1. E C H T R E N D S / I T A G E N D A
'ffilT priorities
for 2OO9
Info sharing, indentity management,
security, lPv6 are high on the list
BYWILLIAM JACKSON I GCN STAFF and IT administrators of the .govtoprlevel
domain have until the end of the year to
WHAT'S oN THE AGENDA for agency crackit. DNSsec helpsensurethe integrity
information technology managers in oflnternet namesand addresses digitat- by
2oo9? Undoubtedly,the new administra- ly signing requests and responsesfrom
tion will bring fresh challenges, there servers.
but The technologymust be enabled
is still unfinishedbusiness from 2OOB that on .govname serversthis year.But doing it
must be addressed. right witl not be easy,said Paul Parisi, chief deadline for encrypting all laptop PCsand
Someinitiatives are in the form of man* technology officer at DNSstuff. "The first removable medi4 but David Hollis, pro-
dates - with deadlines * from Congress coupleof times you try it, it's not going to gram manager for the governmentwide
or the Office of Management and Budget. work," he said. Data at Rest Tiger Team encryption effort,
Others are technical matters that could r Encrypting data at rest. OMB told said DOD was not expectedto meet that
help agencies carryout their missions more civilian agenciesin 2OO6that they should deadline. "Therehasbeena lot ofprogress,"
effectively. be encrypting sensitivedata on all mobile Hollis said."That being said,there is still a
Here is a short list of imperativesthat will devices within 4,5 days of OMB's an- long way to goJ'
likelydemand aftention administra- nouncement.But more than a year later,
the of r Information sharing. A failure to
tors and executives 2OO9.
in only about 3O percent oflaptop PCs and make meaningful connections among in-
r Domain Name System Security E,x- handhelddevices had beenprotected.The formation in various intelligence reports
tensions.DNSsec atough nutto crack-
is DefenseDepartmentset a Dec. 31, 2OOB, has olten been cited as a reason why the
obviously there needs to be some dis*
cussion and clarification about whether
the content on that wiki is considered
official or not. But if we get it right, we
could generate some extremely rich
content as well as save the taxpayer
money by working collaboratively,itera-
I foresee more use of wiki technology by tively for the good of all.
the government, eventually to enable In 2OO9 we will see lT take center
public-private collaboration in the area stage as a government priority as the
of information sharing across a wide new administration appoints a chief
range of subjects. Of course, like gov- technology officer.
ernment-hosted social media networks, We will see an increased emphasis on
this will require significant investment in enterprise architecture and lT gover-
creating policies and frameworks that nance as a way to plan, manage, and
work. For example, if the government oversee the rapid forward movement of
hosts a wiki that the public can modify, advanced technologies.
o r . t 2 . o 9 {i (}li - F ii as: : f,+ "f C* !'{ 4tr * "f * i3 t{ fl Vo'S