Recently in IT/Web Category

150,000 cloud virtual machines will help solve mysteries of the Universe, Ars Technica

"OpenStack pools compute, storage, and networking equipment together, allowing all of a data center's resources to be managed and provisioned from a single point. Scientists will be able to request whatever amount of CPU, memory, and storage space they need. They will also be able to get a virtual machine with the requested amounts within 15 minutes. CERN runs OpenStack on top of Scientific Linux and uses it in combination with Puppet IT automation software."

NASA CIO Dumps NASA-Developed Open Stack

"Ray O'Brien, acting CIO at NASA Ames, when asked May 30 by InformationWeek about NASA's participation, used diplomatic language to say that NASA still endorsed the project, was proud of its founding role, and might be a user of OpenStack components in the future. "It is very possible that NASA could leverage OpenStack as a customer in the future," he wrote in his email response. ..."

Keith's note: The gutting of the NTRS continues. This report used to be on NTRS: "Distribution of pressure over model of the upper wing and aileron of a Fokker D-VII airplane, Fairbanks", A J, NACA, 1927: "This report describes tests made for the purpose of determining the distribution of pressure over a model of the tapered portion of the upper wing and the aileron of a Fokker D-VII Airplane. Normal pressures were measured simultaneously at 74 points distributed over the wing and aileron."

Thanks to Google, there is a cached version of its previous existence on NTRS. (larger screengrab). But when you click on the PDF link you get an error "This PDF file is no longer available from NTRS." This document is freely available here at the University of North Texas Digital Library, here at Cranfield University in the UK, here at the University of Delft, Netherlands, etc.

What purpose could possibly be served by Charlie Bolden and Frank Wolf in keeping this 86 year old document about World War I biplanes off of NTRS? It is utterly harmless (unless your air force still flies Fokker D-VII aircraft - or is threatened by them) and it is readily available (as is all NTRS stuff) around the world. This gutting of NTRS is tantamount to vandalism - and these actions are fueled by partisan paranoia on Wolf's part and lack of a backbone on Charlie Bolden's part. Moreover, these actions are in direct contradiction of what the agency is chartered to do:

The National Aeronautics and Space Act Pub. L. No. 111-314 124 Stat. 3328 (Dec. 18, 2010)

"Sec. 20112. Functions of the Administration (a) Planning, Directing, and Conducting Aeronautical and Space Activities.--The Administration, in order to carry out the purpose of this chapter, shall-- ... (3) provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof;"

- Charlie Bolden is Erasing NASA's History, earlier post
- Charlie Bolden's Gutted Version of NTRS is Back Online, earlier post

Keith's note: NASA SP-125 "Design of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines" was online for decades at NTRS. Not any more. (we have it online here) It was declassified on 30 Nov 1969. Here is an excerpt from the book's preface:

"This book intends to build a bridge for the student and the young engineer: to link the rocket propulsion fundamentals and elements (which are well covered in the literature) with the actual rocket engine design and development work as it is carried out in industry (which is very little, if at all covered in literature). The book attempts to further the understanding of the realistic application of liquid rocket propulsion theories, and to help avoid or at least reduce time and money consuming errors and disappointments. In so doing, it also attempts to digest and consolidate numerous closely related subjects, hitherto often treated as separate, bringing them up to date at the same time."

Oh yes, in the foreword, Wernher von Braun said: "As man ventures deeper into space to explore the planets, the search for perfection in the design of propulsion systems will continue. This book will aid materially in achieving that goal."

Not any more. Charlie Bolden took this half-century old book offline because Frank Wolf scared him into doing so.

- Charlie Bolden's Gutted Version of NTRS is Back Online, earlier post
- NASA Technical Reports Server Mysteriously Taken Offline, earlier post

Keith's note: Have a look at the Aerospace Research Information Center in South Korea. Do a few searches and you will see all sorts of NTRS material is hosted there. This makes things much easier for the folks in North Korea to access, one would assume. It has been there while NTRS was offline.

Meanwhile NTRS is apparently back online - for now. According to NASA sources, based on an analysis of the NTRS collection before it was taken offline and now brought back online, it is apparent that over a quarter of a million full-text NASA reports are no longer in NTRS. This missing set of data represents a full 85% of the NASA full-text reports. In addition, only 7% of the historical (but still technically relevant) NACA collection remains online (only about 1,000 of the roughly 14,000 that comprise the NACA collection).

Of course, NASA's response to all of this is to gut the staff of CASI, the contractor responsible for maintaining NTRS. Can NASA review and reload the missing quarter million reports? Will NASA be able to add new reports into the NTRS (and NA&SD) collections?

Having used NTRS for our Lunar Orbiter work at LOIRP I just did a quick check to see if some of the 45 year old documents I have downloaded from NTRS are still online. Guess what: these documents are no longer online. You can buy hard copies on eBay (as I have done) I wonder what sort of security risk these documents pose such that Charlie Bolden has taken them offline?

- Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon, NASA SP-241
- Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon, NASA SP-206
- The Moon as Viewed by Lunar Orbiter, SP-200
- Guide to Lunar Orbiter Photographs, SP-242

NASA Technical Reports Server Mysteriously Taken Offline, earlier post

U.S. Finds Porn Not Secrets on Suspected China Spy's Laptop, Business Week

"Bo Jiang, who was indicted March 20 for allegedly making false statements to the U.S., was charged yesterday in a separate criminal information in federal court in Newport News, Virginia. Jiang unlawfully downloaded copyrighted movies and sexually explicit films onto his NASA laptop, according to the court filing. A plea hearing is set for tomorrow."

NIA Statement On The Release Of Dr. Bo Jiang

"Dr. Douglas Stanley, president and executive director of NIA remarked, "From the beginning of this investigation, we have cooperated with federal authorities to ensure the facts came to light." He added, "We are very pleased that Dr. Jiang was exonerated on all charges and implications of export control violations, espionage and lying to federal officials. We were confident in his innocence and happy to see that our judicial system eventually reached the correct conclusion."

Chinese Spy Suspect Pleads Guilty to Violating NASA Rules

"None of the computer media that Jiang attempted to bring to the PRC on March 16, 2013, contained classified information, export controlled information, or NASA proprietary information," according to the statement of facts filed in Jiang's case. As part of the agreement, prosecutors dismissed the indictment and Jiang was ordered to leave the country within 48 hours."...

... "I remain concerned that neither the prosecutors nor NASA have addressed the original question of why a NASA laptop was inappropriately provided to a restricted foreign national associated with 'an entity of concern' and why he was allowed to take the laptop and all of its information back to China last December," Wolf said in an e-mailed statement."

Chinese "spy" caught with NASA laptop full of porn, not secrets, Ars Technica

"A press release issued by Wolf after the arrest and copy of Jiang's arrest warrant have since disappeared off the the congressman's website. In the release (cached by Google here), Wolf had said, "I am particularly concerned that (the) information (on Jiang's laptop) may pertain to the source code for high-tech imaging technology that Jiang has been working on with NASA. This information could have significant military applications for the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army."

Keith's note: Here is the press release Frank Wolf wants you to forget he never actually released. What sort of "imaging technology" was he referring to? Newsflash: you cannot make things disappear from the Internet by deleting them. What did we learn from this? Porn is being exported to China on a NASA laptop by some guy who got fired from NASA. Apparently the porn in question was unclassified. Frank Wolf now wants us to forget that he was ever concerned about this - for now.

Wolf Addresses Arrest at Dulles Airport of Chinese National Potentially Involved in NASA Langely Security Violations

Earlier posts

Keith's note: After a month and a half NTRS is apparently no closer to being online. But the paranoia is spreading. Now, when you go to the NASA Image Exchange, you get the same notice that greets frustrated NTRS users:

"The NASA technical reports server will be unavailable for public access while the agency conducts a review of the site's content to ensure that it does not contain technical information that is subject to U.S. export control laws and regulations and that the appropriate reviews were performed. The site will return to service when the review is complete. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

Given the unclassified porn that was on Bo Jiang's laptop I guess NASA is now looking to see if there is porn - especially the classified and ITAR-sensitive variety - on their servers. Yes, I am being silly. But this makes no sense. Why is NASA taking servers with old NASA PAO photos offline in response to Jiang's laptop contents? NASA has known what was (and was not) on Bo Jiang's laptop for quite some time - well before this image server was taken offline. To be certain, using government computers to download porn is wrong and violators need to be dealt with. Were large NASA servers taken offline when previous cases arose concerning NASA personnel? No. Why now?

- NASA Technical Reports Server Mysteriously Taken Offline, earlier post
- NASA Blocks Everyone From Access To Everything on NTRS, earlier post

Judge: Chinese NASA contractor to be held till trial, Virginian Pilot

"Prosecutors argued that Jiang is a flight risk, saying he tried to leave the country abruptly after a Virginia congressman publicly identified him in connection with an investigation of NASA security procedures. Jiang worked for the National Institute of Aerospace, a Hampton-based NASA contractor. He was fired in January, two months after taking a NASA-owned laptop computer with him on a visit to China, an alleged violation of the space agency's security regulations. Jiang has admitted taking the laptop but says he had his supervisor's permission. Prosecutors acknowledged there is no evidence that Jiang possessed any sensitive, secret or classified material."

Earlier posts

NASA Internal Memo: Breach of Personally Identifiable Information Update

"As of now, there is no indication that any of the PII on the laptop has been used for fraudulent purposes as a result of this incident. However, we encourage anyone who receives a letter to take advantage of the services NASA is offering through ID Experts. The deadline to enroll in these services has been extended to May 31, 2013. Additionally, if you have registered with ID Experts and have experienced any suspicious activity, be sure to report it to ID Experts so they can help resolve it."

CASIS Media Advisory: Space, Cancer and Personalized Medicine Conference

"A live webcast of the Space, Cancer and Personalized Medicine Conference (8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. EDT) will also be available for interested media and can be viewed via link at www.iss-casis.org.

"**Please note that in order to participate in the live stream, you may be directed to download various applications. Computers with MAC operating systems will not have the ability to view the live stream."

Keith's note: If CASIS had any actual IT smarts they'd use USTREAM, Livestream, or do a Google Hangout for things like this - like everyone else does. All you need is a laptop with a webcam, a microphone, and an Internet connection. Chris Hadfield can tell them how to set this up.

Oh yes: it is really nice of CASIS to give everyone less than 24 hours notice. There is no mention of this event on the ISS National Lab page, NASA's Calendar, or even CASIS' events page Fixed.

Keith's update: This just goofy. Now CASIS tells Mac users "**Please note that in order to participate in the live stream, you may be directed to download a "Scopia" codec. Computers with MAC operating systems: restart your browser after installing the codec and use this link to join the conference: http://us.tryscopia.com/scopia/entry/index.jsp?ID=7658112" Install a codec? Yea right - what a great way to install malware on your computer.

Google Hangout anyone? Is this a taste of things to come with regard to ISS utilization - convoluted instuctions for something as simple and routine as a webcast? More inept public engagement from CASIS - all while Chris Hadfield has managed to use just about every social media platform he can think of - IN ORBIT.

International Space Apps Challenge, NASA

"The International Space Apps Challenge is an international mass collaboration focused on space exploration that takes place over 48-hours in 80 cities around the world (in 42 countries) on the weekend of April 20-21, 2013. The event embraces collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions to address global needs applicable to both life on Earth and life in space. NASA is leading this global collaboration along with more then 150 partner organizations."

Join The Movement: International Space Apps Challenge, ESA

"In April, you are invited to join thousands of enthusiasts to invent and create applications to help space exploration and improve life on Earth at the International Space Apps Challenge. During this app-jam, participants are challenged to use freely available data and rework them for new purposes or present them in new ways."

- NASA's Inconsistent Support of the International Space Apps Challenge, earlier post
- NASA Space App Challenge Yields Real Results, earlier post
- NASA Stumbles Again When It Comes To Its Cool Stuff (update), earlier post

Keith's note: It has been a month since NASA Education AA Leland Melvin complained about lack of promotion for the Space Apps challenge yet there is still no mention on NASA's Education website. Its not on the NASA.gov calendar either.

NASA Ames Internal Memo: NTRS Offline - Use NASA Aeronautics and Space Database (NA&SD)

"Employees who are used to relying on NTRS (which is currently unavailable) may want to obtain access to NA&SD where they can find all of the information contained within NTRS, plus quite a bit more. The tradeoff is that the access to the additional content in NA&SD comes with limitations on how the information can be used and shared, consistent with existing export control regulations and laws."

- NTRS Is Online Again - Sort Of, earlier post
- NASA Blocks Everyone From Access To Everything on NTRS, earlier post

Chinese ex-NASA worker to be released pending trial

"At a detention hearing today, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard ordered Jiang released after a federal prosecutor acknowledged there is no evidence so far that he was in possession of any sensitive, secret or classified material. Jiang will be under supervision of the federal probation office, will be prohibited from traveling outside the Eastern District of Virginia, and will be tracked by an electronic monitoring system. He has surrendered his passport."

Ex-NASA Langley contractor released on bond, Daily Press

"Jiang's court-appointed attorney, Fernando Groene, said that Jiang didn't have access to sensitive or classified information when he worked at NIA. Groene says that Jiang did violate NASA's policy by taking the equipment out the country, but there was nothing classified on the laptop or hard drive. "NASA has looked at the computer up and down and can't find any information that violates the export control act," Groene said."

Former NASA Langley Research Center pleads not guilty to lying, judge OKs release on bond, Washington Post

"Groene has suggested that Jiang is only in jail and under investigation because U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., has inferred that Jiang may be a spy. Wolf has targeted Jiang in news conferences and congressional hearings about NASA security, saying the space agency is using contractors to get around rules prohibiting citizens of certain countries from working for NASA."

Bo Jiang To Plead Not Guilty; Will Ask For Jury Trial, earlier post

Paypal To Drop VMware From 80,000 Servers and Replace It With OpenStack, Forbes

"Backed by Intel and Dell, Mirantis has emerged as a clear leader in the OpenStack world heavily promoting and supporting the adoption of the platform originally developed by NASA and Rackspace."

NASA CIO Dumps NASA-Developed Open Stack, earlier post

"NASA's prestige and participation has been a selling point for advocates of the OpenStack open source cloud project, which NASA co-founded with San Antonio infrastructure-as-a-service provider RackSpace. Unfortunately, they'll have to get along without NASA from here on."

Earlier OpenStack postings

Keith's note: You would think that the NASA Chief Information Officer would at least have something to say about all of this IT hysteria. You would think. The CIO blog has been dormant since October 2012 (no mention of the laptop fiasco either). The incumbent NASA Chief Information Officer, Linda Cureton, is leaving - but she's still on the job until 4 April 2013 - and there is a staff at the CIO to do things like this. There's nothing on the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Program blog either. One has to wonder if the CIO is part of the problem or part of the solution.

NASA Tightens Security In Response To Insider Threat, Information Week

"NASA has closed down its technical reports database and imposed tighter restrictions on remote access to its computer systems following the arrest of a Chinese contractor on suspicion of intellectual property theft."

NASA Technical Reports Database Goes Dark, Secrecy News

"There is a HUGE amount of material on NTRS," said [National Academy of Sciences] space policy analyst Dwayne Day. "If NASA is forced to review it all, it will never go back online." ... "I'd also note that a large amount of historical Mercury/Gemini/Apollo documents that were previously available at NARA Fort Worth is now apparently withdrawn due to ITAR [export controls]," said Dr. Day."

Keith's note: There is a new notice on NTRS now: "The NASA technical reports server will be unavailable for public access while the agency conducts a review of the site's content to ensure that it does not contain technical information that is subject to U.S. export control laws and regulations and that the appropriate reviews were performed. The site will return to service when the review is complete. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

How can we be certain that there isn't something posted on SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service or at lanl.arXiv.org? If NASA was really trying to check on whether things have been posted that should not have been posted then shouldn't NASA lock down these sites too? What about NASATechBriefs? Look at all that technology transfer goodness on their site.

If NTRS is offline why are the JPL Technical Report Server, NASA Johnson Technical Reports Server and the NASA Engineering Network online? If you want to see the NACA material from 1917-1958 that NTRS has taken offline (1917? Yes, the Wright brothers built warplanes) you can still see it here. The University of Texas seems to have a lof NTRS stuff online as well.

NASA Technical Reports Server Mysteriously Taken Offline, earlier post

Former Huntsville NASA center boss Robert Lightfoot will lead foreign security probe, Huntsville Times

"NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot will lead a new in-house probe of foreign access to NASA field centers in the wake of the arrest of a Chinese national allegedly attempting to smuggle data out of the U.S. to China. Lightfoot was director of the Marshall Space Flight Center before being promoted in 2012 to the top civil service position in the agency."

Wolf Threatens To Call NASA Security Whistleblowers To Testify, Aviation Week

"Career civil servants" have been coming out of the woodwork with reports of lax security practices at NASA since Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) raised the issue publicly, and the powerful committee chairman may call some of the whistleblowers to testify publicly about their charges."

Attorney: Former Chinese contractor at NASA's Langley Research Center to plead not guilty, Washington Post

"Jiang's attorney Fernando Groene said Jiang was unfairly targeted and is looking forward to being vindicated. He said he plans to ask for a jury trial and wants Jiang's side of the story coming out. Groene said Jiang was leaving the country because his work visa was about to expire and he had been unable to find other employment since losing his job in January."

Attorney: Former NASA contractor subject of 'witch hunt', Daily Press

"... But Jiang's lawyer, Fernando Groene -- a former federal prosecutor who now practices out of Williamsburg -- said he's not going to let Wolf misportray Jiang. ... Groene challenged Wolf to come to the trial in Newport News federal court to present his evidence against Jiang. If Congressman Wolf testifies as a government witness, Groene said, "We'll be glad to cross-examine him." Asked why Jiang was going to China, Groene said, "He was going home."

- Congress Vs NASA on China (Home Alone with Wolf and Bolden), earlier post
- NASA Technical Reports Server Mysteriously Taken Offline, earlier post
- Former NASA/NIA Employee Arrested by FBI Trying to Leave U.S., earlier post

NTRS Collections - NASA Technical Reports Server

"Until further notice, the NTRS system will be unavailable for public access. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and anticipate that this site will return to service in the near future."

Keith's note: NASA just yanks this website offline. No press release, no official notice at NASA.gov. Why is this invaluable resource offline? NASA brags about all of its spinoffs and then one of the largest online repositories thereof is stealthily taken offline. Oddly these related NASA sites with linkage to NTRS are still online for "public access".

- JPL Technical Report Server
- NASA Johnson Technical Reports Server

Oh wait - there's this item from Rep. Wolf the other day. Coincidence?

Wolf: Chinese National Potentially Involved In NASA Langley Security Violations

"Second: NASA should immediately take down all publicly available technical data sources until all documents that have not been subjected to export control review have received such a review and all controlled documents are removed from the system."

Keith's update: According to a response from NASA HQ PAO this morning "It's down for review to ensure there is no sensitive content on the server." Why is it that NASA cannot be honest with people in the note on the NTRS website and explain why the site is offline? What is really baffling is how this site could have been online - for decades - and not have had a process to prevent inapproprate material from being posted. Did Rep. Wolf's office actually find something online - specifically at NTRS - that shouldn't have been there - or is this a knee jerk reaction - on both sides? Why aren't other NASA technical information websites offline? When I sent an inquiry to the person listed as the point of contact for NTRS he declined to reply and referred me to LaRC PAO.

OIG: NASA's Process for Acquiring Information Technology Security Assessment and Monitoring Tools

"NASA has not fully implemented a process for identifying its IT security assets, a necessity to meet federally mandated requirements and improve IT acquisition outcomes. Lack of such controls result in missed opportunities to capitalize on efficiencies and leverage purchasing power on critical IT security investments. NASA could use two internal management control processes Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) and APM to improve visibility over purchases of IT security assessment and monitoring tools."

International Space Apps Challenge

"The International Space Apps Challenge is a technology development event during which citizens from around the world work together to solve challenges relevant to improving life on Earth and life in space. Join us in over 75 cities around the world or at home on April 20-21, 2013."

Keith's note: At the NASA Advisory Council Committee on Education and Public Outreach meeting on Tuesday, Leland Melvin, the AA for Education at NASA, lamented why people are not promoting the International Space Apps challenge and urged committee members to spread the word. Well ... have a look at the NASA Education website. No mention is made of the International Space Apps Challenge. No mention at the NASA CIO, NASA Open Government, or NASA.gov's calendar either. Yawn.

NASA's Inconsistent Support of the International Space Apps Challenge, earlier post

"I think it is inexcusable that NASA has not made more of an effort to promote things such as the International Space Apps Challenge - especially when the White House places such a priority on things like this. There is much risk in this ad hoc and dysfunctional public engagement policy at NASA. Now that the first apps challenge event was such a success, efforts like this could continue - without overt NASA involvement - thus making NASA less - rather than more relevant. If that happens NASA only has itself to blame."

Keith's update: Here's a related event that also gets zero mention on NASA's Education website - or on NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate - the sponsor of the event itself.

Dark Side of the Jam: 'On March 8th, game developers around the planet will gather to make games about space and science. The Dark Side of the Jam is open to all, whether you're a veteran developer, hobbyist, or student. Ideally your games will not only be great achievements in coding prowess, but will help capture the public's interest in the real science and technology advancements being made in aerospace exploration. DSJ is an educational project of the Night Rover Challenge. Learn more about this $1.5 Million dollar NASA Centennial Challenge for advanced energy storage technology."

Testimony by Paul Martin NASA Inspector General

"Following the October 31 theft, the NASA Administrator accelerated the timetable to encrypt the hard drives of the Agency's laptop computers. As of February 15, NASA reported that it had encrypted 99.4 percent of Agency laptops identified as requiring encryption, had exempted 1,636 laptops from the requirement, and was determining whether another 2,947 laptops required encryption or also would be exempted."

DATA AT REST (DAR) Deployment @ HQ

"As mandated by Federal law and Agency policy, all NASA-issued laptops, as well as desktops with sensitive data, must have Data-At-Rest (DAR) whole-disk encryption software. The NASA OCIO directed that all Centers complete this activity by December 21, 2012."

- Did NASA Meet Its 21 Dec 2012 DAR Deadline?, earlier post
- OIG Doubts NASA Can Meet Laptop DAR Deadline, earlier post
- Additional posts

NASA open source project back on track, FCW

"NASA's shift to open-source content management is back on after the incumbent contractor withdrew a bid protest on Feb. 4. The withdrawal of the protest, filed by e-Touch Federal Systems on Dec. 28 after NASA awarded Rockville-Md.-based InfoZen a $40 million blanket purchase agreement, allows InfoZen to begin replacing NASA's existing content management system with open source architecture to run its 140 websites and 1,600 web assets and applications."

NASA Website Upgrades Are On Hold, earlier post

Reader note: "Thought you might find this sadly amusing. I am NASA contractor. I just received notice today [29 Jan 2013] that my personal data was compromised in the Laptop theft from a NASA HQ employee on 10/31/12. The letter I received notes that NASA understands the 'seriousness' of this matter - so much so that it only took 3 months to notify me of this breach. Apparently the idiocy of their 'concern'is self-evident to all except the NASA bureaucracy."

- NASA CIO Cureton Is Leaving NASA, earlier post
- Did NASA Meet Its 21 Dec 2012 DAR Deadline?, earlier post
- They're Clueless at NASA CIO
- earlier posts

NASA CIO Linda Cureton plans exit, FCW

NASA CIO Linda Cureton is retiring from government, FCW has learned. Cureton, a 2011 Federal 100 winner, has held her current position since September 2009. Cureton had alluded to her plans at the Oct. 24 GCN awards gala, where she was recognized as the Civilian IT Executive of the Year. At the time, however, she and her aides said that no firm decision had been made. "It had always been in my plan to either retire or change jobs... after the election," Cureton told FCW when reached for comment. "Having been through transitions at the political level before, the timing to leave seemed appealing to me."

Mars Rover Curiosity's Team to Receive Space Foundation Award

"JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl."

Keith's note: Why does NASA spend money to maintain three different MSL websites - websites that do not even link to one another? I can (sort of) understand if there is a turf war of sorts going on (there is) but this press release admits by default that NASA is incapable of coordinating its websites. At a time when Congress is looking for examples of taxpayer dollars being wasted, this is just begging to be investigated - especially when NASA advertises the fact that it is maintaining 3 websites simultaneously. I hear constant complaints from within NASA that they do not have enough funds to maintain their websites. When I see ongoing nonsense like this, those complaints begin to ring hollow. It looks like NASA has more than enough website money.

Oh yes - There's also http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ which is the same as http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. That makes 4 website addresses - one of the multiple websites actually has a duplicate. Why?

To summarize: JPL runs two MSL websites that overlap/duplicate one another but don't cross link - and JPL has an extra copy of one of these sites for good measure. Yet none of these JPL sites interact with the site at NASA HQ - and yet they all cater to the same audience. According to formal NASA policy, this is not supposed to happen. But it still does. NASA enacts NPDs and other policies and then ignores these same policies. Why bother having procedures if they are simply ignored?

- Why does NASA need multiple websites for the same mission?, earlier post
- NASA's Tangled Human Spaceflight Web Presence, earlier post
- NASA's Sprawling Web Presence, earlier post
- NASA's Inability To Speak With One Voice Online, earlier post

NASA Internal Memo: Breach of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Update

"NASA has reallocated resources and has been working overtime to achieve the goal of 100 percent laptop encryption as quickly as possible and has made tremendous progress. In the past few weeks, more than 11,000 laptops have been encrypted, and, as of December 17th, NASA had encrypted 32,500 laptops, or about 85 percent of the laptops requiring encryption."

Keith's note: I wonder if NASA met its 21 Dec DAR installation deadline across the agency. Are all NASA laptops now equipped with DAR?

- OIG Doubts NASA Can Meet Laptop DAR Deadline, earlier post
- NASA's One Size Fits All DAR Solution Stumbles, earlier post
- earlier posts

Protest slows NASA open source project, FCW

"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's plans to transition to a content management system with open source architecture are on hold for a little while. The agency awarded a $40 million blanket purchase agreement in mid-December to Rockville, Md.-based InfoZen to replace the agency's existing CMS - operated for several years by eTouch Federal Systems LLC - with open source architecture to run its 140 websites and 1,600 web assets and applications. But that contract has come under protest from eTouch Federal Systems LLC, which filed a formal bid protest on Dec. 28 against NASA's new deal with InfoZen."

NASA Selects Internet Services Agreement

"NASA has selected InfoZen Inc. of Rockville, Md., for the Web Enterprise Service Technologies prime blanket purchase agreement to support agency websites."

NASA LaRC Internal Email: 2,498 laptops later: The Miracle Has Occurred

"As you all know, today is the Agency deadline for all laptops to be fully encrypted. I am happy to report that as of 10:30 this morning Langley reached our goal by completing the DAR encryption of 2,498 government and ACES systems."

DAR Implementation Email from LaRC Center Director Lesa Roe, earlier post

"The Administrator has told all of his direct reports that he expects 100 percent completion by the 21st or it will be reflected in our performance. For clarity, I will do the same with each of you. I think you all know this but I will state it clearly ... this isn't an option ... it is mandatory for employment"

Keith's note: Of course, Lesa Roe had to explicitly warn her employees of possible disciplinary action from her office if this deadline was not met. She seems to have forgotten all about that. She, in turn, felt that Charlie Bolden had issued a similar warning to senior agency management. Something is seriously broken when you have to say things like this to your employees. Happy Holidays y'all.

NASA Internal Memo: Breach of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Update

"NASA has reallocated resources and has been working overtime to achieve the goal of 100 percent laptop encryption as quickly as possible and has made tremendous progress. In the past few weeks, more than 11,000 laptops have been encrypted, and, as of December 17th, NASA had encrypted 32,500 laptops, or about 85 percent of the laptops requiring encryption."

Keith's note: Today is 21 Dec i.e. the deadline set for complete laptop encruption. They have had more than a month to do this - and they expect to complete encryption of 15% of NASA's laptops in just one day - just before the Christmas/New Year holidays when everyone is disappearing on annual leave?

- OIG Doubts NASA Can Meet Laptop DAR Deadline, earlier post
- NASA's One Size Fits All DAR Solution Stumbles, earlier post
- NASA's Stolen Laptop and Data Problem Just Got Worse, earlier post
- earlier posts

NASA's Efforts to Encrypt its Laptop Computers, NASA OIG

"NASA Unlikely to Meet December 21 Encryption Deadline: As a result of the October 31 laptop theft, NASA accelerated the deadline by which all ACES- managed laptop computers were to be equipped with a DAR solution from March 2013 to December 21 , 2012. The Agency estimates that this expedited encryption effort will cost at least $259,000, not including the time civil servants have devoted the project. The Agency also established the same deadline for encrypting non-ACES machines. In our judgment, it is extremely unlikely that the Agency will meet its December goal primarily because the Agency does not have a full account ofthe number of ACES and non-ACES laptops in its possession. Without knowing the full universe of laptops that require encryption, the Agency cannot be sure that all of its laptops are protected with whole-disk encryption software."

Keith's note: According to NASA PAO: "NASA takes information technology security very seriously and thanks the Inspector General for its recommendations for further strengthening NASA's systems. Most recently, NASA has accelerated its commitment to encrypting all agency laptops, encrypting more than 11,000 agency laptops in just the last few weeks. NASA has also implemented new policies and processes that will prevent future losses of personally identifiable information, such as directing that no NASA-issued laptops containing sensitive information can be removed from a NASA facility unless whole disk encryption software is enabled or the sensitive files are individually encrypted."

DAR Implementation Email from LaRC Center Director Lesa Roe, earlier post

"The Administrator has told all of his direct reports that he expects 100 percent completion by the 21st or it will be reflected in our performance. For clarity, I will do the same with each of you. I think you all know this but I will state it clearly ... this isn't an option ... it is mandatory for employment"

- NASA's One Size Fits All DAR Solution Stumbles, earlier post
- NASA's Stolen Laptop and Data Problem Just Got Worse, earlier post
- earlier posts

"The Administrator has told all of his direct reports that he expects 100 percent completion by the 21st or it will be reflected in our performance. For clarity, I will do the same with each of you. I think you all know this but I will state it clearly ... this isn't an option ... it is mandatory for employment" ...

... "Let me be clear, there are NO exceptions to the Agency-wide directive and it applies to every employee and every laptop. I am directing supervisors to ensure that employees take whatever steps are required, including adjusting employee leave schedules if necessary, the ensure that every laptops is DAR encrypted, waived, or excessed by next Friday, December 21st. Employees who do not comply are in violation of clear Agency direction aan coud face disciplinary action up to and including removal from Federal Service."

Larger image

Internal NASA LaRC memo: "Once again with DAR the NASA CIO's office has developed a well-thought-out and reasonable plan that effectively covers 90% of NASA computing resources beautifully, then is attempting to apply it to 100% of all computer systems in spite of the consequential damages. This is made worse by the bizarre deadline imposed during the Christmas holidays ...

... Risks? Plenty: this is what happens when a good policy made by smart people wh have looked at all the options is implemented by inflexible fool[s] who don't understand how people use computers and who do not weigh the consequences."
Larger image

- NASA's Stolen Laptop and Data Problem Just Got Worse
- earlier posts

Reader note: "This evening I received a second letter from NASA, stating that I'm also "one of a small number of individuals whose personal data was contained in the hard copy documents stolen with the laptop in the laptop bag." Now there's no question about whether my PII data has been exposed. Now more than ever, the one year offer of identity and credit monitoring that is being provided free of charge seems hardly a sufficient amount of time. I plan on 1) contacting NASA requesting additional duration of monitoring and 2) contacting my Representative, Adam Schiff, requesting for a Congressional inquiry as well. The redacted version (my personal info and NASA contact info have been removed) of the latest letter is attached."

Keith's note: NASA CIO Linda Cureton: please define "small number" given that over 11,000 employees had their personal information on this laptop due to your office's inept mismanagement of IT security. Is there any mention - in any memo to employees - of the fact that hard copies of employee information were also stolen? No. Do you post anything about this on the NASA CIO website? No.

NASA is just begging for a class action lawsuit by virtue of their inept response on this matter.

Oh yes - we blurred Richard Keegan's signature. Wonder why?

- NASA's CIO Anticipated The Laptop Theft, earlier post
- Data-at-Rest Is Not A New Requirement at NASA, earlier post
- Calls for Congressional Inquiry into Laptop Data Theft, earlier post
- JPL Employees Want Congressional investigation Over PII Laptop Theft, earlier post
- Agencywide Message to All NASA Employees: Breach of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), earlier post
- other posts

Data-at-Rest (DAR) at NASA HQ

"This page contains important information for employees regarding the Data-at-Rest (DAR) Encryption project at Headquarters. As mandated by Federal law and Agency policy, all NASA-issued laptops must have Data-At-Rest (DAR) whole-disk encryption software. The NASA OCIO has directed that all Centers complete this activity by December 21, 2012. Per the Agency directive dated November 13, 2012, no NASA-issued laptops containing sensitive information may be removed from a NASA facility unless DAR encryption software is enabled OR any sensitive files are individually encrypted (using Entrust PKI)."

Recommendation to Fund and Deploy Agency Data-at-Rest (DAR) Solution, NASA CIO, 21 Feburary 2008

"Based on an evaluation of NASA's requirements for encryption of data at rest and of the solutions currently available, I recommend that your office fund the implementation and deployment of an integrated, interoperable NASA DAR solution in the amount of $2.0M for Fiscal Year 2008. Details of the recommended solution, based on McAfee's Safeboot product suite, and the evaluation that produced this recommendation are in the attached presentation."

Keith's note: Looks like there was direction executed within the CIO in early 2008 - before the current CIO even arrived on the job. Four years later and NASA is only getting around to taking its own decisions seriously. Note: there is no date on this PDF file but it was created on 21 Feb 2008.

JPL workers seek federal probe into stolen NASA laptop, Pasadena Star-News

"Rep. Schiff, who oversees NASA funding through the Appropriations Subcommittee and whose district includes JPL, issued a statement criticizing NASA security. "I will be calling on the agency to report on and accelerate its efforts to maintain data Advertisement security," he said. "The low-tech theft of a laptop is troubling enough, but it only scratches the surface of potentially greater data vulnerabilities." A NASA spokesman didn't return a call for comment Wednesday."

JPL employees demand probe of NASA's data security measures

"Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) said in a statement she would push the agency to improve data security. "NASA has previously had security breaches of sensitive information," she said. "It has to stop."

Losing in Court, and to Laptop Thieves, in a Battle With NASA Over Private Data, NY Times

"In a 2009 report titled "NASA Needs to Remedy Vulnerabilities in Key Networks," the Government Accountability Office noted that the agency had reported 1,120 security incidents in fiscal 2007 and 2008 alone."

Keith's note: If you go to the NASA CIO webpage or the CIO's blog you will see absolutely no mention of this stolen laptop or the activities that followed. Some of the individuals affected by this event have not worked for NASA for more than a decade. As such, you would think that there would be somewhere at NASA.gov to get information as to what they should do. The CIO page is a logical place to look. Yet another example as to how the entire CIO organization is simply clueless and tone deaf when it comes to the interests of the agency's employees - past and present.

Media Advisory JPL Employees Call for Congressional Investigation into NASA Privacy Breech

"Employees at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena have called for an immediate Congressional investigation into NASA's behavior in handling their personal data following the October 31 theft of a NASA laptop computer left unattended in a parked car in Washington DC. NASA waited two weeks before informing its employees that their personal information had been compromised and that they have been placed at risk of identity theft. The data on the stolen NASA laptop was not encrypted."

Press Conference on NASA Data Breach JPL Employees Call for Congressional Investigation into NASA Privacy Breech

"We warned of this possibility five years ago when we filed our lawsuit. We were ignored by the courts. Now, unfortunately, by virtue of the cavalier behavior of a NASA bureaucrat our argument has been proven. Our nightmare of five years ago has become a reality. We therefore are asking Congress to conduct an investigation into NASA's behavior in this unsavory affair and to develop new standards which protect the privacy of federal employees."

- Questions Remain About Information on Stolen NASA Laptop, earlier post
- NASA IT Blunder Update, earlier post
- Yet Another NASA IT Blunder, earlier post

Keith's note: One NASA Watch reader writes: "I too received a letter warning of my PII being comprimised by the stolen laptop but there are two things that I find odd. 1) As was the case in the image of the letter posted on NASAWatch, the return address is a NASA emblem with the address of the retained security contractor's Portland address (since when can a contractor use an offical US gov emblem?); and 2) why does a NASA laptop have my PII considering I left the Agency in May 2009?"

Another reader writes: "I too received "the letter" about the stolen laptop and I retired from GSFC in mid-2003 - ten years ago! And it is my responsibility to take the necessary steps to protect myself?! Why after ten years would my PI be anywhere but at OPM let alone on someone's (NASA) unencrypted laptop?! Please keep their feet to the fire on this one Keith; NASA needs to be as well-steamed as I am."

NASA Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Update 20 Nov 2012

"The data analysis on the entire file has not yet been completed, but if data beyond SSN, date of birth and birthplace is found for individuals, we will send them another letter. Affected individuals identified to date include people who have applied for access to NASA information or facilities for which a background investigated is required."

NASA Internal Memo: Immediate Restriction on Laptops Leaving Ames

"Effective immediately, NO NASA LAPTOP may be taken off the Ames Research Center campus unless Whole Disk Encryption is enabled. I am fully aware that this is a more restrictive than the November 14, 2012 directive from the Agency Chief Information Office and Administrator, however, since that email, Ames has had two laptops stolen that we are now handling."

- NASA IT Blunder Update, earlier post
- Yet Another NASA IT Blunder, earlier post

How the government can turbocharge private-sector innovation, Gigaom

"Traditionally, NASA attempts to commercialize and otherwise transfer the good work done in its research labs to the public by two means: directly auctioning its patents to the private sector, or maintaining the patents but actively choosing not to enforce them if doing so would impede innovation. NASA claims over 1,200 success stories in this regard, and there's plenty to show for it. But arguably no single NASA patent has had the same kind of market-disrupting effect that OpenStack has had merely by opening the doors to the community and letting the market drive development and adoption. That's food for thought."

Keith's note: Of course, NASA's response to the potential of OpenStack? NASA CIO Linda Cureton walked away from OpenStack - while industry has embraced it. And you wonder why NASA cannot figure out how to keep sensitive data off of laptops that are continually stolen? Clearly some management changes are needed in this regard. Check out her blog - its full superficial treatment of important IT issues and pop management babble. Clueless.

- NASA CIO Dumps NASA-Developed Open Stack, earlier post
- Previous IT posts

Welcome to the NASA.gov Forum

"We're starting on the next go-round of what NASA.gov looks like and want to know what you think. The digital universe has changed radically since we overhauled www.NASA.gov in 2007. Everyone's use of social media and smartphones has exploded. Visits to NASA's web sites dropped for a couple of years, then set records in 2011 and this year. How are you making sense of all this? How do you think we here can apply what you've learned? Do you like something you've seen? Is something missing? How do you interact with NASA online? Where else do you get your NASA news from? We've opened this forum to take your feedback. You can offer ideas of your own or comment and vote on others' suggestions. The forum will be open for new ideas until Dec. 19. We'll consider all the suggestions and do some prototyping, then see what you think."

- NASA Claim About MSL Internet Effects Called Into Question - By NASA, previous post
- Why does NASA need multiple websites for the same mission?, previous post
- NASA's Tangled Human Spaceflight Web Presence, previous post
- NASA's Baffling, Redirecting Links, previous post
- NASA's Inability To Speak With One Voice Online, previous post

Keith's 8:20 am EST note: Last evening, JSC PAO's Amiko Kauderer tweeted via @amikokauderer "Wonder about breaking bread for Thanksgiving in space? Talking to @NASA food scientist tomorrow. Got Qs? Tweet me w #askStation!" She claims that this is her personal account and replied "@NASAWatch This is my personal Twitter account. I tweet about my life & interests, which includes my work. Official tweets @NASA_Johnson".

OK, then why is this official NASA event only being made available to the 1,936 followers of the @amikokauderer personal account but not to the 89,640 followers of the official @NASA_Johnson account? This is a rather poor decision inasmuch as the potential audience of @amikokauderer is dwarfed by that of @NASA_Johnson which commands 46 times the number of followers across a much broader range than does @amikokauderer.

As NASA upgrades its Internet presence, it needs to re-examine the use of personal employee Twitter accounts Vs official Twitter accounts to make certain that the most effective means (a combination thereof) is used to alert taxpayers as to what NASA is doing - and that taxpayers are not put in the position of trying to separate personal tweets from business tweets. Most people get separate Twitter accounts to solve this problem.

Keith's 11:30 am EST update: @NASA_Johnson just tweeted mention of this official event (at the last minute) some 12 hours after it first appeared - exclusively - on @amikokauderer - a personal Twitter account. As such only Amiko Kauderer's pals and followers knew about this event well in advance - as opposed to the 89,640 followers of @NASA_Johnson . I am not sure what sort of social media game plan she's following - this approach makes no sense whatsoever.

NASA Suffers "Large" Data Breach Affecting, IEEE Spectrum

"Why it has taken so long for NASA to finally decide to fully encrypt its laptops remains a mystery, given its long-time poor record on IT security. As noted at NASA Watch, NASA has a history of laptops with personally identifiable information being stolen, one as recently as March. Maybe NASA decided to act this time because it involved a NASA Headquarters' person who in all likelihood is very senior and should have known better than to possess a laptop with no data encryption."

NASA finally demands encryption on employee machines after another laptop is stolen, The Verge

"Why the concern? Well, the laptop's hard drive wasn't encrypted, and nor were any of its sensitive documents. The theft, which was revealed to employees in an agency-wide email obtained by SpaceRef, is being spun as a wake up call for NASA to beef up its security standards on employees' laptops."

NASA scrambles to encrypt laptops after major breach, Computer World

"Gant Redmon, general counsel and vice president of business development at Co3 Systems, an incident management company, said the issue is why NASA didn't take measures to encrypt all of its systems sooner. "I have two questions. Why didn't they have it before the [March] incident? Why didn't they have it after that first breach?"

NASA Says Staff Information Was on Stolen Laptop, New York Times

"This is not the first time NASA has suffered a serious breach. The agency has long been a target for cybercriminals looking to pilfer sensitive research."

Laptop with NASA workers' personal data is stolen, Reuters

"The laptop theft is the latest in a string of NASA security breaches over the past few years. In March, a Kennedy Space Center worker's laptop that contained personal information on about 2,300 employees and students was stolen."

Yet Another NASA IT Blunder, earlier post

Agencywide Message to All NASA Employees: Breach of Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

"On October 31, 2012, a NASA laptop and official NASA documents issued to a Headquarters employee were stolen from the employee's locked vehicle. The laptop contained records of sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) for a large number of NASA employees, contractors, and others. Although the laptop was password protected, it did not have whole disk encryption software, which means the information on the laptop could be accessible to unauthorized individuals. We are thoroughly assessing and investigating the incident, and taking every possible action to mitigate the risk of harm or inconvenience to affected employees."

Keith's note: Look at the links below from the past several years. When things like this happen again and again you have to wonder whether the people entrusted with sensitive information - and/or the people who manage these individuals - are required to exhibit common sense in the performance of their duties. For that matter, you have to wonder if the people running NASA's IT security actually know what they are doing. This advisory contains "changes and clarifications in NASA policy". How many times do things like this have to happen before NASA finally figures out how to fix this obvious problem? Why was information like this on a laptop to begin with?

Lets just hope this laptop doesn't contain any inappropriate emails to U.S. Army soccer moms or socialites ...

- Stolen KSC Laptop Has Employee Personal Info On It (Update), earlier post
- NASA IT Security is a Mess - Stolen Laptops and Hacking JPL, earlier post
- OIG: NASA Information Security Does Not Fully Meet DHS Requirements, earlier post
- NASA OIG: Facilities and Spacecraft Vulnerable to Attack, earlier post
- OIG Finds Problems in NASA IT Management and Implementation, earlier post
- NASA OIG: Audit of Cybersecurity Oversight of [A NASA] System, earlier post
- GAO Cites Ongoing NASA IT Security Vulnerabilities, earlier post

Keith's 29 Oct note: The @NASA_SDO twitter account just noted "Due to the impact of Hurricane #Sandy @NASA_Goddard the @NASA_SDO website is down. Sorry for the inconvenience We will have it up again ASAP".

This is baffling. The most weather we have here in the DC/Baltimore area right now is steady rain. No hurricane effects are being felt yet. But none the less a GSFC website is offline? I wonder what would happen during a solar storm when the website is actually needed. Hasn't NASA learned how to prepare for such simple contingencies i.e. placing its websites (or at least a back up mirror) in the cloud? Maybe if the SDO folks spent a little more time on routine web support and less time on their dead rubber chicken mascot this wouldn't happen.

But wait: since NASA is incapable of having one official SDO website (due to a chronic organizational inability to adopt a simple website plan) there is another official NASA SDO website online here but it has nothing to do with this equally official SDO website here (which is offline) except that it loads images from the site that is offline right now.

Keith's 30 Oct update: It has been 24 hours. The hurricane is gone. All of NASA's websites seem to be working just fine - none seem to have been knocked offline - except for the SDO website at GSFC which was taken offline. The other (competeting) official NASA SDO website that relies on this downed GSFC server for images shows blank space where the "Latest SDO AIA Image" should be.

Keith's 31 Oct update: The website is back online. What is really odd is this notice they posted:

"The SDO Website is Down Mon, 29 Oct 2012 Due to anticipated power grid problems caused by Hurricane Sandy the SDO website has been shutdown. We regret the inconvenience. The website should return tomorrow. All SDO data is sent to the ground and stored at the data centers."

Think about this for a second. They posted this notice on 29 October on a website that no one could see on 29 or 30 October. Who did they expect to read this notice? You would have had to actually be able to see the website in order to see the notice that the website was offline. Only at NASA.

Keith's 24 Sep 11:45 am note: According to a Tweet by @RPISciDean (Laurie Leshin): "From Jim Green at #CAPS: Traffic on the ENTIRE INTERNET increased by 30% during landing of @MarsCuriosity -- wow! Go #MSL!" I have asked NASA PAO if they can confirm Jim Green's claim - as relayed by Laurie Leshin.

Keith's 24 Sep 6:30 pm update: No answer yet. This would be a rather remarkable accomplishment for NASA - rivaling the ~ 1 billion TV audience for the Apollo 11 landing. As such, one would think that the agency would be much more vocal about the impact of Curiosity's landing on global Internet traffic - if this claim is true, that is.

Keith's 25 Sep 10:38 am update: According to NASA PAO: "NASA Public Affairs does not know where Jim Green got this information nor can we confirm it." Now that NASA has officially cast doubt on the veracity of this claim, It would be nice if Jim Green would explain where he got this information - or admit that he made a mistake.

Keith's 25 Sep 7:00 pm update: According to NASA PAO, Jim Green was mistaken in referring to a "30% increase in traffic on the ENTIRE INTERNET". Instead, there was a traffic spike on Akami around 2 am EDT on 6 Aug 2012 of "31% above normal" with regard to what traffic would normally be on certain portions of Akami (not the entire Internet). Akami handles a large portion of global Internet traffic at any given time. That said, NASA PAO says that during the Curiosity landing that thy doubled their previous high for peak webcast stream traffic. Indeed, in 48 hours they distributed more than 1 petabyte of data. But Jim Green's claim that the entire Internet surged by 30% due to Curiosity-related traffic was simply inaccurate.

Keith's note: The following is put at the bottom of most press releases issued regarding Mars Curiosity.

"More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl."

Why does NASA pay to maintain three separate websites (two run by JPL) - all of which are out of synch with one another? NASA is constantly complaining that they never have enough money to run all of their EPO and PAO operations. Yet they can afford multiple websites when only one is needed? If you ask NASA about this (it happens with virtuallky every mission), you either get no answer, a shrug and/or sigh, or something really stupid. So, I am asking (again) ...

Keith's update: There's also http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ which is the same as http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ - that makes three web addresses, two of which point to identical but parallel websites, and one that points to another, different website - all at JPL.

- NASA's Tangled Human Spaceflight Web Presence, earlier post
- NASA's Sprawling Web Presence, earlier post
- NASA's Inability To Speak With One Voice Online, earlier post

Review of NASA's Computer Security Incident Detection and Handling Capability

"In general, we found that the SOC has improved NASA's computer security incident handling capability by providing continuous incident detection coverage for all NASA Centers. ... However, we also found that the SOC does not currently monitor all of NASA's computer networks. Even though networks we reviewed had their own incident management program that included network monitoring, dedicated staff to respond to incidents and documented processes the networks' management programs do not provide the centralized continuous monitoring coverage afforded by the SOC. In addition, NASA needs to increase its readiness to combat sophisticated but increasingly common forms of cyber attack known as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs)."

NASA's Mars Rover Crashed Into a DMCA Takedown, Vice.com

"This isn't the first time that a claim by Scripps News Service has grounded a NASA video on YouTube. According to Bob Jacobs, NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Communications, such claims happen once a month, and tend to be more common with popular videos. If claimed videos aren't blocked, they are slapped with ads from the fraudulent claimant. In April, Scripps also claimed ownership for a video of one of NASA's Space Shuttles being flown atop a 747, causing it to briefly disappear from NASA's account."

NASA Announcement for Partnering Opportunities for Delivery of NASA Content To The Public

"In the existing infrastructure without our delivery partners, NASA may have to cap the number of visitors and hours of web streaming coverage or eliminate it entirely for particular peak activities. This would force visitors to seek content from other venues that may or may not cover NASA missions. To avoid this situation, NASA seeks to broaden its ability to reach new audiences and numbers of people through access to multiple venues."

IT Reform at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA CIO

"Finally, NASA shifted to a new web services model that uses Amazon Web Services for cloud-based enterprise infrastructure. This cloud-based model supports a wide variety of web applications and sites using an interoperable, standards-based, and secure environment while providing almost a million dollars in cost savings each year.

NASA Drops OpenStack For Amazon Cloud

"Ray O'Brien, acting CIO at NASA Ames, when asked May 30 by InformationWeek about NASA's participation, used diplomatic language to say that NASA still endorsed the project, was proud of its founding role, and might be a user of OpenStack components in the future. "It is very possible that NASA could leverage OpenStack as a customer in the future," he wrote in his email response. ... [NASA CIO Linda] Cureton's reference to "an interoperable, standards-based environment" could have been taken from the OpenStack playbook. Amazon Web Services, to which Cureton was actually referring, uses proprietary Amazon Machine Images as the basis for workloads that run in its Elastic Compute Cloud ... But nowhere in her references to an open environment was there any mention of OpenStack. At the same time, OpenStack has gained the backing of 175 other companies--including IBM, HP, Red Hat, Del,l and Intel--as the primary open source cloud offering."

Nebula, NASA, and OpenStack, Open NASA

"Recently, on May 15, NASA announced a new cloud computing strategy for the Agency at the Uptime Institute's symposium in Santa Clara, CA. Among its facets is a reduction to our OpenStack development efforts in favor of becoming a "smart consumer" of commercial cloud services."

IT Reform at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA CIO Blog

"Improved investment management practices, the use of cloud services when appropriate, and the use of shared services as a provider and consumer are core tenets in our IRM Strategic Plan released in June 2011. To underscore the importance of this shift, I identified a Deputy CIO for IT Reform, Gary Cox, in 2012 to provide an integrated focus on IT innovation and service delivery to ensure that our services are effective and efficient from our customers' perspectives."

Did NASA ditch OpenStack for Amazon?

"What she did not mention was anything about OpenStack, the infrastructure as a service platform that grew out of initial work by NASA and Rackspace. OpenStack is being pushed as an alternative to Amazon Web Services by several tech heavyweights including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Red Hat. This blog piqued my interest because, in late March, another NASA official said publicly that the agency is backing off additional OpenStack development."

Marc's note: The short answer, yes.

Iranian 'Cyber Warriors Team' takes credit for NASA hack, MSNBC

"A group of Iranian student hackers known as the Cyber Warriors Team claims to have stolen the personal information of thousands of NASA researchers. The Cyber Warriors Team boasted in a May 16 Pastebin post that it exploited a secure sockets layer (or SSL) vulnerability in the space agency's website to swipe "information for thousands of NASA researcher[s] with emails and accounts of other users." In the hackers' poorly worded English message, "How and reasons to Hack NASA SSL Certificate," the group said the security glitch still exists, and leaves the agency open to more malicious attacks."

NASA denies Iranian cyberattack, CSO Data Protection

"NASA said it discovered the Pastebin post within hours and launched an investigation of the claims. "Although the investigation is ongoing, all results thus far indicate that the claims are false... At no point were any sensitive, mission, or classified systems compromised," Beth Dickey, a NASA spokeswoman, said in an email."

NASA's Inconsistent Support of the International Space Apps Challenge

"Several weeks ago NASA and a number of sponsors held the International Space Apps Challenge. The intent was to enlist people from all across the world to create solutions to problems and issues associated with spaceflight. The participants were truly spread out across our planet including Antarctica with support from the crew aboard the International Space Station. ... I think it is inexcusable that NASA has not made more of an effort to promote things such as the International Space Apps Challenge - especially when the White House places such a priority on things like this. There is much risk in this ad hoc and dysfunctional public engagement policy at NASA. Now that the first apps challenge event was such a success, efforts like this could continue - without overt NASA involvement - thus making NASA less - rather than more relevant."

NASA, ESA confirm hacks; The Unknowns says systems patched, ZDNet

"For the NASA hack, the group also decided to leak one of the research center's databases. They released names, employers, home addresses, and e-mail addresses of 736 victims on Pastebin. ESA is the other organization for which they also leaked more data, also via Pastebin. Both NASA and ESA have now confirmed the attacks. NASA security officials detected an intrusion into the site on April 20 and took it offline," a NASA spokesperson said in a statement. "The agency takes the issue of IT security very seriously and at no point was sensitive or controlled information compromised. NASA has made significant progress to better protect the agency's IT systems and is in the process of mitigating any remaining vulnerabilities that could allow intrusions in the future."

Keith's note: One night in January I got frustrated trying to find something on NASA's Human Spaceflight website(s). So, I decided to map them. As you can see from this chart (enlarge), NASA's HSF web presence - like much of NASA's sprawling cyber infrastructure - is an unorganized mess. Yet despite this convoluted web structure, people often manage to find things simply because a lot of what NASA does is so compellingly cool. People find this stuff despite the convoluted and confused way that NASA organizes things (Google).

As I have already noted, most missions at NASA have two, often three (or more) official websites and web addresses. The websites are often out of synch with each other and yet also duplicative - at the same time. NASA also has multiple entry points for the same topic, dead ends, and pages that reflect programs that are dead. I sent this chart over to NASA. They agreed: its a mess. 5 months later. No change. So I thought I'd share it with y'all.

NASA's Inability To Speak With One Voice Online, earlier post

International Space Apps Challenge Is Happening This Weekend

"The International Space Apps Challenge will take place this weekend, April 21-22, 2012. Nearly 2,000 people are registered to attend in 24 cities around the world. NASA is working with 8 other government agencies and over 100 organizations world wide to host the two-day technology development event. Solutions to over 60 challenges related to open source software, open hardware, citizen science platforms, and data visualization will be worked on throughout the event, including an opportunity to launch your code to space on NASA's phonesat!"

NASA Internal Memo: Spacebook Being Decommissioned

"On June 1 Spacebook, NASA's social network site, will be decommissioned. All data will be archived and all user accounts will be closed. Spacebook was implemented in 2009 as a social network for civil servants and contractors to collaborate and share information. Unfortunately participation has not been as high as anticipated. On average, only 14 users log on per weekday and zero on the weekends. There are alternate internal social media tools, such as Yammer..."

Keith's note: Another reinvented wheel that needed to be uninvented. I can only imagine what they spent to create and maintain this bad copy of Facebook.

NASA Releases New Open Government Plan

"NASA today released version 2.0 of its Open Government Plan, which includes a flagship initiative to build a new web architecture and a renewed focus on open data sharing, open source development and a variety of technology acceleration efforts. The plan also features a directory of more than 100 participatory, collaborative and transparent projects, offering citizens opportunities to understand, support and engage with the agency. Throughout the next year, NASA will continue to add projects to the directory."

NASA Memorandum for the Record: Protection of Sensitive Agency Information

"This memorandum reinforces NASA policy regarding the protection of Sensitive but Unclassified (SBU) information. The memorandum applies to all Centers, Mission Directorates and their supporting commercial contractors that process NASA information. Individuals responsible for handling SBU information should be cognizant of the requirements outlined within this memorandum to ensure the protection of all SBU data."

- Stolen KSC Laptop Has Employee Personal Info On It (Update), earlier post
- NASA IT Security is a Mess - Stolen Laptops and Hacking JPL, earlier post

The Secret History of OpenStack, the Free Cloud Software That's Changing Everything, Wired

"So [Federal CIO Vivek] Kundra summoned Chris Kemp to the White House, and he eventually used NASA Nebula to launch USAspending.gov -- a site that shared the government's spending with the world at large -- while drawing up plans to expand the platform to other agencies as well. The problem was that certain U.S. lawmakers and NASA bureaucrats were intent on killing the project. Chief among them was Senator Richard Shelby, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, according to Kemp. Shelby's office didn't respond to an inquiry from Wired, but Kemp says that the senator saw Nebula as a jobs-killer. "Whenever I would talk in Washington about this cloud technology enabling data centers to run without people, this was interpreted as jobs going away," Kemp says. "There was a serious political challenge to the project...and I was called before the NASA administrator -- of the whole agency -- to explain it."

NASA KSC internal Memo: NASA KSC Laptop Theft

"On March 5, 2012, a NASA laptop computer containing sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) was stolen from a NASA KSC employee. We have verified that personal information was contained in the files that were on this laptop at the time it was stolen."

NASA KSC Response to Employee Laptop Theft

"Originally, a limited number of employees and less sensitive personal data were thought to be on the stolen computer. But as part of the investigation and response to the theft, NASA IT, security and human resource personnel confirmed (through backed-up records of the stolen computer stored on protected agency servers) more precisely what information was contained on that laptop, and it was learned on March 14 that many more employees and more sensitive data, including social security numbers, were involved. NASA is sending "letters of notification," first in the email below, to provide faster notification, and then by paper letter by March 19, to affected employees."

Hearing Notes: Charles Bolden Testifies on NASA's FY 2013 Budget

"When Wolf mentioned the recent NASA IG report on computer security and the spate of incidents, Bolden said that he was going to sign a directive and that all portable devices would use encryption. He said he should have known better and that it was his fault that this had not been implemented sooner. Bolden said that he had talked to his staff and that when compared to other agencies' IT security, that NASA was "woefully deficient"."

NASA Launches International Competition to Develop Space Apps

"NASA, governments around the world and civil society organizations will co-host the International Space Apps Challenge on April 21-22 with events across seven continents and in space. The apps competition will bring people together to exploit openly available data collected by space agencies around the world to create innovative solutions to longstanding global challenges. An initiative of the U.S. Open Government National Action Plan, the challenge will showcase the impact scientists and citizens can have by working together to solve challenging problems that affect every person on Earth. Events will take place in San Francisco; Exeter, U.K.; Melbourne, Australia; Sao Paulo; Nairobi, Kenya; Jakarta, Indonesia; Tokyo; McMurdo Station, Antarctica; and the International Space Station."

iPads Would Be Great in Space, Astronaut Says, TechNews Daily

"NASA astronaut Dan Burbank, who commands the space station, said that while he doesn't own a new iPad -- or any other tablet -- he definitely could use one in space. "I don't have an iPad yet, and I most certainly don't have one up here on the space station," Burbank said today while answering a question from a student in San Jose, Calif., via a video link. "At some point I think that would be a really good tool to have up here because it would be a lot easier to have a single tablet, a single screen, to take with you to do procedures and science experiments instead of having a big laptop with you."

The iPad and an Angry Bird Head to Space, iPad News (28 Oct 2011)

"The next unmanned resupply vehicle headed for the International Space Station next month will be loaded with much needed propellant, oxygen, water, thousands of pounds of crew equipment and 2 iPads all ready to entertain the Russians who will receive them."

Keith's note: So I guess the Russians won't let their American crew mates use their iPads.

Testimony by NASA IG Paul Martin: NASA Cybersecurity: An Examination of the Agency's Information Security

"Between April 2009 and April 2011, NASA reported the loss or theft of 48 Agency mobile computing devices, some of which resulted in the unauthorized release of sensitive data including export-controlled, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and third-party intellectual property. For example, the March 2011 theft of an unencrypted NASA notebook computer resulted in the loss of the algorithms used to command and control the International Space Station...."

"...In one of the successful attacks, intruders stole user credentials for more than 150 NASA employees - credentials that could have been used to gain unauthorized access to NASA systems. Our ongoing investigation of another such attack at JPL involving Chinese-based Internet protocol (IP) addresses has confirmed that the intruders gained full access to key JPL systems and sensitive user accounts."

Testimony by NASA CIO Linda Cureton: NASA Cybersecurity: An Examination of the Agency's Information Security

"The NASA IT Security program is transforming and maturing. The real-world requirement is to protect NASA's information and information systems at a level commensurate with mission needs and information value. Therefore, NASA is increasing visibility and responsiveness through enhanced information security monitoring of NASA's systems across the Agency."

Space station control codes on stolen NASA laptop, CNet

"A laptop stolen from NASA last year contained command codes used to control the International Space Station, an internal investigation has found. The laptop, which was not encrypted, was among dozens of mobile devices lost or stolen in recent years that contained sensitive information, the space agency's inspector general told Congress today in testimony highlighting NASA's security challenges."

John Kelly: NASA needs to power up PR machine, Florida Today

"The solution is for NASA to use its broad, and well-funded, public relations arm to make sure that the public does hear about its successes and its progress. NASA must make it known that the new super rocket is being built, tests are being completed, and progress is being made toward test flights."

Keith's note: I am a chronic critic of NASA PAO, but this throwaway line by John Kelly begs a response. NASA's "public relations arm" is anything but "well-funded". Quite the contrary: overall PAO resources have been reduced nearly 75% since 2006. That does not mean NASA does not spend a lot of taxpayer's dollars on various communications activities. As the agency's corporate communications ability shrinks (thanks in large part to a $10 million OMB mandated reduction for a project wrongfully credited to NASA PAO), individual NASA projects and mission directorates make up the difference through independent PR efforts executed under an umbrella known as "public outreach".

However, those public outreach efforts are rarely coordinated with each other or with the agency's corporate communications arm at NASA PAO. As such, PAO often watches in frustration as money is spent on websites, philanthropic efforts, videos, and toys that have little overall value to NASA while resources for the agency's primary communications efforts dwindle due constant Congressional cuts.

If you want to send a message to the managers of SLS and Orion and other spaceflight projects, tell them to worry about completing their projects on time and on budget, and stop trying to figure out how to make these vital programs popular with the American people. They may be terrific engineers but they often make lousy decisions when it comes to executing PR activities and almost always ignore in-house expertise, thus duplicating efforts and wasting money.

Instead, the programs and projects should turn over the resources, responsibility, and accountability to the agency's communications professionals and empower them to execute the kind of coordinated and strategic efforts suggested in Kelly's article. And of course, if NASA gets too good at the sort of PR Kelly would like to see, then he and the rest of the news media will invariably start to dump on NASA - but this time for spending too much money on PR.

Analysis of DNSSEC Validation Failure Comcast - DNS Engineering, Comcast"

"How Did Users Interpret the Failure? The DNSSEC-related misconfiguration of the NASA.GOV domain unfortunately occurred on the same day that some Internet websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit blacked out their sites in protest over the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills in in the U.S. Congress. ... Despite this, a website that discusses NASA-related news and information, called NASA Watch (http://www.nasawatch.com) accused Comcast of blocking access to the NASA.GOV domain, seemingly on purpose."

Keith's note: Despite multiple tweets by @NASAWatch about this problem on 18 January 2012 - tweets that were responded to by @Comcast employees - no one at Comcast ever bothered to contact NASA Watch about the cause - until this report was issued. Yet they seem to place some importance on the fact that NASAWatch (and MSNBC) gave this issue prominence. We had to figure it out for ourselves. If Comcast wants people to know why things are not working for their customers, then they need to take the initiative to respond to public inquiries promptly - and not complain about things well after the fact.

Keith's note: Comcast has decided to block customer access to *.NASA.gov due, I am told, to an issue involving how NASA maintains its DNS records. Why these geniuses at Comcast chose the SOPA/PIPA protest day to do this is curious to say the least. Right now, if you are a Comcast customer, you are being purposefully denied access to one part of your government's services.

Keith's update: I have confirmed this via IT professionals at NASA and in several places across the U.S. that Comcast DNS is broken - but only for NASA.gov, it would seem.

Keith's update: Alan Boyle from MSNBC tweeted some good advice - change your DNS setting to Google's Public DNS. Info here.

Keith's update: Everything works again. Apparently NASA provided an update key for DNS and the new key did not match the Comcast key. So Comcast simply cut off DNS access for all of its customers to everything at NASA.gov. The old key has been sent by NASA and everything works again - so far.

Fifty-Seven Student Rocket Teams to Take NASA Launch Challenge

"For a complete competitor list and more information about the challenge, visit: http://education.msfc.nasa.gov/sli and http://education.msfc.nasa.gov/usli."

Keith's note: Simple, yes? Not when NASA's multiple webmasters get into the act. If you go to http://education.msfc.nasa.gov/sli you are redirected to another URL (link) that blinks too fast to copy down and then quickly redirects you again, this time to this link http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/descriptions/Student_Launch_Initiative.html. Why have the intermediary redirect? Why not just have http://education.msfc.nasa.gov/sli redirect to http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/descriptions/Student_Launch_Initiative.html?

If you go to the other link provided in this press release, http://education.msfc.nasa.gov/usli the same intermediate redirect happens and you end up at http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/descriptions/University_Student_Launch_Initiative.html

The answer you get about dueling URLs from NASA is that NASA wants to make it simple for people. I understand that and totally agree. But when you start with a simple URL, jump to another, longer URL, and then end get tossed again to the final (long) URL - that long URL is the one that you are going to save in your browser, cut and paste and share with others, go back to, etc. Why not stick with the short URL in the first place? Baffling.

NASA's Sprawling Web Presence, earlier post

"There is no uniform agency-wide process for ensuring content on the other NASA sites is accessible, updated, accurate or routinely improved. Individual programs and projects at the Centers and offices at NASA Headquarters manage their own content and are responsible for accuracy and accessibility."

NASA's Inability To Speak With One Voice Online, earlier post

"I hear constant complaints from within NASA that funds for websites, education and public outreach, and PAO are limited - and likely to be cut further. Yet the agency continues to waste money on dueling websites - and they use multiple web addressses to send people to the same website."

NASA OIG: NASA's Real Property Master Planning Efforts

"NASA's development of the Agency's first integrated master plan is a positive step toward better managing its diverse real property assets. However, we found deficiencies within the individual Center master plans the Agency is using to develop the integrated Agency plan that may limit the Plan's usefulness for making strategic real property decisions. Specifically, we found that NASA is developing its initial master plan based on Center master plans that (1) were developed using funding assumptions for the recapitalization program that are no longer realistic and (2) are missing essential information needed to make objective Agency-wide real property decisions. In addition, 5 of the 10 Centers did not develop master plans to reduce their real property footprint in accordance with Agency goals because of uncertain mission requirements."

Keith's note: According to State of the Federal Web Report, issued 16 Dec 2011 by the .gov Reform Task Force

"Some agencies, such as NASA, have a relatively small number of domains compared to other agencies, yet NASA reported the highest number of public websites, with 1,590."

NASA is quoted in this document as saying:

True number of systems unknown: Several agencies admitted that it was not clear how many CMS [Content Management System] are in use: "This number is a guess. No one at NASA knows the number with certainty."

"There is no uniform agency-wide process for ensuring content on the other NASA sites is accessible, updated, accurate or routinely improved. Individual programs and projects at the Centers and offices at NASA Headquarters manage their own content and are responsible for accuracy and accessibility."

"There is no agency-wide process for reporting the results of these center processes or establishing any of them as best practices."

Dawn Obtains First Low Altitude Images of Vesta

Keith's note: This press release says "More information about the Dawn mission is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov." That's two separate websites at NASA for the same mission. But wait - there's yet another here. But you also reach this site if you go to http://www.nasa.gov/dawn. Two websites and three web addresses.

Then there are the multiple official Kepler websites: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler/, http://kepler.arc.nasa.gov/, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html , http://www.seti.org/kepler, and http://kepler.nasa.gov/ as well as the multiple official Cassini websites: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini , http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html, and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/, and so on. Virtually every NASA mission has more than one "official" NASA.gov website - and in each case the websites are regularly out of synch with one another.

Probably the most blatant example whereby NASA simply cannot make its mind up as to where an official mission website is has to do with Hubble - here are the official websites: http://hubble.nasa.gov/, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html, http://hubblesite.org/, http://heritage.stsci.edu/, http://www.nasa.gov/hubble, and http://www.spacetelescope.org/. This recent hubble press release is typical. NASA offers 3 links - on three different official Hubble websites - for the same image.

I hear constant complaints from within NASA that funds for websites, education and public outreach, and PAO are limited - and likely to be cut further. Yet the agency continues to waste money on dueling websites - and they use multiple web addressses to send people to the same website. If you gave NASA more money would the number of websites decrease and efficiency of overall NASA website design increase? Doubtful. In a time when budgets are being cut, one would think that increased efficiency would be the focus - and that the number of duplicative websites would decrease and efficiency of NASA's overall website design would increase. Again, doubtful since the agency simply does not want - or care - to try and speak with one consistent, coordinated, efficient voice.

NASA Faces Significant Challenges in Transitioning to a Continuous Monitoring Approach for Its Information Technology Systems

"NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin today released a report that found significant challenges with NASA's ongoing transition from an information technology (IT) security oversight approach that relied on periodic, static assessments to one that emphasizes ongoing and continuous monitoring of Agency systems."

NASA Launches apps@NASA

"NASA launched apps@NASA, a website where NASA employees and contractors can download mobile apps that securely access NASA systems. These apps enable our users to perform critical job functions at anytime from anywhere via personal and NASA mobile devices."

NASA Launches Mobile Apps Store, Information Week

"The agency was at the forefront of the feds' adoption of cloud computing, building its own cloud infrastructure, Nebula, that it is using internally to host applications and services. Mobile applications are another area in which NASA has been an early adopter, offering apps for both iPhones and Android devices. However, its mobile apps store for employees is a bit thin at the moment; the site currently has only two applications available in its apps store, but NASA plans to add more in the future."

Government Agencies Go Google+, Information Week

"Most of the agencies thus far have been posting news, multimedia, and information of the type one might expect to be posted on their Facebook pages or Twitter feeds. For example, with the exception of a post introducing itself to Google+, the Marine Corps' Google+ posts have thus far been carbon copies of its posts on its official Facebook page. Since joining Google+, NASA has been the most active of the new entrants with almost two dozen posts, mostly images and multimedia, and many of them different from information shared on other social media platforms. The page already has more than 18,000 followers."

United States Attorney Southern District of New York Press Event with NASA Inspector General

"A press conference will be held today to announce charges against seven individuals who engaged in a sophisticated, international Internet fraud scheme that infected more than four million computers in over 100 countries and manipulated online advertising.

- Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
- Janice K. Fedarcyk, Assistant Director-In-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Paul Martin, Inspector General of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Inspector General"

U.S. Attorney Charges Seven Individuals For Engineering Sophisticated Internet Fraud Scheme, Department of Justice

"Of the computers infected with malware, at least 500,000 were in the United States, including computers belonging to U.S. government agencies, such as NASA; educational institutions; non-profit organizations; commercial businesses; and individuals."

NASA Internal Memo: Goddard Libraries Transition to Electronic Services

"Beginning January 1, 2012, the NASA Goddard libraries at Greenbelt and Wallops will transition to an all-electronic activity. In response to changes in the research environment and to Center-driven resource priorities, we will no longer maintain a physical presence but will focus on supporting the research needs of the Goddard community electronically. ... Closing of the physical libraries is a strategic move to repurpose resources and refocus efforts toward enhanced electronic collections and new services vital for Goddard to continue to be productive and competitive in scientific research. "

Keith's note: So what does this mean with regard to the books and other printed items that already exist in the GSFC library i.e. "Closing of the physical libraries"? Is GSFC going to just get rid of everything? And if a book or journal is not in electronic format ... too bad. I am sure historians will just love this. And this is a "strategic move"?

Keith's Note: If you watch the live video from the Aquarius undersea habitat you can see that the NEEMO-15 crew are currently using tablet computers. According to an interview I did a few minutes ago, NEEMO-15 crew member Astronaut Shannon Walker says that they use these tablet computers to track their mission tasks. Walker also said that there will be several tablet computers aboard the next Progress cargo flight to the International Space Station. When asked, she was not able to say what brands of tablets would be going up.

Keith's update: According to NASA Public Affairs, the Russians plan to fly two iPads on the December Progress mission as a replacement for the iPod they currently have on the ISS The only use for these two iPads will be for entertainment. The Russians have no plans to use them operationally. NASA is still reviewing other tablet systems and plans to fly at least one more next year although the brand that they will fly is still TBD.

NASA OIG Annual Report: Federal Information Security Management Act: Fiscal Year 2011 Evaluation

"Overall, the Agency established and is maintaining a program for each of the 11 areas listed above. However, the Agency's programs for risk management, configuration monitoring management, and POA&M need significant improvements as they do not include all required attributes identified by the Department of Homeland Security."

data.nasa.gov API Now Available

"The data.nasa.gov API allows a machine-readable interface to return metadata from the site organized by category, tag, date, or search term. We're hoping this allows new and creative visualizations of the data resources NASA provides to the public. Additionally, it is a learning experience for us as we work to expand transparency, participation, and collaboration at NASA through new uses of technology. You can view documentation on the API directly on data.nasa.gov."

NASA Announces International Space Apps Competition

"NASA is announcing the International Space Apps Competition to support the Open Government Partnership (OGP), which President Barack Obama announced Tuesday. The challenge will culminate with a two-day event next year that will provide an opportunity for government to use the expertise and entrepreneurial spirit of citizen explorers to help address global challenges. During the event, NASA representatives and officials from international space agencies will gather with scientists and citizens to use publicly-released scientific data to create solutions for issues, such as weather impact on the global economy and depletion of ocean resources."

NASA Seeks to Communicate, Engage Public Better, TMCnet.com

"[Bolden] also said he was "disappointed" at the lack of fresh faces - "those in the back, who haven't been around for the last 10 to 20 years" - in the audience, but did not discount the attendees either. "We need your help - your ideas, your energy and your passion. What you're doing here today is very important, and I look forward to hearing more from you," Bolden said in closing, tying into the broader themes of the Future Forum, with panel discussions between academia, NASA officials, and private industry representatives featuring technology and innovation, commercial technology transfer, and inspiring education. Broader interaction with the public also came up during a question and answer session after the first panel discussion. A member of the audience suggested that the biggest problem NASA has is "preaching to the choir" - established supporters - via Twitter and the web. A discussion of broadening the base ensued. "If we have a more loud choir, more people look at what's going on in the church," NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Waleed Abdalati suggested."

Keith's note: NASA has lots of transmitters to throw things out into the media and at the public - but it has very few receivers with which to capture input from the real world. And when it does get input, it often hasn't a clue what to do with the information. There is more to this than constantly asking for input, Charlie. You need to instigate a culture shift inside your agency wherein the input NASA gets from outside itself is incorporated into how your people run the agency. NASA needs to admit that it doesn't know everything and that 'change is an option' when public input does not mesh with what the agency thinks it is supposed to be doing. As for loud choirs, Waleed, NASA often confuses momentary amplitude with real public interest. It can be difficult to hear subtle messages when all you have is a bullhorn at your disposal.

Keith's note: So ... this is the new NASA Buzzroom? If so, NASA needs to replace the responsible website contractor JESS3 ASAP. This is just a crappy Facebook feed wherein anything that people post appears on this NASA.gov website with zero moderation. One post says "NASA takes down buzzroom after too much revealed about Comet Elenin trajectory." At least this new version of Buzzroom no longer features utterly off-topic videos that featured including lynchings and 80's hair bands (see earlier stories on this failed experiment)

The NASA IT Summit is an open forum of all the best that IT offers. Members of the IT community - NASA, Federal, Industry & Academia - will gather to exchange ideas, share best practices, and learn what is new and cutting edge on the internal and external IT landscape. NASA CIO Linda Cureton will host the 2011 IT Summit at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco - August 15-17. To chat during the session, please go to the session on the IT Summit Remote Engagement Site: http://open.nasa.gov/itsummit/

Livestreaming webcast

More information

Keith's note: Facebook's CIO Tim Campos is the opening speaker today at the IT Summit. Alas, NASA blocks access to Facebook (and Google+ etc.) NASA has multiple internal attempts to copy (badly) some of what Facebook does so there is some appreciation for the utility of these tools. Campos makes many good points. Indeed, I think Tim Campos and NASA CIO Linda Cureton need to have a serious chat during the lunch break. He says interesting things but NASA blocks access to his company's product. So how can his lessons be applied? Why can't NASA civil servants and contractors use Facebook (or Google+) or both? And please don't throw "firewall" or "ITAR" nonsense back at me in the comments section. If NASA can reprogram 30+ year old Voyager spacecraft outside our solar system surely they can figure out how to offer employees the same tools that the rest of the world uses.

Working at NASA in 2011 is like driving a car that only has an AM radio - with only one speaker.

Keith's clarification: While some people can clearly access (and interact with) Facebook and other social media sites from their desks at NASA others tell me that they cannot. Due to the retaliatory mindset at NASA I am not going to identify where these people are. Suffice it to say, there is no consistent, agency-wide policy as to what people inside NASA can or cannot access out in the real world.

Keith's note: NASA's Webb Space Telescope Twitter account is promoting AURA JWST lobbying materials:

"We've just added a link on our site to this page from AURA which has a collection of statements of support for JWST: bit.ly/okj0Cr"

Reader note: Read the following on the Direct TV web site regarding NASA TV. So they now want to charge $10.00 extra but not deliver HD. "Is NASA TV still available on DIRECTV? Yes, DIRECTV will still offer NASA TV on Channel 289. However, starting August 3, 2011, NASA TV will only be available to customers who have DIRECTV HD equipment and are subscribed to HD Access ($10/month). But please note: NASA TV will remain a standard definition channel. Upgrade to HD online or call us at 1-800-531-5000."

NASA Launches New Open Government Blog

"The site is a collaborative blog for the open government community to highlight the ways that transparency, participation, and collaboration are being embraced throughout the agency. "NASA is committed to experimenting with and embracing new participatory ways of collaboration," said Linda Cureton, the agency's chief information officer. "The launch of open.NASA is a new chapter in NASA's culture of openness and an exciting new way to engage citizens in our activities."

White House Announces Plans to Shut Down Hundreds of Duplicative Data Centers as Part of Campaign to Cut Waste

"To date, agencies have closed 81 data centers and will close 114 more during this calendar year for a total of 195 in 2011.This represents an increase in both planned and actual closures from the data released in April 2011. As agencies have continued to update their data center inventories, they have increased their planned closures, demonstrating the seriousness in which they are attacking waste."

Keith's note: 15 10 centers at NASA have been or will be closed (list)

NASA Open Source Summit Proceedings Online

"On March 29 & 30, NASA hosted its first Open Source Summit at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The event brought engineers and policy makers from across NASA together with well-respected members of the open source community together to discuss current challenges with NASA's open source policy framework, and propose modifications that would make it easier for NASA to develop, release, and use open source software."

Why Do You Have to Type out 'www' to Get to our Website?, NASA

"It seems really simple - just three letters. But they seem to annoy some of our users, who have let us know: "Why do I have to type www.nasa.gov and not just nasa.gov? Don't you people even know the basics of running a web site?"

Marc's Note: I read this blog post and my jaw dropped. I've complained before that I didn't understand why I couldn't just type nasa.gov in any browser to get to NASA's web site. After all, technically it's a simple change to the domains Domain Name System (DNS) entry. Now I have the answer, NASA says it's an expensive move. Huh! Ok, sure NASA is a very popular web site. But changing the DNS entry so that queries typed in a browser as http://nasa.gov get redirected to http://www.nasa.gov shouldn't add prohibitive costs. No way.

NASA Internal Memo: Transformation of Agency Information Technology (IT) Services

"The Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) is integrating and consolidating many IT services throughout the Agency. This new effort is called the IT Infrastructure Integration Program, or I3P. It will affect every employee who uses IT services such as: desktops, laptops, networks, etc. The scope of I3P is broad, entailing consolidation, improved governance, and central management of IT services in the areas of service desk and ordering, Web services and technologies, enterprise business and management applications, integrated communications/network services, and end-user services. Roll-out schedules will vary by each Center. Each Center's Chief Information Officer will send out more detailed information, but below you'll find a high-level summary of the new program."

Keith's note: I just got an email complaint from SMD regarding this calendar listing for the NASA Advisory Council Science Committee Planetary Science Subcommittee Meeting. NASA claims that I "typed" the webex passwords wrong. I did not "type" anything. I copied the notice VERBATIM from the Federal Register here which says "PSS--Apr18" and "PSS--Apr19". I have corrected the passwords, per the NASA SMD email, to read "PSS_Apr18" and "PSS_Apr19". It would seem from the email complaint I got that NASA JPL uses my site to update its staff (thanks guys!) but I find it to be a little curious how people seem to find out about these important advisory meetings via NASA Watch and SpaceRef - and not from NASA SMD itself ...

"As part of the NASA Open Government plan released on April 7, 2010, NASA announced more than 150 milestones related to integrating Open Government into the agencies programs and projects. To celebrate the one year anniversary of our plan, we've released a new infographic to communicate our first year of progress toward becoming more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. While we've set high goals, we're committed to incorporating open government into every facet of our mission. We have made great progress in some areas; others have taken longer than we anticipated and extra time is required to fully realize the goals. We hope this will clearly communicate our progress and keep you informed of new and exciting things within NASA. All of these goals are fluid - you'll see growth and movement as we work to determine the best path toward openness. If you have any questions or comments, we encourage you to visit our new NASA Open Government Initiative website at http://www.nasa.gov/open and share your ideas."

View the project status infographic.

NASA To Host Open Source Summit March 29-30 In California

"NASA will host a summit about open source software development on March 29-30 at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PDT on both days. NASA's first Open Source Summit will bring together engineers, policy makers and members of the open source community. Participants will discuss the challenges within the existing open source policy framework and propose modifications to facilitate NASA's development, release and use of software."

Register as a remote participant.

Live streaming of the event can be found here.

NASA OIG: Inadequate Security Practices Expose Key NASA Network to Cyber Attack

"The OIG review found that six computer servers associated with information technology (IT) assets that control NASA spacecraft and contain critical data had vulnerabilities that would allow a remote attacker to take control of or render them unavailable. Moreover, once inside the Agency-wide mission network, the attacker could use the compromised computers to exploit other weaknesses we identified, a situation that could severely degrade or cripple NASA operations. We also found network servers that revealed encryption keys, encrypted passwords, and user account information to potential attackers."

NASA spacecraft vulnerable to cyber-attack, Nature

"Gail Robinson of the OIG's office tells Nature the IG can't say publicly which systems are affected for security reasons, but that it has told NASA the information. Although only six examples were documented, the IG report makes clear that up to 130 systems could be affected by the inconsistent oversight."

Houston, We Have a Problem: Critical NASA Systems Vulnerable, PC World

"Anup Ghosh, founder and chief scientist for Invincea, noted that events like the recent attacks against HBGary, RSA, and Comodo, and this audit report from NASA might lead IT admins to ask: "If it is happening to organizations like these, can it happen to us?" But, Ghosh says the better question to ask is: "If it is happening to the top security companies, is it happening everywhere?" Ghosh volunteers the answer to that question, saying it is undoubtedly "yes"."

NASA Computer Servers Insecure, Open to 'Catastrophic' Attack, PC Magazine

"What's the problem? The OIG said NASA has been slow to act on a recommendation it made in May 2010 that NASA secure its networks. At that point, the OIG told NASA to immediately establish an IT security oversight program for its mission network, but as of February 2011, NASA had done nothing."

Space Mission Networks at Risk of Major Breach, Govinfosecurity

"NASA CIO Linda Cureton, in a letter to the IG, generally concurred with the IG's recommendations, saying she will work with mission directorates and centers to develop a comprehensive approach by Sept. 30 to ensure that Internet-accessible computers on NASA's mission networks are routinely identified, vulnerabilities are continually evaluated and risks are promptly mitigated. In addition, Cureton said she will develop and implement a strategy for conducting an Agency-wide risk assessment by Aug. 31."

NASA CIO staff continue to make their own rules when it comes to setting up websites outside the NASA firewall for official purposes - websites with no security in place, according to postings on the NASA Forward Maker Camp website.

Keith's note: According to NASA GSFC's Jon Verville (@jonverve): "We are following the precedent set by OSTP/GSA here: http://expertnet.wikispaces.com/Getting+Started Please cite the NPR/NPD requirement which restricts the use of non-NASA websites." My response: "Your group is not operating this website according to NASA policy per NASA HQ. Precedents in other agencies do not count. Otherwise all NASA NPDs can be ignored since someone somewhere else always does things differently. Why have any rules at all?"

I wonder what would happen if CIO staff were to randomly walk around the agency and ask people what would happen if they went out and set up their own website outside the firewall for a project they were working on - or ask management what their reaction would be if their staff just went off and did this. The answer should be obvious. It would certainly be nice if NASA were much more open in this regard - but it is not there yet. Instead of breaking the rules (or making them up ad hoc) these CIO staffers need to set an example and follow their own rules. And if the rules are not working, they need to cite the problems, and then then change the rules. Otherwise having rules of any sort is pointless.

I fail to understand why NASA CIO sets standards that the entire agency has to follow when it comes to website hosting, security etc. and then their own staff can go do whatever they want in this regard. Why should anyone else at NASA bother to adhere to these rules - or pay attention to what the CIO says? Does the "precedent" that Verville mentions have any official bearing on NASA rules and regulations? If so, then where is the NPR/NPD that says so? Otherwise you can't just assume that you can do something simply because someone else did it.

Mixed Messages From NASA CIO Staff, earlier post

NASA's Chief Technology Officer for IT Chris Kemp Is Leaving The Agency

"Deciding to leave NASA has not been easy, and is something I've been struggling with for the past few months. About a month ago, I mentioned to one of my mentors that "it's a very difficult time to be an entrepreneur at NASA." She responded "is it ever a good time to be an entrepreneur at NASA?" Reflecting on this, I realized that most of my accomplishments at NASA were not at Headquarters, but out in the field where I could roll up my sleeves and work on projects and get stuff done. Whereas I thought I had the best of both worlds being a Headquarters employee stationed in Silicon Valley, I actually had the worst of both worlds... no influence when I can't be in all of those meetings at NASA HQ, with no mandate to manage projects at Ames. As budgets kept getting cut and continuing resolutions from Congress continued to make funding unavailable, I saw my vision for the future slowly slip further from my grasp. So, today, I am announcing that I am leaving the place I dreamed of working as a kid to find a garage in Palo Alto to do what I love."

Keith's note: NASA employees Nick Skytland @skytland, Chris Gerty @gerty, Stephanie Schierholtz @schierholz. VeronicaMcGregor (JPL) @VeronicaMcG , and Doug Ellison (JPL) @doug_ellison (and others) are currently attending SXSW (South by Southwest), an "Annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival held in Austin.". There are several panels and sessions (like this one chaired by Nick Skytland) that deal directly or partially with space exploration. It will be curious to see if any of these NASA folks write travel reports or make blog postings that describe what they saw - and what they learned - or if they will simply post a few scattered Tweets instead. Indeed, NASA's social media experts spend far too much time talking to each other - and less actually interacting with the public and other co-workers which (so I thought) was the whole point to begin with.

One would hope that they'd share what they learned - in some detail - (along with their presentations at SXSW) with the rest of the agency and the public. Curiously, Skytland et al only post their presentations (like the one for today's session) made as NASA employees at opennasa.com - never at NASA.gov. Even though Skytland is travelling as a NASA representative, he uses his personal website address and not NASA's. Many of the sites he discusses are not NASA-sponsored at all. You'd think that a NASA person would be giving a NASA presentation.

In addition, Skytland's presentation is not Section 508 compliant - a requirement for all NASA presentations posted online.

WALLOPS: Comment sought on moving main gate of NASA, Delmarva.com

"NASA is seeking comments from the public on its draft Environmental Assessment (EA) of potential impacts from proposed improvements at the Wallops Flight Facility main base entrance. NASA is proposing to improve the main base entrance to increase personnel safety and decrease congestion. .... The draft EA is available on the internet at: http://wff.nasa.gov/code250/MERP_DEA.html A description of means for submitting comments may be found on the website. Public comments on the draft EA are requested by April 12, 2011."

Keith's note: I am not sure how the "public" would ever know about this if it were not for newspapers since Wallops makes no mention of this on their website. I guess the locals are happy that they have newspapers with websites that do NASA's PR work. Oh yes, the web link from Code 250 in this article does not seem to be working.

Reader note: "For future reference, most if not all of NASA's URL's must have "www" prepended (e.g., nasa.gov doesn't work, www.nasa.gov does). Until this gets fixed by the Wallops' webmaster, try www.wff.nasa.gov/code250/MERP_DEA.html."

Keith's note: Looks like Beth Beck has finally decided to fix some major problems with NASA Buzzroom. When you visit now you get this message: "We're in the process of making Buzzroom better for our users. We appreciate your patience. Please check back in the future." The sad thing is that it took people outside the agency to notice these problems and bring them to NASA's attention before they took action. Virtually no one inside the agency seemed to have problems with the goofy, off-topic, and sometimes reprehensible content that this website's managers approved for posting - or simply did not notice.

- NASA Buzzroom Is Broken. Please Fix It. (Updated with SOMD Response), earlier post
- Pseudoscience and Profane Videos Featured Online at NASA.gov, earlier post
- Today's NASA Buzzroom Video Pick: Bowling For Soup US Tour, earlier post

Keith's note: Right now a featured video on NASA Buzzroom is "Bowling For Soup US Tour". (original on YouTube). Is this appropriate? No mention of outer space. So ... what do you do? If you go to NASA Buzzroom, and scroll to the bottom of the page you will see this notice: "This site collects community content about NASA. We invite you to join the conversation! If you find something you don't think belongs, please let us know! Page Last Updated: March 6th, 2011; Page Editor: JESS3; NASA Official: Beth Beck" One small problem: they do not provide a link or an email address. So ... how does one "let them know"?

Keith's note: Yesterday I made note of a broken website - NASA Buzzroom's video page. One feature of this site is to grab videos posted on YouTube - automatically - and post them on a nasa.gov webpage and add a comment feature. Nice idea - it lets people see what others think about NASA. One small problem - humans are not in the loop at NASA. At one point I found a video that had been on nasa.gov for weeks that depicted a bloody lynching and featured a non-stop stream of profanity. NASA eventually got around to deleting it - once I complained (Google cached version).

I complained about lots of other videos that simply had no reason whatsoever to be on a taxpayer-funded space agency website. Eventually, once someone at NASA saw these videos mentioned by me, they were removed. This process seems to be working backwards. I find these videos simply by looking at the video page. NASA deletes them - but only when I make public note of their location. The NASA folks seem to be utterly incapable of making a decision as to what is in appropriate on their own - or identifying inappropriate videos that have been on their site for weeks (or longer). Nor are they able to fix the problem inherent in this website's design in the first place. Given the way they set up this site, it would seem that no one in SOMD's crack Internet squad ever tested this website before putting it online.

To compound things, they simply take videos off of their webpage because one person (me) complains. That's not right. As such, they clearly don't have any established guidelines for removal of videos either.

Right now a clip from the notoriously horrid Howard the Duck from the 1980s is gracing a nasa.gov page. It is harmless but pointless when it comes to space exploration. The NASA SOMD Internet guys will eventually delete it (this is the video on YouTube). But they will only delete it because I complained. FAIL.

Curiously, while NASA told me - officially - that the NASA lawyers had told them - that they could not link to this rather popular video "NASA - The Frontier Is Everywhere" that went viral a month or so ago, this NASA Buzzroom website links to it. So ... there is a bright side to the way this page works. Too bad the people who run this site do not take its design or upkeep seriously.

Pseudoscience and Profane Videos Featured Online at NASA.gov, earlier post

Keith's update: Beth Beck from SOMD sent me this in response to an inquiry as to how content is approve for posting on NASA Buzzroom. She is responsible for this page at NASA.gov. The full exchange is below. In a nutshell whoever is responsible for this website is incompetent and should be relieved of this responsibility. You see, this is the sort of material that the current process allows to be posted and approved:

All I want for Christmas (for NASA), NASA LaRC CTO Rich Antcliff

"My grown up Christmas list for NASA:

- ULA and Charlie Brown's football. They hung it out in front of us just to make us salivate and than quickly took it back when the political pressure warmed up - gutless reaction. This is micromanagement at its worst."

... Plus some cogent comments on NASA IT.

NASA JSC Solicitation: Open Innovation Support Services for Internal Collaboration Support Platform and Intermediary

"NASA/JSC has a requirement for Open Innovation Support Services for internal collaboration support platform and intermediary to provide the capability for NASA employees to collaborate within and across the NASA organizations promoting internal collaboration and the identification of solutions to internal challenges by internal personnel and expertise. NASA/JSC intends to purchase the items from InnoCentive, Inc. InnoCentive, Inc. has the required infrastructure and personnel required to support the internal based platform and has an experience base that included an internet based ".com" and an internal based platform. Use of any other system would require duplication of work and loss of existing infrastructure that has already been designed for NASA, tested, validated and approved. The loss of infrastructure cannot be recovered through competition without substantial duplication of time, costs and risk to timely and successful implementation."

What Is Open Innovation at JSC?, Previous Post

NASA Innovation Pavilion, Innocentive

Keith's note: Hmm ... a sole cource contract for "open innovation support". Shouldn't there be multiple paths to "open innovation"? Is this a JSC-only product? The solicitation says "NASA/JSC has a requirement ..." yet the "NASA Innovation Pavilion" mentions JSC, GRC, and LaRC (not not other field centers). Additional solicitations also point to NASA/JSC requirements - not the agency as a whole. Confusing.

- NASA JSC Solicitation: Open Innovation Support Services for a Consortium Network Builder Platform Provider
- NASA JSC Solicitation: Open Innovation Support Services for an External Crowd Sourcing Platform

Keith's note: Someone in charge of the automatic email distribution list for NASA NSPIRES needs to fix the settings such that everyone cannot send email to everyone else complaining about the email that everyone is sending to everyone else.

Update from NSPIRES: "This morning, we encountered an issue where an individual replied back to an email notice about a 2011 EPSCoR Research Announcement. Unfortunately, all individuals on the mail list were able to see this person's reply. Please be advised that the technical issue that allowed this email response to occur has been addressed and no further 'mass replies' should occur. This situation has caused confusion and concern among many of the recipients of this email, and for that, the NSPIRES group extends its apologies to all."

Keith's note: According to a Tweet by @KevinDJones, a NASA MSFC-associated social networking consultant, "Recording videos for NASA's soon-to-be ExplorNet. I love this!"

I'll be willing to bet that most of NASA knows nothing about "NASA's soon-to-be ExplorNet". Expect some confusion, though: the name is already is use elsewhere. But this domain is for sale.

Preparing for the Space Shuttle Program's Retirement: A Review of NASA's Disposition of Information Technology Equipment

"NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin today released a report that found significant weaknesses in the sanitization and disposal of NASA computers and hard drives used in the Space Shuttle Program. These weaknesses resulted in information technology (IT) equipment being sold or prepared for sale even though it still contained sensitive NASA data. This Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit examined IT sanitization practices at four NASA Centers - Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers and Ames and Langley Research Centers - and found serious issues at each. We concluded that NASA did not ensure the proper sanitization of excess IT equipment before releasing it outside Agency control."

Keith's note: Here's the premise: Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) - a series of long workshops (often known as "Hackathons") are held in multiple locations around the world wherein people come together to share their skills and create things (software etc.) that can be of use to others locally and globally. Wonderful idea. NASA becomes involved - thus offering the potential to bring its resources to bear - and ingest ideas from external and novel resources. Doubly wonderful - I can smell the synergy. Add in NASA's Deputy Administrator, the Secretary General of the United Nations at the opening session and there's an emergent property - one of heightened visibility for the concept and the participants. I'm sold. Marvelous concept. Gimme more.

NASA sends representatives from the Chief Technologist's and Chief Information Officer's organizations. What are they doing? Well, that's uncertain. NASA civil servant participants Robbie Schingler (NASA HQ CTO Chief of Staff) and Nick Skytland (NASA HQ CIO office) and perhaps others are big fans of social media tools yet they did little to use these tools other than to retweet several generic items about the event as a whole. They made no mention of what they - or NASA - were actually doing at this event. Were they coding? Organizing? What? So much for being "open and transparent". This is especially ironic given that Schingler and Skytland work on NASA's Open Gov efforts, often serving as agency evangelists in this regard.

NASA Internal memo: Message to Headquarters Employees Regarding WikiLeaks and Government Requirements on Handling Classified Information

"This is a reminder for all employees that classified information, even if posted in the public domain, remains classified and should not be accessed, downloaded, copied, or retransmitted utilizing Government IT resources or equipment. Although information posted to WikiLeaks is in the public domain, the information remains classified. The NASA Headquarters Information Technology and Communications Division (ITCD) has initiated temporary blocks to the WikiLeaks sites. The purpose of the block is to protect NASA's administration network from inadvertently storing spilled "classified" data."

NASA Launches Open Gov Status Dashboard

"Some ideas, on the other hand, have taken a little longer than we anticipated and need some extra time in order to be done correctly. To articulate the status of all of these milestones, we're launching the new Open Government Status Dashboard, which details the status of all 39 three-month goals in an easy-to-read format. We'll work to keep this status page updates as milestones are achieved."

Keith's note: Of course, as eager as this group is, they never seem to get press releases out to tell people what they are doing. This item was posted a month ago at NASA.gov.

NASA, the White House and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Lead Government, Non Profit and Industry Trade Groups in Social Media, Online Strategy

"NASA, the White House and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) outpace other public sector organizations when it comes to social media savvy and online strategy, according to the first annual Digital IQ Index(R) for the Public Sector."

Keith's update: Here we go again. One tweet and a retweet from several NASA civil servants. That's it. Yet again, no press release, or coordinated NASA.gov use of social media to promote a study that recognizes NASA's social media prowess. How ironic.

Keith's 3:30 pm Update update: NASA finally got around to issuing a press release at 3:00 pm EST 15 hours after it was released by others - and thus missed a whole news cycle. So much for making the best use of "social media and online strategy".

Annual Report Federal Information Security Management Act: Fiscal Year 2010 Report from the Office of Inspector General

"Although our audit work identifies challenges to and weaknesses in NASA's information technology (IT) security program, we believe that the Agency is steadily working to improve its overall IT security posture. Our report to OMB cited that NASA established a program for certification and accreditation, security configuration management, incident response and reporting, security training, Plans of Actions and Milestones, remote access, account and identity management, continuous monitoring, business continuity/disaster recovery, and overseeing systems operated by contractors. However, we found that internal controls for these areas needed improvements."

Chinese Computer Trumps US One as World's Fastest, CNBC

"A Chinese scientific research center has built the fastest supercomputer ever made, replacing the United States as maker of the swiftest machine, and giving China bragging rights as a technology superpower. The computer, known as Tianhe-1A, has 1.4 times the horsepower of the current top computer, which is at a national laboratory in Tennessee, as measured by the standard test used to gauge how well the systems handle mathematical calculations, said Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer scientist who maintains the official supercomputer rankings."

Chinese Supercomputer Likely to Prompt Unease in U.S., WS Journal

"But Mr. Dongarra and other researchers said the machine should nevertheless serve as a wake-up call that China is threatening to take the lead in scientific computing--akin to a machine from Japan that took the No. 1 position early in the past decade and triggered increased U.S. investment in the field."

Astronaut Doug Wheelock Checks In With Foursquare From International Space Station

"NASA astronaut and International Space Station Commander Doug Wheelock became the first person to "check in" from space Friday using the mobile social networking application Foursquare. Wheelock's check in to the space station launches a partnership between NASA and Foursquare to connect its users to the space agency, enabling them to explore the universe and discover Earth. The partnership also features a customized section of the Foursquare website for NASA, where the agency will provide official tips and information about the nation's space program in locations throughout the United States."

Announcing the Launch of IaaS, powered by Nebula

"Today, the pre-release of NASA Cloud Services, powered by Nebula is available to all NASA personnel. Plans call for the pre-release to be seamlessly transitioned to production after the Operational Readiness Review (ORR) is completed in the coming weeks."

NASA wants to run space missions, not data centers, ComputerWorld

"NASA CTO Chris Kemp said he believes that compute resources are fundamentally a utility, no different than electric power. And "we don't own power plants right now - we don't own other services that are provided as utilities," he said "I don't see why NASA needs to operate any infrastructure," said Kemp. "We can build space probes, we can build deep space networks, we can stay out on the frontiers, where the American public wants us to be and not spend over $1 billion a year on it infrastructure."

OpenStack: An Open Cloud Initiative Makes its 1st Release, ReadWrite Cloud

"It's official. Open Stack has made its first release. It's a major moment for the nascent open cloud initiative, a service that combines the Rackspace object storage capabilities with NASA's Nebula, the open computing effort from the U.S federal space agency."

NASA Open Government Summit Emphasized Data Exchange

"NASA is working to publish more of its data sets online and create more opportunities to engage with the public using digital tools. This was a major part of the discussion during the monthly Open Government Community Summit at NASA Headquarters in Washington last week. NASA's Office of the Chief Information Officer and Office of the Chief Financial Officer hosted the meeting. The event brought leaders from both government and public sectors together to discuss transparency, participation and collaboration in an era of emerging new technologies, maturing systems and increased generation of open data."

"The Open Government Community Summit Series is an inter-agency collaborative event hosted by a different agency each month. Several working groups have formed out of previous workshops, and the focus for the final two workshops of 2010 is to actually build-- not just talk about-- the infrastructure (i.e. collective knowledge resources and standard operating procedures) necessary to sustain the open government community over the long haul. This month's summit is generously hosted by NASA and facilitated by the Open Forum Foundation."

Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle! NASA.gov Beat Google!

"So how are we doing? Pretty well it seems. Our scores for September and for the third quarter of 2010 were the highest we've ever gotten. We continue to outpace web sites generally and most other federal-government sites, and we remain fairly close to some of the most widely used commercial sites. Our September score of 83 wasn't too far behind Netflix and Amazon, and it was well ahead of some others. And, heck yeah, we were higher than Google last month. I can only recall one other month that we were even; Google is usually the highest rated site of all that use this particular service. Most likely it's a one-month aberration, and the more interesting question is what caused them to drop so precipitately. But you'll have to ask them."

NASA And Univision Collaborate To Engage Hispanic Students

"NASA and Univision Communications Inc. are teaming up to launch an on-air and online initiative to help engage Hispanic students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. NASA is committed to preparing the next generation of scientists, engineers and technologists. Univision, a leading Spanish-language media company with television, radio, online and interactive assets focused on improving graduation rates and preparing Hispanic students for college."

Status of NASA's Transition to Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), NASA OIG

"As of March 2010 the Agency did not have an updated or complete IPv6 transition plan as required by OMB. This occurred, in part, because the Agency has ample IPv4 addresses to meet its current and future requirements and because the individual who was leading the IPv6 transition effort left NASA in November 2006 and no one has been assigned to replace him. As a result, the Agency does not have adequate assurance that it has considered all necessary transition elements or that the security and interoperability of its systems will not be affected as other Government agencies and entities transition to IPv6. Accordingly, even if NASA can continue meeting its communication needs using IPv4 addresses, it should ensure that its systems are prepared as other Internet users transition to IPv6."

Information Technology Security: Improvements Needed in NASA's Continuous Monitoring Processes, NASA OIG

"Although the Agency concurred with that recommendation, NASA decided to implement a single Agency-wide inventory instead of Center-level inventories, which delayed implementation until at least September 2010. In this review, we found that the lack of complete and up-to-date inventories is a barrier to effective monitoring of IT security controls. Accurate inventory lists increase the effectiveness of an IT security program by providing a means to verify that 100 percent of the computers in the Agency's network are subject to configuration, vulnerability, and patch monitoring. Until NASA establishes a complete inventory of its network resources, Centers will be unable to fully implement these key IT security controls and NASA's IT security program will not be fully effective in protecting the Agency's valuable IT resources from potential exploitation."

Review of NASA's Management and Oversight of Its Information Technology Security Program, NASA OIG

"We found that NASA's IT security program had not fully implemented key FISMA requirements needed to adequately secure Agency information systems and data. For example, we found that only 24 percent (7 of 29) of the systems we reviewed met FISMA requirements for annual security controls testing and only 52 percent (15 of 29) met FISMA requirements for annual contingency plan testing. In addition, only 40 percent (2 of 5) of the external systems we reviewed were certified and accredited."

Reader note: I took interest in Nmap Developers Release a Picture of the Web from slashdot.org. The article says: "The Nmap Project recently posted an awesome visualization of the top million site icons (favicons) on the Web, sized by relative popularity of sites. This project used the Nmap Scripting Engine, which is capable of performing discovery, vulnerability detection, and anything else you can imagine with lightning speed. We saw last month how an Nmap developer downloaded 170 million Facebook names, and this month it's a million favicons; I wonder what they'll do next?"

So I took the liberty of searching for our beloved icon. Here is the link which finds the NASA logo in the mix.

According to the article, "the area of each icon is proportional to the sum of the reach of all sites using that icon. ... The smallest icons--those corresponding to sites with approximately 0.0001% reach--are scaled to 16x16 pixels." The NASA.gov came up at 232 232 pixels which, if I understand it correctly NASA reach = ((232^2)/(16^2))*(0.0001%) = 0.02%

Again, if I understand right, this means that 0.02% of the people who surfed the web in 2010 have visited www.NASA.gov. As a check on my interpretation of "reach", Google is stated as 11,936 x 11,936 and therefore has a reach of ((11,936^2)/(16^2))*(0.0001%) = 55.6516% ...or >1/2 of all users use Google. Which is certainly a believable calculation.

Another Reader notes: I think it came up as 464 464 pixels. Not 232 X 232.

Keith's 17 Aug note:

This morning, before anyone spoke, NASA Deputy CIO James Williams said that no sessions can be recorded. This was rather startling given that no prohibition whatsoever was made prior to this. Nor did NASA PAO inform me of this prohibition. No mention is made in the event's printed program. I find this to be the height of hypocrisy on NASA's part. It is also baffling. On one hand they profess their support for Open Government yet they turn around and prohibit attendees at a taxpayer-funded, publicly attended meeting - one webcast live - from recording the presentations.

Heads up to the meeting organizers: I fully intend to violate this recording ban at several sessions today.

Keith's 17 Aug update: NASA just twittered "Just to clarify: Attendees free to record #nasait proceedings with exception of the 1:30 general session at the request of the speaker." Yet if you go to this NASA CIO page you will see "The following speakers will be streamed live from this webpage ... 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 17, 2010 Jack Blitch, Vice President & General Manager Walt Disney Imagineering-FL"

This is quite a "clarification". It is also goofy - I can sit at home, watch and record Blitch speaking via a webcast at a taxpayerfunded meeting open to the public, but I cannot record him in person? This makes no sense whatsoever. I intend to violate this ban.

Keith's 17 Aug update: Well, the Disney presentation was interesting. They are certainly a bunch of creative people. As far as what was so sensitive about the presentation such that recording was prohibited, I guess its the news that the interior cabins on their cruise ships which lack an actual porthole will now have a virtual porthole created by using a plasma screen and a live image taken outside the ship. Must be some ITAR issue, right?

"NASA's first Information Technology (IT) Summit will bring together government and industry leaders to explore the outer reaches of information technology. The summit, which takes place August 16-18 at the Gaylord National Harbor in Maryland, will gather 750 participants and more than 100 expert presenters with themes on collaboration, social networking, innovation, infrastructure, operations and IT security and privacy."

Information, agenda, and live webstream. You can follow the summit tweets via the hash tag #nasait on Twitter Search.

Keith's note: So far the meeting has gone well. The event was very well organized and ran like clockwork. That said, some curious things emerged rather quickly as I observed the sessions and the audience. First of all, the 1,190 registered attendees are overwhelmingly white males aged 40-60. Second, although half of the audience was, at any given time, fiddling with their cellphones (and a few with laptops), only a dozen or so attendees were actually Twittering from/about the meeting. Given the discussion about future trends, social media, and new populations of stakeholders (audiences) this was rather troubling.

Also, unless someone else signed in on the media list, I was the only media representative in attendance. I assume that is what prompted Charlie Bolden to give me a shout out from the podium ("Is Keith here?"). Also, other than IT manager Brian Dunbar and photographer Bill Ingalls, I saw no one else from PAO in attendance. Nor did I see any education and outreach or social media staff from the mission directorates.

Keith's note: In June 2010 OSTP held an event "Hacking for Humanity" in Washington, DC. A number of NASA employees participated - nearly all of them Gen Y. I should note up front that these folks who attended are, as a group, rather sharp, energetic, and passionate about what they do. Alas, they did not announce this event in advance such that anyone could have known it was happening - much less participate. I made multiple requests immediately after this event in June for a summary of what NASA personnel did at the event and what was developed. I got vague replies that something would be sent to me. Despite these requests NASA provided me with nothing. After waiting 2 months, I sent yet another request today to Robbie Schingler (who now works for NASA CTO Bobby Braun), one of the organizers today. He pointed me to this link which has been online since 1 July 2010. What a surprise.

It would seem that "open government" at NASA HQ really means "we'll get back to you - maybe". Schingler's excuse was that he has been "busy". So sorry to hear that. So, I guess in the future, I need to check this corner of the CIO office website on my own everyday just in case something shows up. When it comes to activities such as this the Gen Y digerati at NASA have yet to figure out how to issue press releases, email advisories, etc. or respond to taxpayer (stakeholder) inquiries. And the sole link on this NASA summary sends me to a page that provides zero information on the projects that these NASA folks worked on. Maybe I'll ask Robbie about this when he speaks at the IT summit next week.

Why do these things in secret such that no one knows what the result is? More closed openness from NASA Gen Y digerati.

More Closed Openness at NASA HQ, earlier post

Citizen Scientists Discover Rotating Pulsar, NSF

"Idle computers are the astronomers' playground: Three citizen scientists--an American couple and a German--have discovered a new radio pulsar hidden in data gathered by the Arecibo Observatory. This is the first deep-space discovery by Einstein@Home, which uses donated time from the home and office computers of 250,000 volunteers from 192 different countries. This is the first genuine astronomical discovery by a public volunteer distributed computing project"

"[The NASA system that we reviewed for this audit] is a core system used to process, store, and distribute vital Agency intellectual property, such as [. . .], and crucial program and project information. [The reviewed system] is categorized as a "high-impact system" under Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 199, "Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems," February 2004. As such, a compromise of security controls1 for a high-impact system could result in severe adverse impact, leading to degradation in or loss of NASA's mission capability, harm to individuals, or life-threatening injuries. In October 20[XX], NASA awarded a 4-year contract to [a contractor] for, among other things, operation of [the reviewed system]."

Full report

Keith's note: I can certainly understand redacting information that would compromise national security. But this report is often incomprehensible due to the huge number of redactions. Simply redacting the entire report would have made more sense. Plus, if there really was a concern about keeping the contractor/system from being identified, why give hints as to when the contract being discussed was awarded? If I really wanted to take the time I could go back and look at NASA press releases from the month of October between 2000 and 2009 and search back through one of more easily accessible websites for NASA contract awards as well.

Message to NASA Civil Service and Contractor Employees: Social Networking Tools and Web 2.0 - Appropriate Use of Web Technologies

"The use of Web 2.0 tools can significantly enhance NASA's ability to communicate with employees and the public about its mission. The purpose of this memorandum is to provide guidance to NASA civil service and contractor employees regarding the use of these Web technologies to facilitate collaboration and information sharing within NASA. These Web technologies include tools such as wikis, blogs, mash ups, web feeds (i.e., Really Simple Syndication and Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), and forums, which are often collectively referred to as Web 2.0.

Using social media in a professional capacity (e.g., creating a Twitter feed for a mission) is an example of an official NASA communication. The informality and enforced brevity of such media notwithstanding, NASA personnel using Web 2.0 tools are representing the agency, and their communications must be professional and factually accurate."

Keith's note: An example of the implications of this policy: those of you who have Twitter accounts that you use to relay information about NASA can no longer block people from following you. You need to be open and transparent about the information you relay as a NASA employee (civil servant and contractor). If you cannot refrain from Twittering about both personal and work-related stuff then a remarkably simple solution is to get another Twitter account for your personal use.

"We're going to carve out some time for people to give some Ignite talks at SpaceUp DC this year. Ignite is a great format. You provide 20 slides that will auto advance every 15 seconds. If you could tell the world anything about space in 5 minutes what would it be? We double dog dare you to give it a try. Here's an example of a VERY popular Ignite talk from the first SpaceUp in San Diego in Febuary. This should make your blood boil."

NASA's Twitter feed hacked, MSNBC

"It was like a discount electronics attack from outer space. Earlier today, NASA's Twitter feed for astronauts currently in space (@NASA_Astronauts) briefly broke with the standard space jibber jabber, jammed on the cap locks, and subjected followers to an onslaught of messages about "BRAND NEW PLASMA FLAT SCREEN TV!!! WHOLESALE LIST!"

NASA's Nebula Cloud Computing Technology To Play Key Role In New Open Source Initiative

"The core technology developed for NASA's Nebula cloud computing platform has been selected as a contributor for OpenStack, a newly-launched open source cloud computing initiative. It will pull together more than 25 companies to play a key role in driving cloud computing standards for interoperability and portability."

Rackspace and NASA open-source partnership could spur innovation, GCN

"Torlini acknowledged the concerns that many users have about security in the cloud. However, he said freeing up the code would present more opportunities to improve security. He also stressed that this shouldn't be seen as purely a Rackspace initiative, "Everyone is welcome to contribute," he said."

NASA and Rackspace part the clouds with open source project, ARS Technica

"Modern scientific computation requires ever increasing storage and processing power delivered on demand," said NASA CTO Chris Kemp in a statement. "To serve this demand, we built Nebula, an infrastructure cloud platform designed to meet the needs of our scientific and engineering community. NASA and Rackspace are uniquely positioned to drive this initiative based on our experience in building large scale cloud platforms and our desire to embrace open source."

NASA gives OpenStack instant credibility, ZDNet

"The new OpenStack project will power NASA's own Nebula cloud and puts new pressure on Eucalyptus, as well as Amazon's EC2 and the whole Hadoop ecosystem. The system is being released under an Apache 2 license."

Gov Forum: NASA Seeks To Optimize IT Innovation, Information Week

"NASA's new CTO for IT, Chris Kemp, wants to more fully exploit the myriad technology innovations created by the space agency's researchers, scientists, and technologists. Kemp this week shared his strategy for channeling that innovation in new ways. NASA CIO Linda Cureton last month announced Kemp's appointment to CTO for IT, a newly created position. Kemp is responsible for NASA's Enterprise Architecture division and for introducing new and emerging technologies. He's also charged with forming a council of CTOs from NASA field centers and mission teams that will foster innovation across NASA. Kemp was previously CIO of NASA's Ames Research Center in northern California."

Apple's Worst Security Breach: 114,000 iPad Owners Exposed, Valleywag

"In government, affected accounts included a GMail user who appears to be Rahm Emanuel and staffers in the Senate, House of Representatives, Department of Justice, NASA, Department of Homeland Security, FAA, FCC, and National Institute of Health, among others. Dozens of employees of the federal court system also appeared on the list."

Keith's note: Wow. ODIN supports iPads? Who knew.

First NASA IT Summit to Gather Industry Leaders and Explore Tech Innovations

"NASA's first Information Technology (IT) Summit will bring together government and industry leaders to explore the outer reaches of information technology. The summit, which takes place August 16-18 at the Gaylord National Harbor in Maryland, will gather 750 participants and more than 100 expert presenters with themes on collaboration, social networking, innovation, infrastructure, operations and IT security and privacy."

NASA and Japan Announce Cloud Computing Collaboration

"NASA and Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII) have announced plans to explore interoperability opportunities between NASA's Nebula Cloud Computing Platform and Japan's NII Cloud Computing Platform. "The interoperability between an NII Cloud and the NASA Nebula Cloud is a combined effort toward the creation of an International academic-information infrastructure, which is essential in promoting the global cooperation of research and education," said Masao Sakauchi, NII's director general. "The interoperability of this cloud infrastructure will make it possible to create new academic activities by enabling the software and content to be shared amongst researchers, faculties, and students worldwide."

NOMAD Outreach: UPDATE #2: AT&T Mobile Device Issue Under Investigation - Thursday, May 20, 2010

"What Is Happening: The AT&T mobile device issue appears to be more widespread than initially thought. In addition to AT&T iPhones in the Ames Research Center (ARC) and Dryden Flight Research Center (DRFC) areas, users at Goddard Flight Research Center (GSFC), Johnson Space Center (JSC) and in the Denver area are also reporting impacts. The AT&T mobile device issue at JSC is not limited to iPhones. Users from other Centers may also be affected."

Major NASA Spacebook Upgrades Now Live

"What is Happening: NASA Spacebook (https://nasaspacebook.nasa.gov) has a new look and simplified navigation to make collaboration easier. These latest changes just went live. For those that responded to our email on April 26, thank you. This notice is to inform you of a major upgrade that includes enhancements based on user feedback. We want to hear what you think about these latest enhancements! Please take a moment to fill out this short survey so we can continue to enhance the site to meet your needs: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/nasa_spacebook."

Open source is NASA's next frontier, FCW

"The challenges to government's adoption and participation in open-source communities is often thought to be a simpe culture clash, but in reality it goes deeper than that, accordning to NASA's newly-appointed chief technology officer. "The issues that we need to tackle are not only cuture, but beyond culture," said Chris Kemp, formerly chief information officer at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "And I think we need new policy and support from the administration and Congress to help us tackle" them."

NASA Names Chief Technology Officer for IT

"NASA Chief Information Officer Linda Cureton announced Chris C. Kemp as the first NASA Chief Technology Officer, or CTO, for Information Technology, a new position established to lead IT innovation at the space agency."

NASA CIO Blog - The Bossy CIO, Linda Cureton

"Everyone is asking me about the latest reorganization in NASA. In particular, the Center CIOs now report to me. They ask, so it must be great that all the Center CIOs all belong to you. The reality is that there's not much truth to that. The reality is that I now belong to all of THEM."

Keith's note: How cute. Instead of all of the personal philosophy, folksy stories, and other extraneous stuff posted on this NASA.gov blog by NASA's CIO, perhaps she can start posting detailed progress reports, future plans, budgets, white papers etc. that will inform the NASA workforce and taxpayers what she plans to do to make the agency's IT technology what it needs to be. And where is NASA's social media policy? You'd think with all of the blog posting and Twittering by the CIO that she'd see some urgency in establishing guidelines such that the remainder of NASA's civil servant and contractor workforce knows what they can and cannot do - and how to do it.

Congress takes another stride toward public access to research: Federal Research Public Access Act introduced in the House of Representatives, Alliance for Taxpayer Access

"Like the Senate bill introduced in 2009 by Senators Lieberman (I-CT) and Cornyn (R-TX), H.R. 5037 would unlock unclassified research funded by agencies including: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation."

FOIA Request Response: 6 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Audit Reports, 1996-1998, Government Attic

"The following reports could not be located:

- A-GO-96-006, Survey of NASA Space Operations Consolidation;
- JS-96-007, Russian Involvement in the ISS Program;
- AKE-96-001, Orbiter Valuation;
- G98-0I8, Modifications to NASA's Safety Reporting System;
- IGMEMO 11, (sic); and
- an unredacted version of IG-99-036, X-38/Crew Return Vehicle Operational
Testing."

Space Available: NASA Embraces Open Government Initiative

"Through a new policy initiative, NASA is working to make open source software development more collaborative to benefit the agency and public. NASA technology has created "Nebula," the U.S. government's only cloud computing platform, which offers an easier way for NASA scientists and researchers to share large, complex data sets with external partners and the public. The creation of a new NASA Participatory Exploration Office will infuse more public participation into NASA's mission as part of a culture change to directly engage people in exploration."

NASA's Nebula rolls out in the cloud, Federal News Radio

"Nebula is 18 months old and is literally rolling along. Agencies across the federal government are exploring cloud computing, but NASA's work in the area could be become the poster child for its use. Their Nebula Cloud Computing Platform at the Ames Research Center in California is being touted as a possible model for others. Chris Kemp, chief information officer of NASA Ames, explains the benefits of Nebula. "The real thrust of the project was making it easier for NASA to make its data accessible on the Web. NASA started using the Internet long ago, and, as a result, we have thousands of public-facing Web sites, and in today's environment, that's expensive to operate. It's also a large attack surface from a security perspective. We're trying to make it easier and more secure for NASA data to be accessed by our partners and the public."

NASA rethinks $1.5B enterprise data center contract, Washington Technology

"NASA has announced it's reworking its strategy for acquiring an enterprise data center, and has postponed the release of a final request for proposals for what could have been a $1.5 billion contract. NASA said its plans for the NASA Enterprise Data Center (NEDC) program didn't meet its enterprise needs. The agency said it made the decision after a reassessment in light of leadership changes and new requirements from the Office of Management and Budget regarding cloud computing, greening information technology, virtualization, and federal data center guidance."

NASA Reworks $1.5B Enterprise Data Center Plans, Web Host Industry Review

"NASA said it is looking to develop a data center plan that will consolidate all data centers, systems, applications, as well as include a data center architecture and full enterprise assessment. This would give the agency the chance to design an infrastructure strategy according to its business requirements and use technologies like cloud computing to cut energy costs."

UNITED SPACE ALLIANCE POLICY SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE
Company Policy A-33, Basic 02/05/10

POLICY

It has been the long standing policy of United Space Alliance (USA) and its subsidiaries to keep the public informed about company plans, programs, and accomplishments. With the evolution of social media tools and platforms, USA employees have access to participate directly in the free and open discussion of company, industry, and national issues. However, in doing so, employees must understand that their actions can have very real consequences for themselves, the company, and USA's customers.

Keith's note: You can watch the NASA Advisory Council's Subcommittee on Education and Public Outreach meeting today live via USTREAMTV here between 10 am and 4 pm EST.

After all the abuse I heap on the agency, I am glad to see that NASA is finally getting the message. Eventually, all NAC meetings - including all NAC subcommittee meetings - need to be made available to the public like this - live and interactive. Right now these meetings are only witnessed by one or two dozen people. The presentations often take a long time to get online - if ever. Transcripts or recordings are never posted. All that emerges are meeting summaries than can take months to produce - and when they do, are bland and devoid of any meaningful content. Hardly what anyone would call "transparent". Murky at best.

NASA Advisory Council Education and Public Outreach Subcommittee Meeting (17 Feb 2010)

Agenda:

"- Associate Administrator for Public Affairs Briefing.
- Discussion of Social Media Opportunities and Challenges.
- Associate Administrator for Education Briefing.
- Discussion of Opportunities and Challenges to Reach K-12 Students.
- Discussion of how to Organize the Committee Work Plan."

Keith's note: All of these NAC committee and subcommittee meetings are almost always held in a windowless conference room inside NASA HQ. If you can get to them then you can sit and listen - if you happen to read the Federal Register or NASA Watch and even know that they are happening. Otherwise, you are out of luck since NASA never records them for later viewing by taxpayers. Given the tremendous changes that have been proposed for the agency, employees and the public have a vested interest in these discussions - now more than at any time in recent years.

The NASA people who supported the Augustine Committee's activities set a new standard for how social media can be used to relay policy information to the public. Indeed, they often had things online before the media covering these events did. There is no reason why that standard of quality should not be applied to all public meetings concerning NASA policy.

Given that the Obama Administration is all about openness, transparency and all that good public participation stuff - and that this meeting is about "Education and Public Outreach" perhaps PAO AA Morrie Goodman (a scheduled speaker) can start with this subcommittee and provide a live webcast of this event on NASA's USTREAM.TV account. The webcast can be archived for later viewing.

It is very easy to do. All it takes is a laptop, a webcam, and an Internet connection. I have done these things on an EVDO modem live at Desert RATS from the middle of an Arizona desert, from the basement of Rayburn House Office Building, and from Everest Base Camp in Nepal at 17,500 feet over a satellite phone.

Photo: Keith addressing a session at a broadcasters convention in Atlanta in April 2009 via laptop webcam live over a BGAN satellite phone from a field outside the monastery in Tengboche, Nepal. Note the very, very dense fog - yaks lurked in the mist a few feet away. Larger image

Keith's note: Now that NASA has been directed by the White House to cancel Constellation, and with it, all of NASA's big time lunar ambitions, I wonder when they will start to yank things like this sad dancing Moon walker animation offline. Seriously - this is not an insignificant task since there is an immense amount of VSE-related material that NASA has put online since 2004 that will now need to be modified or deleted. In addition, many third party websites contain large amounts of this material as well. And when do you start? Now? When Congress gives up trying to stop this cancellation?

Imagine that there was an Internet in 1967 and you had to erase the Apollo program.

@Astro_Soichi is sending back pictures - live - from ISS via Twitter and Twitpic:

- Golden Gate Bridge, San Fransisco, CA. Beautiful shadow :-) http://twitpic.com/10iitj
- Noctilucent clouds. Antarctic. Priceless. http://twitpic.com/10iiti

But wait - there's more yet to come from orbit: according to JT Creamer: RT @Astro_TJ: @space_pete Yes it's true: our internal cameras wlll stream to the Web beginning Monday! Wave when you see us!! :)

NASA's space tweets are part of a larger conversation, Government Computing News

"... the software upgrade that made it possible is pretty impressive. The system, which NASA calls the Crew Support LAN, taps into existing communications links -- a Ku satellite band with 3 megabits/sec upstream and 10 megabits/sec downstream -- to give astronauts Web access, along with the ability to better communicate with family and loved ones during their long stays on the space station. All that while traveling at 17,300 mph some 250 miles above the Earth."

"X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight" by Dennis R. Jenkins

"The X-15 was the ultimate "X" vehicle. Built in the 1950s, she became the fastest and highest-flying winged aircraft of its time. During 199 flights from 1959 through 1968, she collected data about hypersonic flight that was invaluable to aeronautics and to developers of the space shuttle. This book describes the genesis of the program, the design and construction of the aircraft, years of research flights and the experiments that flew aboard them."

Download the eBook

"Check out the free NASA Images iPhone App, a window to the content available on nasaimages.org. With the app you can access the entire NASA Images library from your iPhone along with the metadata for each image, video, and animation."

Get the App

Keith's note: The NASA Astrobiology Institute recently notedthat "AstrobiologyNAI now has over one million followers!" on Twitter. One small problem: a close look at the followers for NAI's Twitter account will show that a substantial portion are fake accounts used for spam or other marketing scams. Just go through them and you will see. These accounts have no profile pictures or information, follow (at most) a couple of dozen accounts, and rarely if ever post anything. And when they do post something they do so once and it is often not in English - and yet all of NAI's Twitter postings are in English. To be certain, some of NASA's Twitter accounts are wildly popular and are of great value. But in this instance, the numerical popularity of NAI's Twitter account is due mostly to spam, not content. NAI has been informed of this issue more than once by a number of people inside and outside of NASA, but the NAI folks seem intent upon boasting about this number without understanding what it actually means. There are ways to scan and remove spam and scam followers. NAI should look into this.

Ground control to NASA TV: liven up, LA Times

"The man in charge of Washington, D.C.-based NASA Television, executive producer Fred Brown, acknowledges that the network is light-years from where it could be if it had the money and a mandate to properly entertain the masses. But that was never the point, he said. The network was launched in the early 1970s strictly to provide "real-time mission coverage" for NASA's own personnel, Brown said. "It wasn't designed as a television channel as most people would think of a television channel," he added. Over the years, its role has grown; it now offers educational programs and serves a public-relations function by keeping the media informed about space-related news."