[government] Forum Topics

This is the sort of thing that annoys me intensely. Our Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Lord Davies of Abersoch, has been asking the good people at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona what they need to grow the mobile business, what it's all about, that sort of …

Remember the Idaho legislator who wanted to outlaw anonymous blogging? He’s back. The good news is, Representative Steve Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, no longer is trying to [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3662.html"]outlaw anonymous blogging[/URL]. According to Jared Hopkins in the Magic Valley [URL="http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2009/02/06/news/local_state/154433.txt"]Times- News[/URL], Hartgen told the Idaho House State Affairs Committee that he had …

A government is rolling out a wireless network, starting with 18 cities, using WiMAX technology that supports mobile networking, for $30 a month. The real news is where it is: Libya. WiMAX, based on similar technology to cell phone networks, offers wider coverage than is possible using wifi. Like wifi, …

President Barack Obama will be able to continue to use a personal digital assistant like the Blackberry he used during the campaign, which naturally required security improvements. But more important, the new administration has agreed that any messages he sends through the device will be subject to the Presidential Records …

A recent report from the [URL="http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband%20Barriers.pdf"]Pew Internet & American Life Project[/URL] suggests that even if broadband Internet is made more widely available in the U.S., 9% of adults said they aren't interested in switching from dial-up, and 25% of adults aren't on the Internet at all and are unlikely to …

Remember when China officially declared war on Internet pornography and set a target of just six months to purge the Web of sexually explicit images, stories and AV clips? No, well [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1407.html"]read this[/URL] to refresh your memory. While you are at it, make a note of the date: that story …

The Bush administration was [URL="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20090114/order_20090114.pdf"]ordered this week[/URL] to take a number of steps intended to help preserve email messages sent between 2003 and 2005 that had been thought to have been deleted -- but the way the court order was phrased offers a number of loopholes to avoid the intent …

Remember the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3670.html"]Idaho elected official[/URL] a few weeks back who got in trouble for forwarding a message, comparing Michelle Obama to a black widow spider, to 26 people from his official email account? It gets better. The [I]Kuna-Melba News[/I], a weekly paper that covers western Ada County and eastern Canyon …

A number of localities have tried to recreate the magic that resulted in locations such as Silicon Valley in California and Route 128 in Massachusetts. Now it's Idaho's turn. More than 100 Idaho business executives and politicians want to turn some 79,000 acres of land in Idaho, about 20 miles …

Ah, yes, the wonderful Christmas tradition of watching Santa's travels around the world using a missile defense system. It's actually a very sweet story. "The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number," explains the NORAD …

For many people, the first they heard of Saturday's plane crash at Denver International Airport was via a Twitter message from someone who'd been on the plane, which quickly made its way through the Internet: "Holy ****ing s*** I wasbjust in a plane crash!" (Despite what some overly dramatic news …

Perhaps Idaho politicians and government workers just shouldn't be allowed near the Internet. Steve Rule, commissioner for Canyon County, was [URL="http://www.newwest.net/city/article/commissioner_sends_racist_email_using_official_account/C108/L108/#comments"]criticized[/URL] earlier this month for forwarding an email message, comparing Michelle Obama to a black widow spider, to 26 people, many of them at Canyon County government email accounts. To …

A newly elected Idaho state legislator is considering drafting a bill to make anonymous blogging illegal. Ironically, the legislator in question is a retired newspaper editor. (Idaho has a "citizens legislature" that meets only three months a year; few of them are professional politicians.) Steve Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, was quoted …

Forgive the guffaws of uncontrolled laughter from over here. I've just seen that the US Government - January Obama edition - is considering making IT security a matter for its specific attention and put someone in charge of Cybercrime. So why the laughter from the UK? Yes, I can understand …

'Internet for Everyone' sounds like a laudable goal. Very Mom and apple pie. Who could be against that? The problem is that the name of an organization doesn't necessarily accurately depict what it's trying to do, and what Internet for Everyone is actually trying to do is far from clear …

Ever had some computer malware spit a bunch of porn onto your screen? Now imagine it happening in a roomful of schoolchildren. Now imagine it could send you to jail -- for forty years. That's what happened to Julie Amero, a substitute teacher in Norwich, Conn., in 2004. Using a …

I almost thought it was April 1st, but no it is actually just a couple of days before the election of the new President of the United States. Which probably accounts for why EA has apparently decided to develop a download content pack for the Mercenaries 2 game which will …

Sarah Palin is always keen to talk about open and transparent government, indeed it was one of the main focal points of her campaign when she ran for the office of Governor in Alaska. Of course, she continues to talk the transparency talk now that the campaign has ramped up …

I'd like to start today's blog with a big hello to the British Government. I say a big hello although they won't be watching everything I type just yet, that's going to be a little later. They're trying to pass laws over here that mean they'll be allowed to monitor …

The group [URL="http://www.stopinternetpredators.org/"]Stop Internet Predators[/URL], claiming that the Street View 360-degree technology can be used by pedophiles to help stalk their victims, is recommending that municipalities "[b]an Street View from your neighborhoods until it is safeguarded to ensure children's safety and privacy." How Google is supposed to do that, the …

Last Saturday, Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin held a rally in Los Angeles in the Home Depot Center, and the California Democratic Party rented a giant electronic billboard during the event, and solicited questions from people, via texting, to display during the presentation (exhorting submitters to …

The initial model for looking at Twitter was horizontal -- see everything that all the people you follow are thinking about. Now the model has been turned on its head 90 degrees -- see everything that anyone says, whether you follow them or not, that has to do with a …

Effective Wednesday, October 1, each business in Nevada must encrypt customers’ personal information when it is transmitted outside the business’ secure network, such as when it's transmitted over wifi. Initially passed in October 2007, it was said to have been the [URL="http://www.privsecblog.com/archives/state-legislation-some-state-data-encryption-requirements-more-effective-than-others.html"]first law[/URL] of this type. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts …

Buddhist writer Scoop Nisker used to close out his news reports on a San Francisco radio station by saying, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." Now, if you don't like political advertising, you can go out and make some of your own. …

We were all treated this week to a lovely example of why it's a good idea to use standard email for government business (or corporate business, for that matter). First, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin mentioned that [URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903044.html"]she used Yahoo Mail[/URL] for some of her email, which is a …

[I]You have no friends named "palin".[/I] Sob. I had been so proud, the day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her as his running mate, to be her friend on Facebook. I hadn't even done it cold, either; a friend of mine had recommended to me that I friend …

No sooner had the echoes of “Sarah *who*?” faded than the blogosphere was on the job, showing that even for an unknown person from a remote area, there was plenty of readily accessible information available – and not only perhaps doing a better job of vetting than the McCain campaign …

If you were one of the just seven people in the first half of the year who went to the Washington State Department of Transportation web page using free wifi from the rest areas along its highways, you're out of luck -- the state dropped the little-used service as of …

Why prebuying Google sponsored ads might be a bad idea. Google "lieberman mccain." Or, click [URL="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=lieberman%20mccain&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8"]here[/URL]. The result, at least as of this writing? Sponsored Link Lieberman & McCain JohnMcCain.com/lieberman Senator Lieberman Joins McCain's Team. Learn Why You Should Join! Clicking the link takes one to "Citizens for McCain," an …

When one thinks about high-tech states, one typically thinks of places such as California and Massachusetts. But....Alabama? The Southern state was the only state government on CIO Magazine’s top 100 institutions for excellence in information technology. According to CIO, the state provides more than 130 e-government applications through the [URL="http://www.alabama.gov/portal/index.jsp"]state's …