Recently in Internet Policies Category

Japanese scientists fear spacecraft blueprint stolen after networks penetrated by virus, Daily Mail

"The Japanese space agency has admitted that a computer virus may have stolen sensitive information from their networks - including blueprints for a spacecraft. Hackers could sell on the information or blackmail the space agency for its return. A terminal connected to networks belonging to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was infected with a Trojan. Data that could have been revealed includes email addresses, system log-in information and, crucially, the specification and operation of the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV)."

Keith's note: I have posted questions for Beth Beck at HEOMD, sent email requests, and yet no one has responded. Based on previous dysfunctional interactions with HEOMD (SOMD and ESMD) I have to conclude that my requests are being ignored - on purpose. Yawn. Oh well, this is not exactly a new behavior on NASA's part. So much for the openness and transparency policies established by the White House that the Open.gov folks love to brag about. NASA seems to think it is exempt. I guess it is time for a bunch of old-fashioned FOIA requests.

And yes Beth, I will FOIA your complaints about me to the OGC, etc.

- NASA, Google, and Lenovo Team Up for ISS Educational Project, earlier post
- Yet Another Stealth Website NASA Can't Coordinate, earlier post
- Questions for Beth Beck Regarding FragileOasis.org, earlier post

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."

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.

Keith's note: As much as I loathe the overuse of the word "awesome" by Gen Y, the NASA Advisory Council took an informal vote during lunch break and asked me to post this video. Tip of the hat to NASA PAO. Direct link for those of you that have YouTube blocked by NASA.

Keith's update: A Carnegie astronomer notes: "While brimming with enthusiasm, this video makes a major error by claiming that JWST will be able "to see the Earth" if it was 25 light-years away. Sadly, this is not true. Here is what the JWST web page states is the true capability of JWST: "Webb can only see large planets orbiting at relatively large distances from the parent star. To see small Earth-like planets, which are billions of time fainter than their parent star, a space telescope capable of seeing at even higher angular resolution will be required. NASA is studying such a space mission, the Terrestrial Planet Finder." This quote is from the JWST web page located at: http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/faq.html#basic JWST will do fantastic science, but if someone says that it will do things that are impossible for it to do, the entire project is likely to suffer.

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.

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."

NASA Joins Web Consortium to Help Improve Universal Access

"NASA announced Thursday it has joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The consortium is an international organization that develops protocols, standards and guidelines to ensure universal Web access. "Standards will play a key role in making NASA's content more accessible on the Internet and in the implementation of our Open Government plan," said Chris Kemp, chief technology officer for Information Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Additionally, standards nurture technology innovation. We are especially interested in participating in those areas where NASA's ongoing technical requirements overlap with the W3C's standardization efforts."

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."

Keith's note: NASA civil servant Nick Skytland is one of the Education and Public Outreach Officers for NEEMO-14. He is overtly using his Twitter account for the performance of his official duties - yet he still blocks specific taxpayers from following his postings. I have to wonder when NASA CIO Linda Cureton will finally put a social media policy in place at NASA that deals with such flagrant abuses of one's position as a NASA employee.

NEEMO 14