User-centric, federated identity systems have the potential to improve the security and privacy of authentication and services, but if improperly designed, the systems can negatively impact users and become a burden, according to a new report from the Center for Democracy and Technology. The paper by CDT policy analyst Heather West comes as the U.S. government begins a series of pilot programs through the Center for Information Technology, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Health and Human Services that will use third-party user credentials to authenticate users of federal Web sites.
The term "user-centric identity" refers to systems where users, rather than service providers, control their identity credentials, CDT said in a Monday press release. A similar concept in the offline world would be using various forms of identification for whichever transaction one chooses. The white paper discusses key components of a user-generated identity system (such as trust frameworks, users and identity providers) as well as the benefits and liabilities of federated identity management. A copy of the CDT document can be found here (PDF).
A Tuesday report from transparency watchdog OpenTheGovernment.org illustrates modest decreases in secrecy across a variety of indicators in the last year of former President George W. Bush's administration. The 47-page scorecard from the coalition of more than 70 open government advocates also offered a six-month overview of the Obama administration's promise and practice on openness issues and a section on financial transparency during the economic crisis.
"Promising trends began to develop in the last year of the Bush administration, but we have a long way to go to return to the level of government openness and accountability that existed before the September 11 attacks," OpenTheGovernment.org's Patrice McDermott said in a press release. While very few quantitative indicators of secrecy exist yet to compare the Obama White House to its predecessor, the new administration "has a very mixed record on its promise of unprecedented openness," she added.
Some highlights from the report:
• In 2008, the number of original classification decisions decreased to 203,541, a 13 percent drop from 2007.
• The government spent nearly $200 maintaining secrets already on the books for every one dollar the government spent declassifying documents in 2008, a 2 percent increase in one year; 16 percent fewer pages were declassified than in 2007.
• The FY 2008 budget for the National Intelligence Program was $47.5 billion, a 9.2 percent increase over 2007.
• 19 percent of the Pentagon's FY 2008 acquisition budget is classified or "black"
• Justice Department requests for administrative subpoenas known as "national security letters" decreased from 2006 and reported invocations of the "state secrets" privilege continued to rise.
A blue ribbon panel of high-tech and security experts whose December report spurred a flurry of cybersecurity hearings and legislation is entering a new phase that its co-chairs hope will inform and influence the Obama administration, CongressDaily's AM Edition reported. The Center for Strategic and International Studies' Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency has begun examining "foundational problems" that are key to fixing the nation's security vulnerabilities with the goal of releasing recommendations this year, Microsoft Vice President Scott Charney said at a Thursday briefing.
Lt. General Harry Raduege, chairman of Deloitte & Touche's Center for Network Innovation, said some of the group met in June to construct a blueprint for their work, and the full panel will reconvene Friday. Some issues they will tackle include authentication of Internet users, international engagement, and how to scale security solutions while preserving privacy and civil liberties, Charney and Raduege said. Charney said the commission was pleased with its 96-page original report but drafting that analysis brought up a host of new questions about the 21st century cyber infrastructure. "The appropriate response to problems will not be the traditional response of many years ago," he said.
Major shortages of skilled cyber professionals and a lack of leadership, planning and coordination within the federal cybersecurity workforce threaten national security according to a Wednesday report by the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton. The report recommends that the White House develop a government-wide blueprint to acquire, train and retain cyber talent. President Obama declared cybersecurity to be one of the nation's most serious economic and national security challenges and the solution is "to build a vibrant, highly trained and dedicated federal cybersecurity workforce," Partnership President Max Stier said.
The report also recommended devising new job classifications because one classification hasn't been updated since the 1980s. Furthermore, the paper urges the creation of a dedicated, high-level team within the Office of Personnel Management to identify and remove barriers to hiring top cybersecurity talent. Meanwhile, members of Congress should expand and fund programs that train graduate and undergraduate students in cybersecurity. Training programs should be developed to ensure a state-of-the-art federal cybersecurity workforce, the paper stated. Read the full report here.
Several major marketing trade groups will release self-regulatory principles Thursday intended to protect consumer privacy in advertising-supported interactive media. The groups argue the guidelines will require advertisers and Web sites to clearly inform consumers about data collection practices and enable them to exercise control over that information. The issue has gained steam on Capitol Hill lately with a series of hearings by key panels of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The framework is an effort of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers, the Direct Marketing Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and the Council of Better Business Bureaus. The groups offer seven principles as part of a self-regulatory program that is expected to be implemented in early 2010. Here are the basics:
• The Education Principle: The digital media industry intends, in a major campaign that is expected to exceed 500 million online ad impressions, to educate consumers about online behavioral advertising over the next 18 months.
• The Transparency Principle: Clearer and easily accessible disclosures to consumers about data collection and use practices associated with online behavioral advertising. It will result in enhanced notice practices.
More than 40 percent of Internet users now utilize social networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, up from 27 percent a year ago, according to a new report from the Conference Board and TNS. More than half of social networkers log on at least once a day, and the majority log on several times a day, the report found. The majority of users log on at home, although a quarter of social networkers log on at work, and 10 percent connect through their phone, officials said, citing the Consumer Internet Barometer, a quarterly study that surveys 10,000 households across the country. Among those surveyed, the most popular site was Facebook (used by 78 percent), followed by MySpace (42 percent), LinkedIn (17 percent) and Twitter (10 percent).
Social networking spans all generations, polling showed. About 19 percent of those age 55 and over visit these sites, up from just 6 percent a year ago. Women are more likely than men to use social networking sites (48 percent vs. 38 percent), but usage has increased dramatically among both groups in just a year. "Online social networks are more than just a fad among the younger generation. They've become an integral part of our personal and professional lives," the Conference Board's Lynn Franco said in a press release. "They're powerful communication tools, and are becoming an essential part of successful marketing strategies." Read more about the report here.
Widespread adoption of health information technology as part of the larger U.S. healthcare reform movement holds great promise but also potential perils, according to a Tuesday report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers. "Systematic examinations of the merits of different treatments and dissemination of the results of those examinations to patients and providers is one mechanism for promoting high-value care," the report said, noting health IT may play a key role in increasing the rate at which new information spreads and is incorporated into practice behavior. At the same time, providers have strong financial incentives to compete on the basis of technology adoption rather than price, which could lead to excesses of IT equipment and services (for example, MRI machines and minimally invasive vascular diagnostic and procedure suites). That could amount to higher rates of utilization and costs, the report stated.
In most fields, technological progress is generally cost-reducing as individuals discover more effective ways of accomplishing things that were already being done, the paper stated. In medicine, however, technological progress in recent decades has been almost exclusively cost-increasing, without generating a commensurate increase in value. Undoubtedly, provider incentives, which largely reward finding an expensive way of treating a previously untreated condition rather than finding a less costly alternative to an existing treatment, contribute to this trend, the council stated. Nevertheless, the council estimated potential savings generated by overall healthcare reform could amount to as much as $1.7 trillion over 10 years. Read the report here.
Shameless plug: I'll be moderating a Wednesday panel of health IT experts at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference at George Washington University. Speakers include: Deven McGraw, director of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology; Patient Privacy Rights Executive Director Ashley Katz; Joel Slackman, managing director for the Office of Policy and Representation at BlueCross BlueShield; e-MDs CEO Michael Stearns; and Microsoft Director of Consumer Affairs Frank Torres.
In conjunction with President Obama's release of a report on his administration's cybersecurity review on Friday, the White House unveiled this video, which stars technology experts and government officials engaged in the issue. Among those featured include Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, New York Chief Cybersecurity Officer William Pelgrin, Symantec Chairman John Thompson, Center for Democracy and Technology President Leslie Harris and Jeannette Wing of the National Science Foundation. This White House Web page also provides a long list of papers from a variety of groups that informed the review team's deliberations.
The Obama administration's release Friday of a report on the federal government's cybersecurity posture will not offer specific recommendations for action, sources who reviewed the document told CongressDaily on Thursday. The paper will call for the creation of a cybersecurity coordinator who would be housed in the National Security Council but report to the National Economic Council as well, they said. The report does not state how senior the individual will be within the White House or to whom the official would report. The roughly 40-page document emphasizes the importance of building public-private partnerships to safeguard communications networks and creating incentives for threat information-sharing between government and industry entities, sources said. The report includes language intended to sharpen the government's IT procurement processes to drive greater security; underscores the need for more federal cybersecurity R&D; and calls for the cultivation of a highly skilled cybersecurity workforce in and outside of government. The paper will be unveiled at a White House event attended by an impressive list of tech execs.
Read the full story in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
CongressDaily's PM Edition on Wednesday reports...
The United States' 35-year-old federal privacy law and related policies should be updated to reflect the realities of modern technologies and information systems, and account for more advanced threats to privacy and security, according to a report sent today to OMB Director Peter Orszag. In its 40-page paper, the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board calls for Congress to amend the 1974 Privacy Act and provisions of the 2002 E-Government Act to improve federal privacy notices; clearly cover commercial data sources; and update the definition of "system of records" to encompass relational and distributed systems based on government use of records, not just its possession of them. The panel included technology experts from industry and academia.
The panel wants heightened government leadership on privacy and suggests the hiring of a full-time chief privacy officer at OMB and regular Privacy Act guidance updates from the office. Chief privacy officers should be hired at major agencies and a chief privacy officers' council should be created, much like the Chief Information Officers' Council that is chaired by OMB's e-government and IT administrator. The federal government's cookie policy, which depends on "bureaucratic speed bumps to protect user privacy," should be updated to let visitors to a government Web site decide whether a cookie is set. One option is to employ a "remember me" check box common on many commercial sites, the report said. Read the full report here.
Ahead of a comprehensive Obama administration review of the U.S. government's cybersecurity posture, consulting firm Gartner said Thursday that the country needs to take a more operational approach toward the problem rather than focusing on strategies to drive higher spending or higher visibility for security. Although there is a definite role for government to play in accelerating progress toward higher levels of cybersecurity, it will be more akin to trying to deal with global warming than dealing with telephone, banking, or automotive industry policies, Gartner Vice President John Pescatore said. "Different approaches are required to ensure reliable and secure services in cyberspace than on old telecom networks, and the development of public policy has to proceed very differently, as well," he said in a press release. Government policy that attempts to force top-down solutions onto an inherently peer-to-peer problem will always fail, he said.
Pescatore said a national cybersecurity strategy should not be aimed at having the government seek to control the level of security on the Internet or issue legislations to mandate solutions. Rather, the strategy should focus primarily on using public policy and the government's buying power to accelerate progress in eliminating vulnerabilities that enable attacks versus simply driving increased reporting of attacks. "A successful national cyberscurity strategy will look more like a hurricane preparedness strategy that mandates redesigning structures or building higher levees versus the deployment of more water gauges," Gartner said. In a new report, analysts said several key elements should be the focus of U.S. government strategy for cybersecurity. One notable recommendation is for the administration to establish a federal chief information security office, not a federal cybersecurity czar. Read more recommendations after the jump...
Two years after being fined $12.5 million by the FCC as part of an anti-payola settlement and agreeing to boost airtime for independent label and local artists, major radio broadcasters have not changed their tune when it comes to composing their music playlists, according to a forthcoming report by the Future of Music Coalition. The results of the nonprofit's yearlong analysis will be released the week of April 20, and the group hopes it will spur the FCC to act. Playlist tracking data, which is compiled in the private sector and sold to stations and others who request the information, should be a function of the commission, FMC spokesman Casey Rae-Hunter said. "We're hoping that the FCC considers this data and takes steps to better understand a key sector that they're charged with overseeing," he said of the report's findings. "Without data and clear policy goals, this is very difficult." Some contend the FCC lacked the political will to address the issue during the Bush administration, but they see an opening with President Obama. Read the full story in CongressDaily's PM Edition (subscription required).
The U.S. high-tech sector has weathered the economic storm better than most industries, Technology Association of America President Phil Bond told reporters at a Monday press conference to unveil the trade group's annual state-by-state overview of the technology business. While the 2009 outlook remains clouded with uncertainty, "we're convinced that the tech sector is positioned to contribute to the U.S. economic recovery," he said. Bond other officials from the organization, which was formed when the Information Technology Association of America and American Electronics Association merged, laid out a number of facts and figures to support their notion.
In crafting the economic stimulus bill, Congress and the Obama administration embraced the transformative power of technology for building the infrastructure for the 21st century; modernizing education and healthcare systems; and creating smarter and more efficient ways to use energy, officials said. "We believe it when we say future begins here," Bond said. "We think public policy in the United States has underscored that innovation is America's greatest resource."
According to the 2008 Cyberstates report:
• The U.S. high-tech industry employment was up for the fourth straight year in 2008, adding 77,000 jobs, a 1.3 percent increase.
• Tech sectors adding jobs included software services (+86,200) and engineering and tech services (+26,600).
• Tech sectors shedding jobs included tech manufacturing (-23,100) and communications services (-12,700).
• Nationwide, average high-tech wages were 88 percent higher than the average private sector wage.
• Unemployment rates inched up for several tech occupations in 2008, but remained relatively low - 2.4 percent for computer scientists and 2.5 percent for engineers.
The United States ranks sixth in the world on global innovation-based economic competitiveness, ahead of the European Union, which ranked 18th, according to a new report from a high-tech think tank. The ranking of 39 countries and regions on 16 indicators in six key areas, authored by Information Technology and Innovation Foundation President Robert Atkinson and Scott Andes, also found the nation comes in last when measured by progress over the last decade.
Issues ITIF measured include: human capital, innovation capacity, entrepreneurship, IT infrastructure, economic policy factors and economic performance. "This study is based on the importance of benchmarking global competitiveness and innovation on a variety of factors, not simply policy factors or economic performance," Atkinson said. "It's important to look at the competitiveness of United States, Europe, Asia and the rest of world based on variety of factors -- not just one." While the United States leads Europe, it "is not the runaway leader that some recent studies have found it to be," added Atkinson.
The United States leads Europe in 13 of the 16 indicators, including knowledge (higher education and number of researchers); innovation (corporate and government R&D and scientific publications); IT (investments, e-government, and broadband); overall business climate; entrepreneurship (new firms and venture capital), and productivity. The so-called "EU-15" outperforms the United States in three of the 16 indicators: a lower effective corporate tax, trade performance, and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. Read more about the report here.
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley has asked the National Science Foundation's inspector general to send him details relating to an internal investigation that found "numerous reports" of agency officials spending large amounts of time accessing online pornography and engaging in sexually explicit Web chat. The claims were part of the foundation's 68-page semiannual report to Congress that was dated September 2008 but posted was publicly in December.
The inspector general "recommended that NSF take immediate action to address numerous reports of employees viewing pornography on their government computers. The multiple investigations opened in the past few months, highlighted the need for systemic corrective actions in order to reduce abuse of agency IT resources.," according to the report. There were six cases of "viewing, downloading, saving, and/or sharing pornographic images and videos and one case of extensive participation in pornographic chat Web sites and the concomitant significant waste of official time."
One NSF official spent up to 20 percent of his official work time viewing sexually explicit images and chatting online, the probe showed. Based on the employee's salary the report identified a potential loss of more than $58,000 in compensation for that personal time. The investigation also determined that the employee charged more than $40,300 to his personal credit card over 24 months to participate in the online chats. To limit future abuse, the report recommended changes in NSF's IT training; limitations on employee server storage; routine screening for and deletion of personal music and image files from network drives; and procurement of necessary filtering software.
The ongoing U.S. economic crisis will trim $30 billion in cumulative information technology spending over the next five years, according to a recent report by consulting firm INPUT. This will come as states and localities try to come up with roughly $250 billion in new revenue and spending cuts to align budgets to the levels that preceded the multi-year real estate boom that ended in 2007. INPUT estimates the compound annual growth rate for the state and local IT market has slid to 4.3 percent from the 6.4 percent.
"We've seen so many projects held back in this quarter that we wanted to provide some concrete estimates for companies looking at 2009," INPUT's Chris Dixon said in a press release. "State and local revenue projections from last spring just haven't held up." Dixon said the market needs federal fiscal relief for state Medicaid and unemployment funds; then it needs the credit markets to loosen so states and localities can sell bonds to fund capital projects, including major IT systems.
Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia are facing a collective mid-fiscal-year shortfall of $31.2 billion, INPUT said. However, the 10 states with individual deficits of about $1 billion or more will likely account for $22.5 billion (72 percent) of that total. California alone will likely account for more than a quarter of the national total, the firm stated. An August/September survey of 154 city and county IT officials conducted by the Public Technology Institute and INPUT found that 13.7 percent of respondents expect their overall IT budget to increase over the next two years.
America's longstanding dominance of new U.S. patents may be slipping but the economic downturn has not stemmed the overall flow of patent activity, according to a compilation of the world's top-ranked U.S.-patent companies released Wednesday from IFI Patent Intelligence. The analysis shows the Patent and Trademark Office issued 157,774 utility patents in 2008, up slightly over 157,284 in 2007.
IBM still tops the list and is ahead by a relatively wide margin but "the scales of patent-quantity supremacy may be shifting away from corporate America in favor of companies overseas, especially to those in Asia," the firm said. IBM set a new all-time record of 4,186 patents, up 33 percent over 2007. Samsung was in second place with 3,515, up 29 percent; followed by Canon at number three, with 2,114. Microsoft ranked fourth with 2,030, up 24 percent over the prior year. Other notable companies include Intel, Broadcom, Cisco, Hon Hai of Taiwan, Fujifilm and LG Philips LCD.
"American companies garnered a minority share of the total number of corporate U.S. patents last year, it's important not to confuse quantity with quality," IFI's Darlene Slaughter said in a press release. "Many of the world's largest companies are placing a higher priority on protecting their intellectual property. Securing patents may be even more important in a down economy, since it gives patent-holders an edge over their competitors." She noted that many of the patents granted in 2008 were applied for in 2005 and 2006, so the economy had little, if any, effect on approvals.
An Internet safety task force made up of state attorneys general offices, academics, nonprofits and high-tech and telecommunications giants -- who had been under pressure from Congress to enhance online child protection capabilities -- capped off a year's worth of work Tuesday by releasing its final report. The 278-page document, which was shared with 52 attorneys general in December, makes a number of recommendations to the Internet community and parents.
The key takeaway from the group, which had representation from big names like America Online, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo: Attorneys general should not "endorse any one technology or set of technologies to protect minors online." State officials should continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders "to help enhance safety for minors online and reach out to some -- like those involved in mental health and social services -- who are not currently involved in helping find solutions to protect minors online."
According to the report, members of the Internet community, including social network sites, should continue to develop and incorporate a range of technologies as part of their strategy to protect minors from harm online. While they should consult with experts, technologists and law enforcement, they should not overly rely upon any single technology or group of technologies as the primary solution to protecting minors.
An industry group representing the interests of major high-tech and media companies in the patent reform battle on Capitol Hill lauded a report released Monday by the Center for American Progress that called for legislative solutions to enable the patent system to promote, rather than inhibit, innovation and economic recovery. "We applaud CAP for recognizing that current patent law standards governing assessment of damages and the locations where suits may be filed are obstacles to innovation that must be reformed," the Coalition for Patent Fairness said in a statement.
Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman also lauded the paper, saying that he was "pleased that another important, influential organization... has joined a growing list of advocates calling for patent reform." Key critics of legislation that advanced in the House and Senate in the 110th Congress include the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries as well as independent inventors and small firms whose business models depend largely on patent licensing. For more on the CAP report, read CongressDaily's coverage here (subscription required).
About one in four stalking victims in the United States reported some form of cyber-stalking such as e-mail (83 percent) or instant messaging (35 percent), according to a Justice Department report released Monday. The Bureau of Justice Statistics findings, based on the largest data collection of such behavior to date, also showed that electronic monitoring was used to stalk one in 13 victims and video or digital cameras were equally likely as listening devices or bugs to be used to electronically monitor victims (46 percent and 42 percent). Global positioning system technology comprised about a tenth of the electronic monitoring of stalking victims, officials said.
Overall, an estimated 3.4 million people identified themselves as victims of stalking during a 12-month period in 2005 and 2006. About half of them experienced at least one unwanted contact per week from the offender and 11 percent had been stalked for five or more years. The most common types of stalking behaviors were receiving unwanted phone calls from the offender (66 percent), receiving unsolicited letters or e-mail (31 percent), or having rumors spread about them (36 percent). Nearly 75 percent of victims knew their offender in some capacity, and about one-tenth were stalked by a stranger. Read the DOJ report here.
Less than a year into the Library of Congress' pilot project to place its photographs on the popular image-sharing Web site Flickr, the photos have drawn more than 10 million views, 7,166 comments and more than 67,000 tags, according to a report from the team overseeing the initiative. Last January, the library uploaded a few thousand images (including "Letter for Santa Claus," shown at right) from its vast collections to see how "crowd-sourcing" might enhance the quality of the information the institution could provide about its historic holdings.
"The popularity and impact of the pilot have been remarkable," said Michelle Springer, project manager for digital initiatives in the Office of Strategic Initiatives. The site is averaging 500,000 views a month, she said, adding that Flickr members have marked 79 percent of the photos as "favorites." The report recommends that the library continue to participate in an area within Flickr called The Commons and explore other Web 2.0 communities.
"Increasing the ability to engage and connect with photos increases the sense of ownership and respect that people feel for these photos," the report states. "Lessons learned from this project provide guideposts to the type of experience that people would like to have with our collections." Since the project began, 16 additional institutions from the United States and other countries have begun sharing their photo archives and inviting the public to contribute information, the library said in a blog post.
The FBI has made great strides in 6-year, $451 million project to replace the agency's paper-based legacy systems for supporting mission-critical intelligence analysis and case management activities but more work needs to be done, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a Friday report. The analysis, which is the fourth in a series of audits examining the program known as Sentinel, raised concerns about the FBI's minimal planning for streamlining its business processes to coincide with implementation of the new system. The project has been the focus of repeated questioning by House and Senate appropriators and members of the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees.
The FBI also needs to make several decisions about the scope and functionality of Sentinel, such as its role in automating the FBI's records management process, Fine's report said. Furthermore, the agency should improve the risk management process it uses to identify, monitor, control, and mitigate risks before they negatively affect Sentinel's cost, schedule, and performance. The current threshold for determining when a risk requires a contingency plan is set so high that very few, if any, risks will require a contingency plan, he wrote. Overall, the audit made 10 recommendations to help the FBI ensure Sentinel's success. The FBI agreed with all of Fine's recommendations.
President-elect Barack Obama, his primary season challenger Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona each received a 100 percent on the Information Technology Industry Council's congressional scorecard, which is updated every two years to coincide with the final vote of a session of Congress. The scorecard [available here as a PDF] also serves as an indicator of how well the high-tech sector is doing to increase lawmakers' understanding of the power of the IT industry on the U.S. economy.
Fifty-five other senators also received a perfect score by the trade group that represents major firms like Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. Some of the lowest ranking senators include: Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., (40 percent); Roger Wicker, R-Miss., (50 percent); James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Jim DeMint, R-S.C., (25 percent); Wayne Barrasso, R-Wyo.; (50 percent); and the late Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., (0 percent). Members were ranked for their votes on a range of tech-related bills, including the American Competes Act, the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act; comprehensive energy legislation; a proposal to extend and expand the research and development tax credit for two years; and the $700 billion financial rescue plan.
ITI also scored all 435 members of the House. For more information about the trade group's rankings from the 106th Congress through the current session, click here.
Congressional offices and organizers of grassroots advocacy campaigns have used technology in ways that have unintentionally hindered democratic dialogue over the past decade, resulting in "misunderstanding, frustration [and] wasted effort," according to a report released today by the Congressional Management Foundation. The 69-page study, which caps off nearly 10 years of research, recommends a new model for interaction rooted in the belief that "all communications to and from congressional offices should be trustworthy, authentic, effective and efficient."
The report comes on the heels of a temporary shutdown of House servers in late September and early October, which resulted from an unprecedented number of constituent e-mails regarding the $700 billion bailout package. The overload of the "Write Your Representative" feature was the most recent demonstration of the urgent need for change in the face of Internet-enabled citizen engagement, the foundation said. At the time, a spokesman for the Chief Administrative Officer said the system had not experienced such demand since the 9/11 Commission report was posted in 2004.
Read the full CongressDaily story here (subscription required).
An alliance of technology firms and public interest groups committed to curbing the computer "spyware" epidemic released for public comment on Monday a document aimed at helping software users and reviewers understand the complexities of products that promise to rid PCs of the malicious code.
Various kinds of testing are often difficult to distinguish from one another and the Anti-Spyware Coalition encourages testers and reviewers to define the goals and methodologies of their testing. This is ASC's sixth published working report and the comment period ends April 4.
Information on how to post a comment is available on the ASC Web site. Once the comment period ends, ASC members will release a report on the comments and incorporate them into the group's final document.
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