New Command to Focus on Cybersecurity for DoD and IC

The Wall Street Journal just ran an article titled:  “New Military Command to Focus on Cybersecurity.”   In it they indicate “current and former officials familiar with the plans” say a new military command will be established to coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve US offensive capabilities in cyberwar.

WSJ also reports that Defense Secretary Gates plans to announce the creation of a new military cyber command after the rollout of the White House review.   

My opinion:  This WSJ article seems more balanced and accurate than the article I discussed in my post “NYT wants cyber security to be a divisive issue.”  

The WSJ article is in consonance with what is going on and what should be going on.  I believe NSA should be formally given the lead for defending DoD/IC systems, but defense remains a team sport, and DHS should be given the lead for defending the rest of .gov networks (while still leaning on NSA/DoD/DNI as required).  And all players need to work well with industry and allies in a coordinated, fast moving way.

What does this mean for enterprise technologists?  For the most part it is good news.  But for day to day security operations in most enterprises, the relationships you have with other organizations will remain the same as before– for now.   And the current body of best practices remains in place.  You still need to understand and implement and follow the Common Audit Guidelines, for example.  Doing that is going to help you and will help others too.   

May I have your views on the future of IT?

If all goes well I’ll get a speaking part at the next DoDIIS Worldwide Conference at Orlando 17-21 May 2009.  I love this conference.  It is attended by great folks, many of whom are technologists with a deep background in a favorite mission area. The greatest systems integrators come to the conference.  And the technology companies that exhibit at the conference are also great, with many demonstrating cutting edge, disruptive technologies that make for an intellectually stimulating time.

I submitted a proposal to deliver a presentation at a breakout session on megatrends in the IT world and some assessments on the future of IT.

A Proposal Regarding High Tech Immigrants to the US

The topic of H-1B visa’s has always been a hot one.  In the current economic climate there are plenty of American tech workers looking for work and therefore this special visa program is under increasing scrutiny.  I have many friends and associates and family members who have either lost jobs or found themselves in positions they would not prefer due to the current economic meltdown and my bias is to side with them on this.  We need to rethink the nation’s objectives regarding the H-1B program (you can read more on the H-1B visa program, including criticisms, at wikipedia).

You Really Have to See This: From MIT Media Lab

Words can hardly describe how neat this technology is.  I’m excited and enthused for many reasons, including the potential power of this technology to help us all make better decisions and of course to bring even more fun to our lives.  Watch and let your imagine go… Think of the wonderful ways we can interact with data to do good things in the world. 

Other thoughts:  Look for the dynamic, moving newspaper.  Yet again there is more evidence that Hollywood is driving enterprise technology.

A Blog I Like: Devost.net

Matt Devost has been a thought leader in information technology, cyber warfare, counter terrorism and security training for over a decade.  He has built successful companies, taught warriors security, helped protect industry and taught (and still teaches) information warfare at Georgetown university.

Through history great thoughts have come from leaders who work at the intersection of multiple domains of practice and Matt continues to demonstrate his thought leadership at is blog.  As proof let me mention his winning of NDU’s Sun Tzu infrormation warfare essay contest in 1996. The article he co-authored titled “Information Terrorism: Can You Trust Your Toaster?” remains a classic thought piece that should be read by every IT professional and military strategist today.

Read that article and Matt’s more recent thoughts at: http://blog.devost.net/

Next week I write about Mike Tanji and Haft of the Speer.

Vivek Kundra: The Alpha CTO

Every CTO I know has heard of Vivek Kundra, CTO of
the District of Columbia.  We have all been following his accomplishments
in transforming the technology program in DC and have watched in excitement as
more and more capabilities have been rolled out to serve the city and its
citizens. We have followed reports of bold moves he put in place to ensure
technology programs deliver.  We have read about his new approaches to
technology portfolio management and watched as he discussed the leap ahead he
delivered to his enterprise by his audacious, courageous use of Google Apps and
other cloud-based solutions.

If you are not one of those familiar with Vivek, here
is a short bio: Vivek Kundra is the CTO for the
District of Columbia where he leads an organization of over 600 staff that
provides technology services and leadership for 86 agencies, 38,000 employees,
residents, businesses, and 14 million annual visitors. He brings to the role of
CTO a diverse record that combines technology and public policy experience in
government, private industry, and academia. Previously, Vivek
served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Technology for the Commonwealth
of Virginia, the first dual cabinet role in the state’s history.  In the
private sector, Vivek led technology companies
serving national and international customers. Earlier he served as Director of
Infrastructure Technology for Arlington, Virginia. He also taught classes on
emerging and disruptive technologies at the University of Maryland. Since Vivek became District CTO, he has been honored with major
IT awards. In 2008, the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium recognized him among
outstanding IT innovators. In addition, InfoWorld Magazine named Vivek among
its “CTO 25″.

I recently saw Vivek at a meeting of the Washington Area CTO Roundtable,
an informal collective of area CTOs led by Yuvi Kochar, CTO of the Washington
Post Company. Before the meeting we chatted about mashup technologies (including his Apps for Democracy  contest and also JackBe).  During the meeting Vivek discussed several
aspects of his innovative efforts to transform the District’s information technology
infrastructure.   A point that struck me was his leadership through
principles.  Three key ones he articulated were: 1) Leveraging commercial
technology, 2) Driving transparency, and 3) Rethinking notions of IT
governance. 

Vivek and I just finished a phone call where we discussed these and other items
in more detail.  Here is a bit more on his approach. 

1) Leveraging commercial technology: Commercial radios and cell phones
allowed a rapid enhancement of the tactical communications infrastructure of
the DC workforce, including the police workforce.  Police squad cars are
also now equipped with commercial, but toughened, laptops.  Commercial web
technology has been leveraged in ways that leaped ahead of old clunky office
automation and also enable rapid development and mashups. 

2) Driving transparency and engaging citizens:  Technology
impediments to information access and information sharing were eliminated in
ways that enable citizens to see how government decisions are being made. 
Data was also exposed in ways that enabled mashups and agile
programing/development.  Examples include DCs digital public square and
Apps for Democracy efforts.

3) Rethinking notions of IT governance: Totally new, innovative ways to
manage IT portfolios were created and used to ensure all stakeholders could
evaluate the technology program and better make informed decisions on when to
terminate programs and where to invest more money.  Chief among these
innovations was an approach to portfolio management that replicates a stock
market trading floor.  More important, however is the relentless focus on
performance and innovation to support performance.  Beside rethinking
these notions of governance Vivek also took measures to smartly
watch/reduce/reprioritize IT costs.

I asked Vivek for thoughts that might be relevant to technologists who have set
their sites on careers where they can deliver results.  Many of us would
like to follow in his footsteps.  I wondered, if there is a particular
computer programing language we should all be learning now?  Should we be
diving into Python?  That’s hot now.  And what about databases? MySQL
and Hadoop are all the rage.  The thoughts I got back from Vivek were
incredibly insightful and far more relevant than the simplistic question I
asked. 

V:  Technology is important, and we do need to know technology.  But in these very exciting times where
Moore’s law pushes us all forward it is actually more important to be able to quickly learn new technology rather than focus on one and only one.  This is the beauty of the new world of
technology. There is always something to learn.  We should also always remember that the reason to learn is the mission.  To an enterprise CTO, technology by itself is worthless.  Technology
only has value if it addresses business problems and drives business success.
Therefore technologists must have an ability to translate between the worlds of
mission needs and technology and need an ability to rapidly learn and deeply
understand both.

I asked Vivek for his intention for sharing his models and methods, since they
have clearly delivered success in DC.  He is doing quite a bit there so
all of us who would like more info have plenty of ways to learn more:

V: The DC CTO site at http://octo.dc.gov
provides links to many of the ongoing activities of the office and for those
who would like more on the models that produce the results we link to policies,
guidelines and procedures.  We also provide information on how our
governance process works.   But additionally we host visits to our
office by interested parties and have begun blogging about them.  In
another effort we hope will help move the models forward we are pressing ahead
with plans to turn our stock market approach to portfolio management into an
open model and will open source the code that makes it work, which should help
drive more innovation there.

Speaking of innovation, Vivek seems to have found a way to accelerate
innovation, which is something all CTOs are interested in doing.  I asked
him for his thoughts on where to look for innovation.  Another interesting
reply:

V:  You can look for innovation many places, but remembering that
necessity is the mother of invention you should keep an eye open for places
that innovate because they really need to.  I always keep an eye on the
developing world and am so incredibly amazed at the tech innovation
there.  Enterprise IT does not mean that every program and project must be
delivered with huge budgets and huge staffs and the incredible innovations
coming out of the developing world prove that time and time again.  I’m
excited and enthused about developments like cell phone voting in Estonia,
electronic census that works in Chili, fishing villages around the world using
instant direct data to plan movement.  Innovation occurs many places, but
some of the greatest lessons for innovation are coming from the developing
world.

I asked Vivek about how to find balance between setting standards and enabling
innovation:

V:  Standards are important, but if a standard gets in the way of
innovation kill it.   Use standards that enable innovation. 
This is the role of the CTO.

Vivek also offered thoughts on social networks.

V:  In seeking ways to make your cycles of innovation move faster, never
underestimate the power of social networking tools and the networks you can
build with them.  Facebook is the example most talked about but there are
many others including networks built around ecommerce like eBay and
Amazon.  I believe we should not only embrace them to enable the power of
social networking but to help us leverage, in a large way, the IT
infrastructure of these platforms.   The new generations today are making
maximum use of these platforms and I view this as a very optimistic point.

As for me, I view the results of Vivek Kundra and his models as optimistic
points.  The great thing about being a CTO is the learning never stops in
this field and Vivek is a great teacher we should all be learning from.

For more on Vivek and the way hew views technology, including some of his inputs to the Obama adminstration, see: http://www.ctovision.com/2009/01/federal-government-technology-directions-and-the-fed-cto.html

Threats In the Age of Obama

The world does not change in discrete, binary steps.  There is a great deal of continuity from the past to the present and on to the future.  But many of us sense things are different in the world today.   Technology is changing every life and every business, economic megatrends are producing changes, war and conflict and terrorism inject uncertainty, and the entire dynamic of human events is moving faster and faster.

On top of that, a new U.S. administration led by a new President has just assumed executive power in the U.S.  This is clearly a time for us all to take stock.

I was privileged to have been asked by Michael Tanji to contribute to a book he edited on topics relevant to this new dynamic called “Threats In The Age of Obama.”  This compilation consists of a survey of the new national security threat landscape by Tanji and then examinations of a wide swath of threats captured by national security experts.

Topics and Contributors include:

• The Threat Landscape, Michael Tanji
• The Tangled Relationship Between Organized Crime,
  Terrorism and Proliferation, Christopher A. Corpora, Ph.D
• The Terrorism Meme–Looking Beyond the Current Threat,
  Matthew G. Devost
• Crazy as a Fox, Adrian Martin
• Infectious Diseases, Foreign Militaries, and US National
  Security, Christopher Albon
• Pakistan as a Nuclear Risk, Steve Schippert
• Nuclear Nonproliferation in the 21st Century, Cheryl Rofer and Molly Cernicek
• Into the Complex Terrain, Tim Stevens
• Simulated “Black Swans”: National Security, Perception
  Operations, and the Expansion of the Infosphere,
  Adam Elkus
• An Outbreak of Peace and Democracy, Daniel H. Abbott
• Ideas and Strategies for a More Secure Future, Michael Tanji
• Preparing One’s Mind to See, Art Hutchinson
• The Issues of Non-State Actors and the Nation State, Samuel P. Liles
• The Future of Missile Defense Policy, Tom Karako
• Toward a Contemporary Deterrence Strategy, Carolyn Leddy
• An Information Age Strategy for Government Information Technology, Mathew Burton
• The Future of Cyberspace Security: The Law of the Rodeo,
  Bob Gourley
• Security Evolution, Gunnar Peterson
• Arming for the Second War of Ideas, Matt Armstrong
• Blurring the Lines Between War and Peace, Shane Deichman
• Reconfiguring the National Security Architecture, Shlok Vaidya
• A Grand Strategy for a Networked Civilization, Mark Safranski

Most of these authors are wired web2.0 experts who are well published in new media and reachable by any who seek to interact on these very important topics (see contact info below).   My recommendation: Read the book and scrutinize it.  If you find any aspect you take issue with, seek out the section’s author and engage them in the intellectual interaction required to drive a greater understanding of these many issues. We also plan several events where the contributors will sit on panels and take questions and interact. 

Whatever your method, please find ways to contribute to the dialog. Your contributions can significantly enhance our nation’s ability to succeed in our responses to the many threats of this age.

Please check out the book here: “Threats In The Age of Obama.”

Contributing authors include, in alphabetical order, Dan tdaxp, Christopher Albon, Matt Armstrong, Matthew Burton, Molly Cernicek, Christopher Corpora, Shane Deichman, Adam Elkus, Matt Devost, Bob Gourley, Art Hutchinson, Tom Karako, Carolyn Leddy, Samuel Liles, Adrian Martin, Gunnar Peterson, Cheryl Rofer, Mark Safranski, Steve Schippert, Tim Stevens, and Shlok Vaidya. And of course, editor and contributor, Michael Tanji.

We Have A Cyber Czar, and He Has Spoken

A debate has been running for months both among government thought
leaders and the technical literati on whether or not the US should appoint a
“Cyber Czar” who can exert authority over IT security in the federal space or perhaps even
aspects of the nation’s IT defenses.  This is a complex discussion
that has had some of the greatest thinkers in and out of government
involved.   A great snapshot of issues and the opinions of many well
reasoned experts are expressed in the CSIS report “Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency“   and other
thoughts are here: The Future of Cyber Security and here: Threats In the Age of Obama .

Unfortunately for those who would like to still debate and discuss this
issue, there is already a Cyber Czar who can accomplish most all his
objectives in our networks.  His name is Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin.  This former KGB operative now controls Russia with an
iron fist and has shown others again and again he will exert influence
anywhere he needs to in order to accomplish his objectives.  He will
use tanks when required and cyber when desired and combinations when it
suits him.  There are indications his agents are also in our networks
now.  If our objectives are to keep players like him out, we cannot say
we are accomplishing them.  If his objectives are to get in, then we
can say he is accomplishing them.  Till this situation changes, we
need to confront then this new reality:  Vladimir Putin is the Cyber
Czar.

We have our own great technologists and wizards of cyber, of course. 
And we have great hero entrepreneurs of technology who have built the
cyber world we all use today.  One of those greats is Michael Dell,
creator of an idea and corporation that develops, manufactures, sells
and distributes personal computers we all depend on.

But he is someone who will now think twice before thinking he can
interact as a peer to Cyber Czar Putin.  After listening to Putin’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Michael Dell
praised Russia’s technical and scientific prowess and asked a nice,
friendly question:  “How can we help.”  As a former govie CTO I would
get asked that type of question all the time from industry and really
appreciated it whenever a senior thought leader would ask that.  But
not Czar Putin.  He did not appreciate that at all.   Putin was
offended by the assertion that the mighty Russia might need help in anything Cyber.
The exchange is captured here on YouTube:

Fortune: described the exchange this way:

“Putin’s withering reply to Dell: “We don’t need help. We are not
invalids. We don’t have limited mental capacity.” The slapdown took
many of the people in the audience by surprise. Putin then went on to
outline some of the steps the Russian government has taken to wire up
the country, including remote villages in Siberia. And, in a final dig
at Dell, he talked about how Russian scientists were rightly respected
not for their hardware, but for their software. The implication: Any
old fool can build a PC outfit.”

Clearly cyber domination is personal with Putin.  He is the Cyber Czar. 

I think I should end with a plea to all who care about cyber freedom and all who know the potential positive contributions of IT:  Please don’t be
pleased with this current situation.  Please don’t just think the title
of Cyber Czar I’ve now used to describe Putin is something we should be
proud of.  It is not.  We should continue to act till we are able to
assert that we are masters of our own networks.  Our nation’s
intellectual property, including the intellectual property of all our
companies and citizens, is too important to let it be given away
without at least a cyber fight.

A Blog I Like: ShepherdsPi

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Microsoft’s Institute for Advanced Technologies in Governments, Lewis Shepherd, publishes a blog on technologies relevant to enterprises big and small. 

Lewis writes about tools, techniques and concepts in ways that bring home the real utility of advanced technologies.  Recent posts have been on word-clouds and other ways of visualizing information, semantic constructs, flexible devices and of course recent developments from the tech industry. 

Lewis’s blog should be on any technologist reading list and I consider him a “must follow” connection on twitter. 

You can read Lewis and find his twitter account at:  http://shepherdspi.com/

Next week I write about Matt Devost at: http://blog.devost.net/

Vint Cerf of Google and Bob Gourley of CTOvision.com on CIO Talk Radio

On Wednesday 28 Jan 2009 at 10am Eastern I’ll be on CIO Talk Radio with one of the stars of the global technology community, Vint Cerf.  

The topic we will be discussing is the next technology revolution in the US and how it will start.  Vint is fantastically qualified to discuss this topic, and I’m honored to be sharing a microphone with him and look forward to learning from the interaction.  Every time I get the pleasure of interacting with Vint it ends up influencing me.  I hope to capture some of our interaction for future blog posts here at ctovision.com

Vint’s bio is incredible and I learn something every time I read it.  I’ve pasted it below.  

But first more on CIO Talk Radio.  CIO Talk Radio is an Internet radio talk show, broadcasted live every Wednesday at 9:00 AM Central/ 10:00 AM Eastern, about how technology has changed and is changing the way we live our lives as well as do business.  Guests are business leaders, subject matter experts, and thought leader who are responsible for shaping the way we use technology. Visit the site at: http://ciotalkradio.com and click on LIVE BROADCAST to listen. A popup window will open and if you have Windows Media Player installed, in 10 – 15 seconds, you will listen to the live radio. In case of issues you may also open broadcasting station websites.  Call 866.472.5790 to ask questions during the live broadcast.

Now for that incredibly interesting bio:

Vint Cerf
Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google

Vinton G. Cerf has served as vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google since October 2005. In this role, he is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies to support the development of advanced, Internet-based products and services from Google. He is also an active public face for Google in the Internet world.

Cerf is the former senior vice president of Technology Strategy for MCI. Previously, Cerf served as MCI’s senior vice president of Architecture and Technology.

Widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his colleague, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. Kahn and Cerf were named the recipients of the ACM Alan M. Turing award in 2004 (sometimes called the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science”) for their work on the Internet protocols. In November 2005, President George Bush awarded Cerf and Kahn the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award given by the United States to its citizens. In April 2008, Cerf and Kahn received the prestigious Japan Prize.

Prior to rejoining MCI in 1994, Cerf was vice president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982-1986, he led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.

During his tenure from 1976-1982 with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Cerf played a key role leading the development of Internet and Internet-related packet data and security technologies.

Vint Cerf served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007. Cerf also served as founding president of the Internet Society from 1992-1995 and in 1999 served a term as chairman of the Board. In addition, Cerf is honorary chairman of the IPv6 Forum, dedicated to raising awareness and speeding introduction of the new Internet protocol. Cerf served as a member of the U.S. Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) from 1997 to 2001 and serves on several national, state and industry committees focused on cyber-security. Cerf sits on the Board of Directors for the Endowment for Excellence in Education, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Advisory Committee and the Board of the Avanex Corporation. He also serves as 1st Vice President and Treasurer of the National Science & Technology Medals Foundation. Cerf is a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Engineering Consortium, the Computer History Museum, the Annenberg Center for Communications at USC and the National Academy of Engineering.

Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet. These include the Marconi Fellowship, Charles Stark Draper award of the National Academy of Engineering, the Prince of Asturias award for science and technology, the National Medal of Science from Tunisia, the St. Cyril and St. Methodius Order (Grand Cross) of Bulgaria, the Alexander Graham Bell Award presented by the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, the NEC Computer and Communications Prize, the Silver Medal of the International Telecommunications Union, the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Award, the ACM Software and Systems Award, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the Computer and Communications Industries Association Industry Legend Award, installation in the Inventors Hall of Fame, the Yuri Rubinsky Web Award, the Kilby Award, the Rotary Club International Paul P. Harris Medal, the Joseph Priestley Award from Dickinson College, the Yankee Group/Interop/Network World Lifetime Achievement Award, the George R. Stibitz Award, the Werner Wolter Award, the Andrew Saks Engineering Award, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, the Computerworld/Smithsonian Leadership Award, the J.D. Edwards Leadership Award for Collaboration, World Institute on Disability Annual award and the Library of Congress Bicentennial Living Legend medal. Cerf was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2006.