Summaries for June 17, 2008

IPv6 EXPERT SAYS, YEAH, WE NEED ALL THOSE ADDRESSES
The next big application on the internet will be ... the internet itself. -> Read More

THE NEXT TECHNOLOGY THING MAY NOT BE ALL THAT BIG
In technology, people are always trying to tune into WNBT, or What's the Next Big Thing?” -> Read More

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Save the date for GSA's IRMCO 2009!
Plan now to attend IRMCO 2009 on April 19-22, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay in Cambridge, Maryland.  The 48th annual government-only gathering of agency career and political leaders is the premier place to network and discuss the government's challenges.

IRMCO, GSA's Interagency Resources Management Conference, has been produced by GSA since 1961 to serve the needs of the government's senior executives.  The three-day retreat provides these leaders the opportunity for dialogue with experts in organizational change, peer-to-peer discussion of strategies to transform their agencies, and insightful keynotes from industry and government visionaries.

Bookmark www.irmco.gov to register early for government management conference.

WHAT IS 'CRITICAL'? DHS IS CALLING THE SHOTS
When startlingly powerful thunderstorms temporarily paralyzed the Washington, D.C. area early this month, people remembered the “critical” quality of critical infrastructure. -> Read More

FEDS STILL FIND IT'S NOT EASY BECOMING UNTETHERED
The FCC could not get minimum bids from industry for the D-block, coming as it did with the stipulation that the buyer provides national wireless service for first responders. -> Read More

• IPv6 Expert Says, Yeah, We Need All Those Addresses

  The next big application on the internet will be ... the internet itself. Almost like a new era in music came at the end of the Renaissance when tempered tuning revealed a whole new musical vocabulary, so will version 6 of the internet protocol—IPv6—result in a more flexible, ubiquitous and powerful net.

  Peter Tseronis

  Peter Tseronis is one of the government's leading promoters of and evangelists for IPv6. But if you ask him to name the next big three or five or dozen applications, don't expect a nice bullet list. No more than asking an organ tuner in 1680 what new pieces will be written after you squeeze your fifths and stretch your fourths.

  Tseronis recently moved to the Energy Department, where he is senior technical advisor in the office of IT support services within the CIO office. He came from the Education Department. He remains chair of the CIO Council's IPv6 working group.

  “Globally, we need more than 4.3 billion IP addresses,” Tseronis says, referring the paltry number of addresses available under IPv4. At 340 trillion trillion trillion, IPv6 has enough addresses to cover most of the molecules in the solar system. “That will enable auto configuring networks and connection anywhere on earth,” he says.

  “The built-in cryptographic algorithm in IPv6 means trust in the network will occur,” Tseronis adds, trust that is vital to the concept dubbed cloud computing, in which network-based resources such as data, storage and applications are ubiquitous.

  What he is saying is that applications under IPv6 will be whatever developers can imagine. Military logistics with tracking down to the item level; oceanic and atmospheric measurement at a detail afforded by swarms of connected sensors; intelligence built into structures, appliances and vehicles much more dense than is available now—these are the types of capabilities IPv6 will bring, Tseronis says.

  “The value is in the protocol itself,” he says.
  
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• The Next Technology Thing May Not Be All That Big

  You've heard the aphorism that everyone's favorite radio station is WII-FM--“What's In It For Me?” In technology, people are always trying to tune into WNBT, or What's the Next Big Thing?”

  I get this question a lot. I ask this question a lot. Our expectations are colored by experience dating to the dawn of the PC era. The computer for the individual was, for many working feds, their first experience in transformational technology that one could personally see, touch and own. Not like, say, the Mars lander.

  Within that PC dynamic came many sub-breakthroughs, such as color computing, the graphic interface, and portable computers.

  The internet was another transforming arrival, and it also pulled along many startling sub-developments, such as the modem giving way to ubiquitous broadband.

  Judging from a number of recent events in federal government IT, the next big thing is not some startling new technology but, instead, applications that integrate and amplify the technology that is already deeply embedded in federal and privately owned infrastructure.

  Some examples are small. The General Services Administration will distribute compact web applications called widgets so agencies can better tailor on-demand information feeds to one another and to the public. The grand work, usa.gov, is the big thing already in place. The widget project, GCN reported, builds on existing technology from Vivisimo and Microsoft.

  Equally telling is an effort from Alabama, where the state's homeland security department worked with its counties to mash up Google Earth and other geospatial data to create a complete 3-D picture of the state—at a mere cost of $150,000 to acquire Google Earth Enterprise software. That plus the work of county officials. As FCW reported, the effort was so cheap, and had such payoff, that every state is likely to leverage existing data in this way.

  But other examples are larger. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has put the Pentagon and service chiefs on notice that expensive, technically-intensive new weapons systems are not in favor, and any proposals must prove their mettle right away. The next defense secretary will almost certainly continue this policy. So DOD buying agencies will seek incremental improvements on existing hardware systems. For software systems, they'll seek projects that integrate and leverage existing technologies at low cost.

  This is also why so many agencies, civilian and DOD, are looking at collaborative web technologies. They can improve agency performance without expensive new investments. Similarly, rendering mobile applications derived from existing client/server systems will be popular because it extends functionality using what's already in place—a slew of smart, handheld devices.

  Not that Congress won't tinker when it can. As the Washington Post ferreted out, the Senate Armed Services Committee, in its spending blueprint for 2009, tossed in $6 million to develop hybrid drive systems for combat vehicles.

  Will the next Abrams Tank be an armored Toyota Prius?
  
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• What’s ‘Critical’? DHS Is Calling The Shots

  When startlingly powerful thunderstorms temporarily paralyzed the Washington, D.C. area early this month, people remembered the “critical” quality of critical infrastructure.

  The Homeland Security Department is tasked with protecting, and seeing that industry protects critical infrastructure. Yet the department's main focus is still airline and air transportation safety. But ground and ship transportation will be getting increasing attention.

  The evidence: A recent announcement of $844 million in new grant money. Of the total, $768.7 millions will go to The Port Security Grant Program and the Transit Security Grant Program. The latter will have received a total of nearly a billion dollars in grants since 2005.

  It's a tiny fraction of what the nation spends, and is spending, to keep air traffic safe. On a recent hop from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Reagan National, I noted a cheery Transportation Security Administration propaganda sign touting the arrival of see-through body scanners soon to be in place throughout the country. (As I said on Federal News Radio AM 1050 one recent morning, it will literally be like standing clothes-less, although TSA has the machines set up such that the screener in the terminal can't see your denuded image and the person somewhere else looking at the image can't see you. One hopes.)

  Anyhow, the port and transit security grants are for local and state entities to conduct risk assessments and develop plans for things like credentialing systems and improvised explosive device detection.

  Interestingly, freight rail security—which has the more frightening disaster possibilities—gets a mere $4.9 million under the grants program, while intercity buses get $11.2 million. Passenger rail, the last bastion of low-hassle travel in terms of security screening, will get $25 million in grants. But don't worry about it taking two hours to board an Amtrak train. Amtrak's grants are for ways to harden tunnels and train conductors to spot suspicious people.

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Feds Still Find It’s Not Easy Becoming Untethered

Would you buy surplus goods at an auction from the General Services Administration? Like, say, a used Chevy that's in reasonable condition? Of course you would, if it is what you needed. But would you also buy it if it came with the stipulation that you had to use it once a week for free cab service?

Of course not.

Yet that's what the Federal Communications Commission is trying to do. It's trying to unload unused radio spectrum. Specifically, the Block D of the soon-to-be-given-up television broadcast spectrum and a 25 MHz piece of spectrum in the 2155 MHz band.

The FCC could not get minimum bids from industry for the D-block, coming as it did with the stipulation that the buyer provides national wireless service for first responders. For the 25 MHz piece, FCC is insisting bidders provide free wireless internet access nationwide, with the added stipulation that it be free of pornography. Some media have accused FCC Chairman Kevin Martin of pandering to private, politically-connected interests who want to nab the spectrum cheap to do just that.

Yet another consortium, the New York Times has reported, is planning to build a national wireless data network of its own, presumably one that users would pay for. The consortium consists of Sprint Nextel, Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner and Clearwire.

The point is that if there is demand for national wireless high speed internet access, industry will provide it. If the FCC has spectrum to sell, it should sell it to the highest bidder on behalf of the U.S. Treasury, and let the new owners do with it what that think will bring the highest return on their investment.

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