IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Lockheed Martin recently released new open source tools to help defend enterprises from cyberattacks. The system, called Laika BOSS, offers a malware detection and analysis framework for security analysts to share intelligence with other cyber defenders worldwide. Here's my interview with leading cyberexperts who are offering cutting-edge insights and workable solutions to emerging battles in cyberspace.

Many technology companies offer free open source software and security tools to help protect enterprise systems and networks from dangerous cyberattacks. For example, Google and Facebook released free open source cybersecurity tools last year “to help security professionals gather statistics about bugs and malware, without infringing on individual users' privacy.”

Gov 2.0 was coined in the mid 2000s but didn’t go viral until the Obama administration launched Data.Gov, a platform that makes huge federal datasets easily available. Now in full force, examples of Gov 2.0 can be seen at the local level.

There is a strong preference for new software systems based on open source platforms, and proprietary systems should be considered only if they can meet the same long-term benefits available with open source.

While open source software and its adoption in government continue to grow, the push for open source is not as clear as for other government mandates. Though there is no requirement to use open source, there are clear indications that open source solutions should be given at least as much consideration — if not more — than proprietary systems.

“We believe in using and contributing back to open source software as a way of making it easier for the government to share data, improve tools and services, and return value to taxpayers,” the White House recently posted on its developer-focused website.

Plus, five open source software products that can aid government.

Open source software thrives in government and is in some ways a technical expression of democracy: engineers building common ground and forging a more open and free future for all.

But it’s also often misunderstood in parts of the public sector, seen as a time-consuming and unsupported solution. So if you’re on the fence about open source, keep reading to learn about benefits, evaluation methods, support tools and a few packages to consider right away.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s office has certified the first open-source, publicly owned election technology for use in Los Angeles County — “a significant step in the future of elections in California and across the country.”

The system is known as Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) Tally Version 1.0. Its certification will allow Los Angeles County to use its newly designed Vote By Mail (VBM) ballots in the November election.

VA's Veterans Integrated System Technology Architecture (VistA) is a 30 year-old electronic medical records system that some experts have suggested could form the basis for a national network of e-health records.

The Obama administration has made national adoption of the paperless records a major portion of its overhaul of the naton's healthcare delivery system. VA is leading the charge among federal agencies thanks to VistA, considered the most extensively used e-health records system in the nation.

The IT troubles of HealthCare.gov have baffled the public. After all, the U.S. government has had access to industry experts from the start and, as of Oct. 30, has spent more than $174 million on the site, according to testimony from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

As that figure grows, many may find themselves questioning why and how a site with so much support could have faltered so profoundly. New reports from The Washington Post indicate that the site is still unlikely to be fully operational by the end of November, the White House’s second self-imposed deadline for the site.

The Georgia Technology Authority (GTA) will save the state approximately $4.7 million over the next five years by using an open source website content management system and hosting data in the cloud.

State government agencies in Georgia made the move to Drupal’s OpenPublic platform and cloud storage from Acquia in October 2012. This eliminated multiple servers and the costs associated with maintaining them. In addition to helping the state’s bottom line, the change also has helped limit the downtime of state agency websites.

In a statement on his blog, Emanuel touted the advantages of an interactive 311 system, stating that making data available in real time would help engage the public and in turn, improve transparency in the city.

One of the leading apps contest creators, ChallengePost, has proved that apps contests can be a good investment. Brandon Kessler, founder and CEO of ChallengePost points to New York as a shining example.

Open source software is free to license, the preferred choice of geeks everywhere, and secure and reliable enough to be used by the U.S. Department of Defense to protect the nation from being flattened by missiles and bombs. Yet many civilian government agencies still don’t take open source seriously.

Large-scale applications, meanwhile, typically have remained as off-the-shelf products bought from vendors. Since open source is written by a vast community of developers collaborating online — most of whom contribute for free — most agencies have feared being without the IT support they would need if functions underpinned by open source failed. But in places like the Pacific Northwest, that assumption is changing in a large way.

A group of government, nonprofit and engineering stakeholders in the Midwest has published a toolkit of "green infrastructure" templates meant to help prevent flooding.

The Calumet Region, straddling the border between Indiana and Illinois, knows all about urban flooding. It’s lost millions of dollars in property damage because of flooding, and its citizens have paid extra on property taxes for levees to hold back the hook-shaped Little Calumet River.

One such platform is OpenStack, created by NASA and Rackspace Hosting, a data storage solution provider. Launched in July 2010, OpenStack has grown to become a global collaboration of developers and cloud computing technologists producing ubiquitous code for public and private clouds.

The Obama administration has begun to open source pieces of the Data.gov platform and plans to launch a full-scale open source project early next year. This open data platform--called Data.gov-in-a-box--will allow other governments to easily stand up their own versions of Data.gov.

Data.gov developer and General Services Administration software architect Chris Musialek last Wednesday posted to open source development site Github some early test code for what appears to be a database management system and Web app that will serve as key pieces of Data.gov-in-a-box.

Das US-Verteidigungsministerium schloss mit dem US-Dienstleister DLT nun einen Rahmenvertrag mit fünf Jahren Laufzeit, wonach das Unternehmen Linux-Dienstleistungen erbringen soll.