Sharing services to improve government efficiency

By Parul Bhandari as written on enterprise.microsoft.com

Faced with shrinking budgets, many governments around the world are being forced to do more with less. In the United States, for example, consumption and investment by all levels of government—local, state and federal combined—recently dropped to 17.6 percent of gross domestic product, its lowest level in 66 years. Similar trends are occurring in many advanced economies around the world.

In the current climate, it’s imperative that governments make every dollar count—and shared services offer a compelling way to do just that. Since the 1990s, many governments have been sharing services—combining resources, functions, and infrastructure—to reduce costs and deliver services more effectively to citizens. And now, thanks to cloud computing, the opportunity exists to share services even more easily and cost-effectively, leading more government agencies to embrace this operating model with impressive results.

A great example is the Baltic country of Estonia, which is transforming citizen engagement by issuing a digital ID to all its citizens 15 years and older. This secure, authenticated identity acts as a national health insurance card, proof of identification for bank accounts, a pre-paid public transport ticket, voting identification, and more. With 600 e-services offered to citizens, Estonia is making access to government services much more efficient for citizens, no matter what service they need to access and which individual agency oversees it.

Likewise, the United Kingdom is reducing costs and increasing efficiency by combining technology across government departments located overseas. Specifically, the UK government is creating a Common Technology Service that allows overseas governmental agencies such as UK Trade and Investment, the Department for International Development, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to collaborate on documents, communicate by voice or video, share calendars, and work from mobile devices using common cloud-based systems. The effort is part of the UK’s “One HMG Overseas” agenda, which aims to remove barriers to joint working so that all overseas staff in the UK government can deliver the UK’s objectives more efficiently.

Saudi Arabia is taking yet another approach to shared services. Its Ministry of Interior’s National Information Center (NIC) is unifying data across government systems to provide better information to citizens while improving public safety and national security situational awareness. Charged with providing comprehensive e-services to citizens, residents, and businesses, the center is improving its e-services through the creation of a massive public data exchange database that can handle tens of terabytes of data and tens of millions of citizen requests per day. To provide public safety and national security officials with improved information, the center also deployed a system using a unified data integration platform, data management hosting, data warehousing, and business intelligence. The solution integrates with 182 internal and external systems and handles petabytes of structured and unstructured data.

These are just a few of the ways governments around the globe are sharing services to improve efficiency and deliver better services to constituents. To learn more, please see our “Best practices for government shared services” white paper. Also, be sure to reach Michele Bedford Thistle’s recent blog post, “A new era of shared services.”

Also, look to request a trial and experience how technology can empower your agency: Azure Government Trial, Office 365 Government Trial.

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The US Defense Department is expanding its efforts with tech startups

By Martyn Williams as written on cio.com

The U.S. Department of Defense is expanding its work with tech startups, bringing tech executives to work at its Silicon Valley lab and planning a new office in Boston to tap into research happening in that area.

The expansion follows the early success of the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) office, an 8-month old Silicon Valley incubator that is a key part of Secretary of Defense Ash Carter's push to rebuild ties between the military and tech industry.

Those ties weakened in recent years as a new breed of Internet startup began innovating more quickly and effectively than companies the DOD has worked with for decades.

Carter opened DIUx, in Mountain View, California, to gain early access to new technology, and in the hope that Silicon Valley's unique way of thinking would rub off on the Pentagon.

One of the first ideas has been a bug bounty program that asks computer security experts to probe DOD computers and networks to help find holes. So far, 1,400 hackers have registered for the program and found more than 80 bugs that qualified for monetary prizes, Carter said Wednesday during a visit to DIUx.

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The center has hosted over 500 entrepreneurs and staged several events, and is now being expanded, he said Wednesday.

"We’re taking a page straight from the Silicon Valley playbook, we’re iterating to make DIUx better," he said.

The effort will now be bi-coastal, with a second office in Boston. That will plug into the innovation happening around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and other New England tech startups.

The center will also get an additional $30 million budget that will be put towards funding "non-traditional companies with emerging commercial technologies that meet our needs," he said, and other efforts like targeted investments.

Carter also announced a new leadership team which, in a change, will report directly to him.

DIUx will be led by Raj Shah, a former F-16 combat pilot, director of security at Palo Alto Networks and now a tech entrepreneur. Other members of the team include Isaac Taylor, who ran Google X and has worked on Google's Glass and VR efforts, and Douglas Beck, Apple's vice president for Americas and Northeast Asia.

Shah provided an example of the kind of tech block that the DIUx hopes to solve.

As an F-16 pilot, he flew combat missions in Iraq but his aircraft didn't have a GPS system that provided a moving map. That is particularly important when flying near borders, because U.S. aircraft did not want to inadvertently stray into Iranian airspace.

The solution for some pilots was to strap an iPad to their knees, because commercial GPS apps could do something it would take the DOD millions of dollars and months to accomplish, he said.

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Office365's Government Community Cloud: Benefits, Features, and Capabilities

Microsoft created Office365 Government Community Cloud (GCC) to cater exclusively to your federal, state, and local government's specific needs.

Safe, Secure, Separate

Microsoft is using GCC to make sure your government data is safe, secure, and separate. First, Office365 has data separation at the application layer.  For advanced security, GCC uses a completely different infrastructure than the infrastructure used for commercial Office365 customers, creating a second layer of physical separation for customer content.

 

 Data Won't Need a Passport

All the data you store in GCC will be stored in the United States only. This means you won't have to worry about where your data is really going when you upload something to the cloud.  All GCC datacenters are physically located in the United States, along with the Office365 services that come along with them.

Restricted Access

Microsoft personnel who have access to Office 365 GCC must be U.S. citizens, as well as undergo strict background investigations to ensure they are providing you with the utmost security.  Consider them as well screened as any other protector of government data.

 

Certifications and Accreditations

Office 365 Government complies with certifications and accreditations that are required for U.S. Public Sector customers by supporting the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (at a Moderate Impact level).  Support for CJIS requirements for law enforcement agencies can be found on Exchange Online (and Exchange Online Archiving), SharePoint Online, and Office Online. 

Learn more about how the Office365 Government Community Cloud can support your local, state, or federal government by contacting us today!

 

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The Key to Global Empowerment is Technology

By Tanner Taddeo as written on techcrunch.com

With the exponential growth in technology, the world has seen not only profound change in various industries, but also a fundamental shift in the structure to our global society.

To unwrap this bit of jargon, let’s look at the intersection of human rights and technology. The fundamental nature of human rights is to allow individuals to exercise their autonomy, liberty and free will, insofar as it doesn’t infringe upon the rights and liberties of others. Broadly speaking, governments are supposed to provide the protection under which the citizenry can freely exercise such will.

Historically, sovereignty has been the golden rule that must not be violated, regardless of what actions take place within the confines of a given territory. This has given authoritarian leaders the freedom to rule as they please. But with the advent of Right to Protect, deriving from the Rome Statute, the emerging customary law opens the door for countries to yield their sovereign rights if they fail to uphold and protect basic human rights.

While this is a monumental leap for international law and human rights, it still begs a more practical question: Outside of rhetoric and tough speak, how can we empower individuals living in countries that lack adequate civil societies to bolster state institutions, have a say in the national dialogue, usher in an era of accountability and transparency to the political system(s) and exercise their human rights? The answer seems to reside in technology.

Take for example Ushahidi, a company that runs an open-source tech platform developed to map outbreaks of violence in Kenya. Here, technology is used as a means of an emergency tool for individuals to report, monitor and evaluate violence in given communities. Such technology is helping facilitate a decline in community violence and abuse toward women.

In countries where access to capital is lacking because of inadequate financial institutions, micro-loans and peer-to-peer money transfers have allowed small business to not only spring up, but also stimulate local economies. To put the potential in perspective, the International Finance Corporation estimates that “up to 84% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa are either un-served or underserved, representing a value gap in credit financing of US$140- to 170-billion.”

In countries where systemic subjugation and deprivation is run-of-the-mill, individuals using the power of social media are showcasing to the world the gross negligence of their government(s) and forcing world leaders to respond.

While civil society, rule of law and regulatory mechanisms surely cannot spring up overnight, the world does not have the luxury to wait and watch its slow evolution. Technology can circumvent traditional processes and empower individuals through networks, information and digital trade. Technology emboldens the notion of human rights, quite literally, with the touch of a hand.

The question is, will governments around the world back the inevitable tide of technology or will they cling to tradition?

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Israeli government turns to Microsoft Azure

By Maor David-Pur, Government Industry Solution Manager, Microsoft Israel, as written on enterprise.microsoft.com

As governments from around the world consider moving to the cloud, many are turning to Microsoft to help them with this move. Why? Because Microsoft Azure offers the greatest flexibility and security of any major cloud computing platform. Moreover, we’re committed to working with governments to meet their unique needs.

A great example is the Israeli government, which has been hosting an increasing number of workloads on Azure. By choosing Azure, government officials are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware and maintenance costs. They’re obtaining a flexible solution that allows them to keep sensitive data on-premises. And they’re improving services for citizens by offering them solutions that automatically scale up to meet user demand. Consider the following examples:

The Israeli parliament is broadcasting its meetings with Azure Media Services

During the past few years, an increasing number of citizens have been tuning in to watch the meetings of the Knesset, Israeli’s parliament. To meet the growing demand, the parliament has begun streaming these meetings both live and on-demand using Azure Media Services, a highly scalable, cloud-based video streaming service. By moving to Azure, the Knesset has saved money in hardware and maintenance costs, while offering citizens a service that automatically scales up and down as demand dictates. Azure has also enabled the parliament to make its meetings accessible to citizens from almost any device including the Android, iPhone, and Windows platforms.

Israeli Railways runs its journey planning service on Azure

The Israeli Railways Company offered a journey planning service hosted on its own servers, but the service had been slow and sometimes crashed, which discouraged citizens from using it. To improve the service without an expensive hardware investment, the state-owned railway moved its database to Azure. Israeli Railways was initially concerned about privacy and security, but it was reassured by our industry-leading commitment to protect our customer’s data. By running its database on Azure, Israeli Railways has saved money in hardware and maintenance costs. Moreover, the railway now has a highly available and scalable service that citizens can depend on for their transportation needs

Based on its positive experience with Azure, the Israeli government is continuing to extend its use. Israeli Railways is planning to move other parts of its website to Azure. And the Knesset plans to add 18 more channels that broadcast committee meetings in addition to meetings of the entire parliament. In addition, the Knesset’s research arm is experimenting with Azure Machine Learning as it researches the impact of proposed legislation.

These scenarios demonstrate some of the many ways that Azure can help governments meet their unique needs. The Israeli government is turning to Azure for a growing number of services because it’s scalable, cost-effective, and highly secure—and because it offers a hybrid approach, giving the government the control and flexibility it needs. To learn more, please see our Microsoft Azure web page.

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In Apple vs. the FBI, technology wins

By Bob Muglia as written on techcrunch.com

Government policy and technology usually coexist in harmony. But occasionally, they get into a brawl. When this happens, policy may win a battle or two, but, ultimately, technology always wins. It simply isn’t a fair fight. Technology moves too fast for policy to keep up.

Take for example the infamous Microsoft versus the Department of Justice antitrust case. As one of the 12 Microsoft executives who was skewered on the witness stand by David Boies, I lived through this nightmare firsthand. The DOJ unambiguously won the legal battle. But policy didn’t win the war. While the DOJ certainly weakened Microsoft, what happened instead is technology, in particular the iPhone, broke the monopoly and now Microsoft is hopelessly behind in mobile computing.

Which brings us to the current war raging between technology and government policy. Apple has used encryption technology to protect user data on the iPhone. But they left a crack in the armor, and the FBI wants to create policy to jump through that tiny crack and read what is on Syed Farook’s phone.

What this tells us is that encryption works. If the FBI or NSA could break strong encryption, then they would remove the memory chips from Farook’s iPhone, copy the data and run it through a cloud of government computers to read the files. But they can’t. Encryption works.

So instead, the FBI has used the All Writs Act law from 1789 to convince a federal judge to force Apple to write a special version of iOS to unlock the iPhone of a bad guy in 2016. If that sounds unlikely, well, it just might work.

"Technology moves too fast for policy to keep up."

If this policy wins in court and the FBI forces Apple to break open Farook’s phone, it won’t stop there. Apple will begin living the nightmare of hundreds of state and federal judges demanding exactly the same thing. And that’s just the beginning; governments around the world will join in with their demands. Apple will be forced to unlock phones from Beijing to Moscow, phones of both bad guys and protesters fighting repressive regimes.

When policy wins a round against technology, it often runs amok.

Fortunately, this won’t be the last round. Apple has already signaled its intent to plug the crack they left in today’s iPhone. So very soon, perhaps even later this year, Apple will ship a phone with encryption that even they can’t break. Then no government on earth will be able to open those phones.

Maybe the battle will continue. But for policy to win the next round, it will need to order Apple and the other technology providers using encryption to change their products so the government can look inside. This is the so-called backdoor, and this is dangerous ground for policy makers.

Creating this backdoor requires changes to law — and that means Congress. In a world obsessed with what Snowden revealed and with a public angry enough to possibly elect Donald Trump, do you think Congress will write a new law to create a backdoor for the government to snoop wherever it wants? No chance. Technology will win, hands down.

So does that mean the game is over? That all Apple has to do is move forward and create their iPhone fortress? Well, maybe not. Because technology continues to march forward.

It turns out that technology will almost certainly break today’s approach to encrypting data that is sent over the Internet. A completely different technology called quantum computing is emerging from the lab, with early products being built now. Quantum computing is completely different from today’s digital computers. Instead of calculations using 1s and 0s, quantum computers use something called a qubit, which can represent many values at the same time.

What this means is that some problems that are virtually impossible to solve using today’s digital computers are child’s play for the quantum computer of tomorrow. Of particular interest is the asymmetric encryption approach that is used to secure HTTPS and, thus, just about everything confidential that is sent over the Internet. These keys are practically unbreakable using digital computers. But for a powerful quantum computer, they will be a piece of cake.

We are still a long way from a quantum computer that can pick the lock on encryption keys. Quantum computing today is roughly as advanced as digital computing was in 1971 when Intel created the first microprocessor. But technology moves faster in 2016 than it did in the 1970s.

In 20 years, or maybe even as few as 10, quantum computers may exist that can look inside all of today’s digital communications. Like most new technology, quantum computing will be expensive and complex at first, so it won’t be available to everyone. But the NSA and FBI won’t be deterred, and they will be first in line to buy a quantum computer. This is a pretty scary scenario, but technology does not play favorites. Technical advancements become available to anyone with the will and means to acquire them.

Like all technology, eventually quantum computing will get cheaper and simpler. We’ll all probably carry a quantum computer in our pocket someday. And while quantum computing may someday break today’s encryption keys, something called quantum cryptography promises an approach to encryption that cannot be foiled by a quantum computer. So the pendulum will swing back and the FBI will be frustrated yet again.

The battle never ends. But in the end, technology always wins.

Governors Launch Bipartisan Partnership to Expand Access to Computer Science Education

On February 21, 2016, Governors Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) and Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) announced a new partnership to promote K-12 computer science education at the state level at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting.

Currently, only 1 out of 4 schools offer computer science instruction — teaching students to create technology, not just use it. Demand for increased and earlier access to computer science is growing among educators, parents, and employers. In a recent survey, 90 percent of parents said they want computer science taught in schools. Today, there are more than 600,000 open computing jobs across the U.S. in every industry and these are among the fastest growing, highest paying jobs in the US.

“There are few jobs today that don’t require some degree of technology or computer use, whether it’s auto mechanics, fashion design or engineering. A big part of our children’s success in the 21st century economy will be to ensure every student feels confident in front of a computer,” said Governor Inslee. “In Washington state we’ve had great bipartisan success promoting stronger computer science education, including teacher training and learning standards. I’m hopeful that governors around the country will join us in making computer science one of the basic skills every child learns.”

To address the education gap, governors joining the Partnership for K-12 Computer Science will work toward three key policy goals in their states:

• Enable all high schools to offer at least one rigorous computer science course;

• Fund professional learning opportunities so educators can be prepared to teach these courses; and

• Create a set of high-quality academic K-12 computer science standards to guide local implementation of courses.

Governors Asa Hutchinson and Jay Inslee will serve as the bipartisan co-chairs for the initiative; they are calling on their colleagues to join them. Participating governors will also share best practices for expanding access to computer science, and advocate for federal policies to support computer science instruction.

“I’m delighted to join fellow governors to promote computer science education in schools across the country. I strongly believe this is paramount to the future of the American economy, and a critical step in preparing the next generation for the fastest growing field in the world,” said Governor Asa Hutchinson. “This time last year, our state passed the most comprehensive computer science education law in the country and appropriated significant funding to train teachers. And we’re not done yet. I look forward to collaborating with my colleagues in other states.”

The Partnership builds on increasing nationwide momentum for computer science education. In January, President Obama proposed $4.1 billion in his budget to support K-12 computer science. More than 20 states have proposed policies to expand access to computer science instruction, and districts are investing time and resources in preparing tens of thousands of educators to teach the subject. Last year, one of every three schools in the U.S. participated in the Hour of Code, a global campaign designed to address misperceptions about computer science.

“It’s amazing to see computer science sweeping across the nation's K-12 public schools, to provide a better future for our children,” said Hadi Partovi, CEO of Code.org. “Washington and Arkansas have led the way, but other states like Idaho, Utah, Massachusetts, Georgia and Alabama are also making this a priority. This new partnership will help expand that groundswell across the US.”

Code.org will provide the Partnership with resources related to best practices in policy and programs, and will facilitate collaboration among governors and their staff.

Source: http://www.governorsforcs.org

US Department of Defense Commits to Upgrade 4 Million Seats to Windows 10

By Yusuf Mehdi / Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group as written on blogs.windows.com

One of the largest enterprises anywhere – the US Department of Defense (DoD) – has joined the ranks of enterprise customers planning swift Windows 10 deployments.

With more than 76% of our enterprise and education customers in active pilots of Windows 10 and more than 200 million active devices running Windows 10, we’re seeing accelerated and unprecedented demand for Windows 10 amongst enterprise customers.

The Secretary of Defense has directed all U.S. DoD agencies to begin the rapid deployment of the Microsoft Windows 10 throughout their respective organizations for information systems currently utilizing Microsoft Operating Systems. From laptops to desktops to mobile devices, including Surface devices, the DoD is targeting its Windows 10 upgrade for completion in a year, an unprecedented move for a customer with the size and complexity of the DoD.

The Rising Importance of Security for Government Agencies

Today’s government agencies face new and emerging challenges that range from a constantly shifting threat landscape to managing multiple platforms and devices in the enterprise environment. And the modern threat landscape has never been more challenging – driving tremendous costs and risk to the security of critical information. Security breaches can take 200+ days to detect and industry experts predict there will be over two million new malware apps by the end of the year. Clearly, these are driving factors in President Obama’s action plan announced last week to improve cybersecurity across government systems and devices.

Terry Halvorsen, CIO for the DoD, also shared this fall that more tools were needed for automated cyber defense, highlighting significant security challenges to the DoD networks. Halvorsen singled out software integration as a challenge to his mission and was quoted as saying, “If you have an impending need to survive you will innovate,” adding that DoD networks are “getting shot at” virtually every day. With the DoD spending approximately $44 billion annually on cybersecurity and IT, Halvorsen said the DoD needed to deploy innovation faster to ensure systems are more secure, more efficient and cost-effective, and standardized on one platform.

Because the U.S. Department of Defense is a prime target of cyber criminals and one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world, its leaders know the importance of securing its baseline systems.

Department of Defense Bets on Windows 10

The DoD’s intention to move to Windows 10 began in earnest in November when Halvorsen issued a memo directing all Combatant Commands, Services Agencies and Field Activities to rapidly deploy Windows 10 to improve the Department’s cybersecurity, lower the cost of IT and streamline the IT operating environment.

Further demonstrating a strong vote of confidence for the platform, Windows 10 has been certified as meeting specific government criteria and standards. The National Information Assurance Program, the arm of the US government responsible for evaluating commercial IT products for use in National Security Systems has certified Windows 10 against the Mobile Device Fundamentals Common Criteria protection profile. Additionally, Microsoft’s Surface family of devices have been certified and are available through the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Unified Capabilities Approved Products List and can be easily worked into deployment plans. This means that Surface has met the strict security and interoperability requirements required by the DoD.

As the Department upgrades, it may incorporate some of the following Windows 10 security features:

• Windows Hello: One of the greatest weaknesses in any security environment is the use of passwords, which can easily be hacked and used to gain access to secure resources and data. With Windows 10, agencies can identify individuals and restrict access through integrated multi-factor authentication using biometric mechanisms like facial recognition or fingerprints using the Windows Hello and Windows Passport features.

• Enhanced threat resistance and device security. Working from a crypto-processor, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) -approved chip, tools include familiar features like Secure Boot, which helps prevent malware from embedding itself within hardware or starting before the OS, and Trusted Boot which helps maintain the integrity of the rest of the operating system. Device Guard ensures that only signed applications and code can run on these devices. And Credential Guard safeguards credentials inside a hardware-based virtualized environment and breaks the popular “pass the hash” used in many major breaches.

• Windows Defender, provides anti-malware service, which currently protects almost 300 million Windows devices every day.

• Enterprise Protection, currently in testing with enterprise customers and available soon, provides separation between both corporate and personal data and prevents corporate data from being copied out of corporate files to non-corporate files and locations, such as public website or social channels. Additionally, when EDP is used with Rights Management Services, it can protect data locally adding another layer of protection even when data roams or is shared.

It is exciting to see adoption of Windows 10 by so many enterprise customers, including those with the highest of security demands, such as the Department of Defense.

Source: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/02/17/us-department-of-defense-commits-to-upgrade-4-million-seats-to-windows-10/