Tim Weiner has an interesting piece in today’s New York Times about the Defense Department’s efforts to build it’s own Internet — the Global Information Grid. From the article: The goal is to give all American commanders and troops a moving picture of all foreign enemies and threats – “a God’s-eye view” of battle. This […]
Just in time for the Supercomputing ’04 conference, the National Academies Computer Science and Telecommunications Board has released its report on the needs for U.S. supercomputing, Getting Up to Speed: The Future of Supercomputing. Study chairs Susan Graham, UC Berkeley, and Marc Snir, UIUC (and a CRA board member), will present the report here at […]
IBM’s Blue Gene/L, being built for the National Nuclear Security Agency at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, attained 70.72 teraflops in recent testing, more than twice as fast as the current top machine on the Top500.org supercomputers list. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham made the announcement today, noting that in its final form, the Blue Gene/L […]
According to this piece in Federal Computer Week, the National Security Agency plans to create a government-funded research center devoted to “improving the security of commercial software.” The effort would include researchers at NSA and NIST, and researchers funded by DARPA, and the Department of Homeland Security. From the article: The quality and trustworthiness of […]
Herb Lin sends word that the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) is seeking comments and white papers “relevant to the use of electronic voting systems.” Serious comments and white papers need to be received by November 22, 2004. CALL FOR INPUT — NRC Project on Electronic Voting A large number of American voters will […]
As expected, the Senate yesterday passed HR 4516, the High End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004, which would authorize the creation of a “leadership class” supercomputer at DOE and a “High-end Software Development Center.” The bill is expected to be re-passed in the House during a lame-duck session and signed by the President. The bill […]
Wired reports that the Senate could enable, as part of it’s National Intelligence Reform Act, work on a system “that would let government counter-terrorist investigators instantly query a massive system of interconnected commercial and government databases that hold billions of records on Americans.” The proposed network is based on the Markle Foundation Task Force’s December […]
According to the Washington Post, IBM will announce today that its Blue Gene/L supercomputer has moved ahead of Japan’s Earth Simulator in speed, posting a working speed of 36.01 teraflops (versus the Earth Simulator’s 35.86 teraflops). As we’ve covered a few times here on the blog, the spectre of having the Japanese in the top […]
The San Jose Mercury News’ Dan Gillmor has an interesting piece on DARPA’s “Strong Angel II“, a program aimed at developing techniques for “critical information management within austere environments.” From the article: KONA, HAWAII – They were soldiers and sailors, doctors and relief workers, technologists and managers. Over the course of a few days, they […]
Thanks to Jeff Grove of ACM for pointing out this story (subscription req’d), by William New, in National Journal’s Tech Daily (sub req’d) covering remarks by Department of Homeland Security Chief Security Officer Jack Johnson, DHS Chief Information Officer Steve Cooper, and FAA Deputy Director Thomas O’Keefe suggesting the great need for information security professionals […]
