Items tagged with white-house
Ransomware attacks are on the rise, and both organizations, such as the Washington D.C. Police Department, and individuals like QNAP NAS owners, are being targeted relentlessly. To help combat this, leaders from Amazon, Cisco, FireEye, McAfee, Microsoft, and other firms joined forces with the U.S. Department of Justice, Europol, and the U.K. National Crime Agency to call for an international coalition to fight against ransomware criminals. Simply put, we do not negotiate with terrorists, and this is only an extension of that philosophy. This week, an 81-page report that outlined the Ransomware Task Force and goals of the group was delivered to the Biden administration. It urged the U.S. to lead...
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In line with a HotHardware report published last October, officials yesterday confirmed to CNN that the White House was hacked last year and that the alleged culprit is the Russian government. The hackers — believed to be the same group that managed to gain entry to State Department computer system last October — were able to access sensitive information regarding President Barack Obama, including his private schedule. White House officials say although these cyber-attacks are among the most advanced to ever hit the US government, no classified systems were in breach. “This report is not referring to a new incident — it is speculating on the attribution of the activity of concern on the...
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The White House wants to see more people connected to the Internet, and to that effect President Obama put forth the ConnectED initiative to bring broadband to more teachers, students, and schools last year. Sprint is plugging into the effort by pledging to connect up to 50,000 kids by providing Internet access outside of the classroom. “Helping to close the digital divide is an issue of great importance to Sprint, and we believe schools and students will benefit from using our new wireless network for mobile learning opportunities beyond the classroom,” wrote Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. Schools can apply to Sprint’s ConnectED application and information portal to receive up to four...
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Google is kind of involved in everything, and the company is tackling clean energy with gusto, too. In conjunction with a White House push for renewable energy and agreements from some 300 organizations to pursue clean energy options that includes 1 billion square feet of buildings in the U.S. (and a $2 billion investment in making federal buildings more energy efficient), Google announced that it’s created the Little Box Challenge to foster clean energy innovation. Specifically, the company will pony up $1 million for whoever comes up with the best (that is, smallest, cheapest, and most effective) power inverter. Shrinking the size and cost of power inverters will mean that solar installations...
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The White House and its most important denizen have never exactly been bastions of hot new technology, but this current president has always at least appeared to live in the 21st century. President Obama famously refused to give up his BlackBerry when he took office, but now the White House may be ditching BlackBerry altogether in favor of Android handsets. According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House is in the early stages of testing devices from both Samsung and LG. Although there was no specific confirmation, the Department of Defense told the outlet that "We can confirm that the White House Communications Agency, consistent with the rest of the Department of Defense, is piloting...
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The FCC’s effort to impose net neutrality rules suffered a setback when a federal court threw out some important sections of the measures, but as the agency fights back against Verizon, et al, it has a powerful ally in the White House. Well, sort of. In a statement on the We The People blog (in response to a petition to get the common carrier designation fixed), Gene Sperling and Todd Park said that President Obama fully supports net neutrality and the FCC’s efforts to that end. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “Absent net neutrality, the Internet could turn into a high-priced private toll road that would be inaccessible to the next generation of visionaries,” reads the post....
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Just weeks after Aneesh Chopra resigned as the U.S.’s first federal Chief Technology Officer after a three-year stint, a new man has stepped into the role. Todd Park, who has most recently served as the CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is our new federal CTO. In a White House blog post announcing Park’s arrival, John P. Holdren mentions his past achievements as U.S. DoH CTO: He led the successful execution of an array of breakthrough initiatives, including the creation of HealthCare.gov, the first website to provide consumers with a comprehensive inventory of public and private health insurance plans available across the Nation by zip code in a single, easy-to-use...
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Back in 2009, President Obama appointed the country’s first federal Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, in an effort by the administration to push the government past old technology and into the 21st century. Chopra is now stepping down from his post, and the move was announced (appropriately) in a blog post on the official White House website. Chopra was sworn in on May 22 of that year, and in the nearly three years since, he has, according to the post, been busy: Aneesh helped design the President’s National Wireless Initiative, including the development of a nationwide public safety broadband network, establish a set of Internet Policy Principles including the call for a Consumer...
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