Delays in the software for controlling high altitude air traffic has led the Federal Aviation Administration to push back rollout of DataComm, another modernization effort that seeks to replace voice communications between pilot and air traffic controller with text messages.

In a Transportation Department office of inspector general report (.pdf) dated Aug. 1, auditors say the timeline for implementing some DataComm capabilities has slipped by 2 years, from 2016 to 2018 due to delays in another project known as En Route Automation Modernization. The FAA has undertaken a collection of air traffic control modernization efforts collectively known as NextGen--an at least $40 billion collection of programs meant to revamp air traffic control by replacing radar with Global Positioning System tracking.

ERAM replaces a three-decade-old long-range radar tracking system, but its implementation has been plagued by bad coding and delays. The system is a key enabler of other NextGen efforts; Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel has repeatedly warned that holdups with ERAM will have cascading effects on the entire NextGen effort.

The 2-year delay in DataComm could have a negative impact on airlines' willingness to invest in upgrading their fleet to meet NextGen standards, auditors warn in the new report, based on interviews with members of an RTCA NextGen task force. The RTCA, which once stood for Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, is an air control technical standards federal advisory committee.

DataComm itself is an important technology in realizing the cited benefits of NextGen, including more precise management of aircraft in order to reduce fuel consumption and emissions and lower airline operating costs.

For more:
- download the report, AV-2012-167 (.pdf)

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The application programming interface guidance coming in November will focus more on strategies than rules and requirements, said a General Services Administration official Aug. 8 at the Federal Mobile Computing Summit in Washington, D.C.

"The material coming out in November is not going to be overly prescriptive. It's not going to reach for the impossible," said Gray Brooks, API strategist at the GSA's digital services innovation center. "You're going to see a lot of pragmatism."

The information will encourage agencies to take the next step, no matter what stage they're on, he added.

By Aug. 24, agencies are required to identify at least two existing major customer-facing services that contain high-value data or content to be made available as an API, in accordance with the White House's digital government strategy.

"We're working to make releasing an API really, truly easy," said Brooks.

The digital services innovation center is reviewing a light-weight, open source tool that would allow agencies to convert any spreadsheet into XML and JSON APIs to be hosted on their websites, said Brooks. They're also hosting office hours and webinars to help agencies transition to APIs.

But before agencies begin transitioning to APIs they must prioritize their data sets, said Stephen Buckner, director of the center for new media and promotions at the Census Bureau.

"Analytics are at the heart of it. You've got to have the research behind it," said Buckner.

Census determined their first two, high-value data sets by analyzing search data on census.gov and search data from Google and Bing.

"You see that a lot of the top topical searches on the search engines are very closely related to some of the top searches we have on the Census Bureau site. So we sort of let that be a guiding principle," said Buckner.

While Brooks agreed that analytics are critical, sometimes it's also okay to go for the quick win.

"I think there is an intersection of consumer need and popularity, and also getting that first and second out there, because the third is a lot easier than the second," said Brooks.

"Because of the way these systems are designed sometimes you can find quick wins and ones that just expose the data as is fairly readily," he added.

Other times an API requirement can be quickly inserted into contract language, he said.

"If we have a system that's just beginning to be contracted or beginning to be developed right now, then we can insert language in the statement of work," said Brooks. "Boom, that's the move to digital."

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At NASA, mobile device management isn't about the devices at all, said Erna Beverly, enterprise applications service executive at the agency.

"We took a lightweight approach to MDM via [mobile application management] and we're using an in-house developed, secure mobile access point and security services to address the security of the data, not the device," said Beverly Aug. 8 while speaking at the Federal Mobile Computing Summit in Washington, D.C.

"Our next step is going to be [to add] PIN-based authentication, or it might even be biometric," said Beverly.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is actually using two MDM solutions to manage its 2,500 iPhones, 300 iPads and 1,200 BlackBerrys said Walter Bigalow, chief of IT services management at ATF.

"The use cases determine how we use the MDMs in our environment," he said, adding that ATF uses a combination of Good and AirWatch.

The bureau is using Good's MDM solution when it needs to ensure that ATF information stays within the sandbox, which requires a complex passcode to access. Agents can use a simpler passcode just to get on and make a phone call, said Bigalow.

AirWatch--which requires a single, complex passcode--allows agents broader access into the iPhone to use third-party apps to take photos, GPS readings and send information back to the bureau through the enterprise case management system, he said.

The bureau is "aggressively" exploring bring your own device, or BYOD, for agents and its established MDM strategy could make that process easier, said Bigelow.

Because NASA is using mopbile application management and has a "robust security infrastructure in place" it's already allowing BYOD, said Beverly. Employees are required to use their NASA credentials for authentication, when accessing an application, she said. However, users are limited to NASA's internal apps.

"Our CTO and CIO recognize there are other aspects of mobility that the users are going to want to utilize, and they're going to have to address a policy. We're in the throes of doing that now," said Beverly. "By September I do believe we'll have our first draft of that particular strategy."

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Homeland Security Department researchers say they're after a solution that would permit public safety agencies to subscribe to a service permitting radio devices to utilize commercial cellular spectrum as well as public safety frequencies.

In a broad agency announcement dated Aug. 2, the DHS Science and Technology Directorate says it has $8 million to award for proof of concepts for an effort it dubbed DHS Next Generation Tactical Wireless Broadband.

The idea is to introduce a subscription model in order to reduce the network ownership and operating costs by distributing ownership expenses across a wider base than just public safety, the announcement states.

In order for that to be effective, however, DHS says the solution manufacturers will have to demonstrate that capabilities performed today over public safety land mobile networks can work with the same degree of low latency and high availability that can be done using commercial infrastructure.

The solution will also need to include the ability for network managers to manage radios and radio groups over the air and for the devices to seamlessly roam from one network to another.

A subscription model has the potential to be a "game changing approach," the announcement says, noting that the traditional model of owning the network infrastructure for public safety networks is expensive.

However, whether public safety can be convinced that commercial networks are robust enough for their needs is a different matter. Public safety last year defeated a Federal Communications Commission proposal to auction off a 10-megahertz portion of spectrum known as the D block to the private sector on the condition that public safety have priority access to the spectrum.

Public safety advocates said that private sector companies are unlikely to build a network to the level of robustness needed to guarantee public safety access in the event of a disaster nor prioritize infrastructure repair in remote areas where nonetheless public safety may need connectivity.

For more:
- go to the BAA on FBO

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Although NASA stood up a security operations center in November 2008 to centrally manage the detection and response to cyber attacks, that center does not currently monitor all NASA networks, says the agency's office of inspector general.

In a one-sheet summary (.pdf) of a restricted report, the NASA OIG says that the networks not incorporated into the central SOC aren't unprotected, since dedicated staff respond to incidents occurring within them and monitor for threats. But, they lack the centralized continuous monitoring coverage afforded by the SOC.

Before consolidation in November, NASA centers typically were responsible for their own cybersecurity. The SOC is located at the Ames Research Center, near Moffett Field, Calif.

Auditors also say that NASA needs to increase its readiness to respond to advanced persistent threats.

For more:
- download the summary, IG-12-017 (.pdf)

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