White House

See the following -

The Stuxnet Leaker Might Be the General Credited with Getting It Started

Abby Ohlheiser | The Atlantic Wire | June 27, 2013

The Obama administration's investigation into the leak of classified information on Stuxnet, a U.S. cyberattack targeting Iran's nuclear programs, has zeroed in on retired Marine General James Cartwright. As in, the general credited with presenting the idea of Stuxnet to the White House in the first place.

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The US Government’s Digital Strategy: The New Benchmark and Some Lessons

David Eaves | OpenSource.com | June 14, 2012

The White House recently launched its new roadmap for digital government. This included the publication of Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People (PDF version), the issuing of a Presidential directive and the announcement of White House Innovation Fellows.

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The Very Real Consequences Of Leaving Rape Kits Unprocessed

Emma Roller | National Journal | March 19, 2014

There are serious consequences when state and federal governments don't put enough money into DNA testing. Need evidence? Just look at Detroit.

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The White House Big Data Report: The Good, The Bad, And The Missing

Jeremy Gillula and Kurt Opsahl and Rainey Reitman | Electronic Frontier Foundation | May 4, 2014

Last week, the White House released its report on big data and its privacy implications, the result of a 90-day study commissioned by President Obama during his January 17 speech on NSA surveillance reforms. Now that we’ve had a chance to read the report we’d like to share our thoughts on what we liked, what we didn’t, and what we thought was missing...

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The White House Comedy Club

Kathleen Parker | Washington Post | October 25, 2013

While the nation’s attention has been riveted on the Keystone Congress, the executive branch was busy developing its own comedy routine. Picture the cast (you know the characters) shrugging their shoulders in unison: “Who, me?” Read More »

The White House Is Pushing Precision Medicine, but It Won’t Happen for Years

Mike Orcutt | MIT Technology Review | July 18, 2016

For starters, it’s too expensive and the science isn’t advanced enough. With the right technologies to collect and make sense of biomedical information, we could speed up the pace of discoveries that lead to a new class of tailor-made drugs. That’s the argument behind the White House’s push for “precision medicine” (see “A Shot in the Arm for Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative”). The goal of precision medicine is to provide drugs and therapies that are uniquely suited to individual patients based on their genetics and other distinguishing health information...

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The Worst Possible Cybersecurity Breaches Could Be Far Worse Than You Imagined

Josh Meyer | Nextgov | May 6, 2013

The cyber-ruffians who briefly tanked the stock market recently by faking a news tweet about an attack at the White House showed how much damage can be done with a few well-placed keystrokes... Read More »

U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and UL Sign CRADA for Medical Devices Cybersecurity Standards

Press Release | Underwriters Laboratories | June 17, 2016

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) and UL (Underwriters Laboratories), a global safety science organization, today announced a signed Cooperative Research and Development Agreement Program (CRADA) for medical devices cybersecurity standards and certification approaches. As part of the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986, the CRADA mechanism was established to encourage the creation of teams to solve technological and industrial problems for the greater benefit of the country...

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U.S. Digital Services and Playbook: "Default to Open"

About this time last year, I laid out some trends I saw for the coming year in government take up of open source software. Looking back now, it appears those trends are not only here to stay, they are accelerating and are more important than ever. In particular, I wrote that "open source will continue to be the 'go to' approach for governments around the world" and that "increasingly, governments are wrestling with the 'how tos' of open source choices; not whether to use it."... Read More »

U.S. Government Seeks Reduced Use of Custom Software, Releases New Policy to 'Free the Code'

As I've written before, there has been a shift, going back almost a decade, away from the debate over whether to use open source to a focus on the how to. The release by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) of the U.S. Federal Source Code Policy on August 8th is the latest manifestation of this shift. It achieves the goal laid out in the Obama administration's Second Open Government National Action Plan (PDF) for improved access to custom software code developed for the federal government. The plan emphasized use of (and contributing back to) open source software to fuel innovation, lower costs, and benefit the public. It also furthers a long-standing "default to open" objective going back to the early days of the administration...

U.S. Publishes New “Open Data Action Plan,” Announces New Data Releases

Alexander Howard | E Pluribus Unum | May 9, 2014

On the one year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s historic executive order to open up more government data, U.S. chief information officer Steven VanRoekel and U.S. chief technology officer Todd Park described “continued progress and plans for open government data” at the WhiteHouse.gov blog....

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Unleashing Innovation & Deepening Democracy Through Prizes

Jean Case | The White House Blog | June 12, 2012

Prizes have a long history of driving important breakthroughs...It is with that powerful history in mind that today, in Washington, hundreds of leaders from the White House and Federal agencies joined their peers from some of the Nation's most recognizable companies and organizations to develop strategies to use prizes and competitions as a key method to spark innovation and deepen citizen engagement. Read More »

US CIO Steven Vanroekel Steps Down

Jack Moore | Nextgov.com | September 19, 2014

Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel is unexpectedly departing his post at the White House today to join the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Ebola response team.  In his new role as USAID chief innovation officer, VanRoekel will be responsible for advising the agency on using technology and data in its response to the epidemic...

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US Digital Service is Born

Yesterday, the White House announced the formation of the US Digital Service, a cadre of technology sherpas meant to inject more modern commercial practices into government IT, especially the development of websites and mobile applications. It’s obviously inspired by the Government Digital Service, a similar effort in the UK, and the early success of the GSA’s 18F team. Read More »

US Government Accelerating Development And Release Of Open Source

Mark Bohannon | OpenSource.com | April 24, 2014

I had a chance to catch up with David A. Wheeler, a long-time leader in advising and working with the US government on issues related to open source software...In this interview, we explore the current state of use of open source software by the US government, the challenges of the Federal acquisition system, and what he's excited about as he looks ahead for open source and government....

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