system for cookies set by web sites, ad networks and advertisers, but increasingly deleted by users.... [These cookies] cannot be deleted by any commercially available anti- spyware, mal-ware, or adware removal program. They will even function at the default security setting for Internet Explorer." See also:
- You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again, By Ryan Singel, Wired (August 10, 2009).
- Local Shared Object Wikipedia.