Coming up: Open Source & Cybersecurity at POSSCON March 28-29, 2012

One of my favorite projects I have the good fortune to be contributing to was created by the US Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T – the equivalent of the R&D arm of the agency).  It’s called the HOST program (Homeland Open Security Technology).

Joining me at the upcoming Palmetto Open Source Software Conference (POSSCON) on March 22-29 will be my HOST colleagues from  DHS, Georgia Tech Research Institute, OSSI, and other government experts like John Scott (most recently co-authored “Open Technology Development: Lessons Learned & Best Practices for the Military”.

The program does a number of things, but the main thrust is to help get open source cyber security tools in to the hands of federal, state and local agencies wherever it makes sense. The path that leads there includes creating some useful educational tools and making small, strategic investments to help make that possible.

If you’re interested in Open Source, the POSSCON event has grown into a must-attend.  If you’re interested in security, please come join us.  We’ll be there to….

Columbia, South Carolina serves up big heaps of southern hospitality to conference participants every year.  This is my fourth year to make the pilgrimage there.  If you can attend, I promise you won’t be disappointed.  And if you do, please come say hello.

Open Source is on the Agenda for Cyber Security Experts in Palo Alto

Icomputer-internet-security-artwork‘m in Palo Alto CA for a few days to speak at a gathering of Cyber experts from vaious disciplines at the ITTC forum at SRI headquarters in Silicon Valley.  I’m pleased for the opportunity to talk about the US and other federal agencies growing adoption of open source software AND rolling some of their own too.  Will be joining (and moderating) a panel Matt Jonkman from the Open Information Security Foundation and Doug Maughan who runs the Cyber Security Division of DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate (essentially the R&D arm of that agency).

On the same topic: Later this fall, I’ll working with GTRI and DHS rolling out open-technology focused summits; details to follow, prelimary info for summits in D.C. and the SFO Bay Area are available now.

Open Government and eParticipation in the EU

I spoke to the OpenGov and eParticipation Summit in Belfast, Northern Ireland in late September.  The event was produced by the University of Ulster with the help of a number of organizations and sponsors.  I’d met faculty from the University when they came out to visit the Open Source Lab and learn more about the OSL’s success with supporting global open source communities. was pleased to be invited to share what I’ve learned working with a number of Open Government / Open Data initiatives and the open source community in the US.

Speakers ranged from county government to senior UK government, included industry, entrepreneurs and academics.  Topics extended to open data and information exchange in health IT.   A presentation from an Italian company which produces town hall style meetings using electronic voting described their product and process.  The system was utilized during the Day 2 eParticpation Summit.  The software interestingly enough was actually written by the Tuscany government and is available as open source.

It was interesting to see the conference and summit take the policy issues related to open data head on.  In contrast to the US where private industry and civic advocates have driven the train while (most notably) the Federal government is de-funding transparency sites, Ireland and the UK governments themselves seem more engaged in creating a road map for opening their data and making that transition sustainable.  At the same time, the open source community seems less engaged there in supporting more civic and volunteer approaches to opening up government.

Open Government Communities Survey; Be Counted

If you’re involved in Open Government, I encourage you to participate in this first informal open government communities survey. The objective of the short survey is to create a view of the broad community of constituents that comprise the open government movement, with a special interest in understanding the interplay and influence of open source software and the open source community in forwarding their objectives.

The first set of responses collected by September 18th will travel to Northern Ireland for my presentation at the OpenGov Conference in Belfast on September 22nd, 2011. Results of the survey will be shared this fall on the Government Open Source Conference web site (goscon.org). Any questions? email me.

Thanks in advance or your participation!

GOSCON 2011 Shakes Up Government IT

This year’s theme for the Innovation Nation Forum, which was co-located with GOSCON, was “Shake It Up,” and things were shaken up indeed. While we were a little sad that this year’s conference wrapped up early due the East Coast earthquake, we’re all pleased that no one was harmed. Plus, we did get to shake up all things government IT and open source before the lunch hour, presenting two panels on “Cost Take Out” and “Building Outside the Box.”

You can read more from the panels in the GOSCON and GOSCON DC Tweet streams. My colleague Gunnar Hellekson from RedHat has penned an excellent post on opensource.com summarizing the Cost Take Out panel. Alex Howard from O’Relly Media moderated that panel plus did a great writeup of the event entitled “Government IT’s Quiet Open Source Evolution”.

The good folks at MeriTalk, producers of Innovation Nation, have shared a video of the luncheon exec panel which was underway when the quake hit.  More materials from the conference are forthcoming; promise they’ll be exciting in less seismic ways.