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As someone who worked in a DOC agency for 5+ years doing security work, much of my job consisted of reviewing software for compliance and security before acquir

As someone who worked in a DOC agency for 5+ years doing security work, much of my job consisted of reviewing software for compliance and security before acquiring/installing it in our systems. Every time someone showed up with something 18F was doing, it involved far more bleeding edge cloudy stuff than we were able to accept. In short, the shiny object that was 18F had a really hard time doing its job of integrating with the resistant, crusty old pillars of Federal Agency policy and technology.

dwater 9y ago
As someone who works for a company that works with the DoD, the push mentioned in the second to last paragraph is making it's way down the chain and we are seeing a greater acceptance of cloud tech. There isn't widespread adoption yet but they are open to projects moving in that direction.
- geekamongus 9y ago
  This was true when I left two months ago, but the challenge, for us anyway, was how we extend our security boundary to encompass cloud technology without breaking the bank. Anything managed at levels higher up and offered as a "service" typically proved to be stringent to operate inside of.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    US federal government really needs its own cloud computing agency full of stick-up-the-butt security and reliability fanatics. 99.999% availability. Formally verified code everywhere. Built on a real-time OS. Guaranteed periodic permanent backups. Anything the gummint does pretty much needs to scale immediately to 400 million users, can never experience a data breach, and needs to stay available constantly, possibly for decades, or maybe even forever. The loss of the 1890 census records by fire is still significant today. If every copy of the quarterly reports for GE from 1982 were lost, the impact would be much smaller. The current cloud service offered commercially today are plenty good enough for even some of the hugest public companies, but not quite good enough for an entity with vastly different goals and needs. The different flavor of requirements might mean that private sector business will never offer a suitable class of service. Currently, some agencies run their own data centers, so the necessary expertise certainly exists, but that is not currently contributing in any way to a common infrastructure.
    - zacharycohn 9y ago
      Something like www.cloud.gov?
xamuel 9y ago
This. When "left-pad" messes up some Facebook-for-dogs startup, that's bad. When "left-pad" messes up the social security system, the army, etc., that's really really bad.
- mattnewton 9y ago
  You think our government websites aren’t already messed up? Look at the ACA site for example. There are plenty of websites that suffer from mundane reliability and maintenance problems. 18F was a crucial step in modernizing our infrastructure and attracting people to work for their government who would normally never touch this Byzantine nonsense with a 10 foot pole. God bless the people still in the government fighting for good tech.
  - clintonb 9y ago
    Are you referring to the initial ACA website? The USDS and 18F came about as a result of resolving that particular debacle.
    - mattnewton 9y ago
      Yes exactly, bringing expertise in house was supposed to solve things like that, and AFAICT it helped.
      - geekamongus 9y ago
        This is exactly what the article talks about, but I don't think you guys read it.
        mattnewton 9y ago
        The article talks about how new people aren’t being recruited in the new administration. 18F under Obama was a major recruitment effort for quality talent.
  - chrisfosterelli 9y ago
book_mentioned 9y ago
Evaluation of 18F’s Information Technology Security Compliance | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13697302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13697302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13711187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13711187
- geekamongus 9y ago
  I love that comment.
prepend 9y ago
You must have a lot of really useful efficient software products at DOC right? Good thing you’re all compliant. There’s a healthy balance between shiny object syndrome and jdk1.1 projects. Cloud isn’t bleeding edge. It was 10 years ago though.

dwater 9y ago

As someone who works for a company that works with the DoD, the push mentioned in the second to last paragraph is making it's way down the chain and we are seeing a greater acceptance of cloud tech. There isn't widespread adoption yet but they are open to projects moving in that direction.

geekamongus 9y ago
This was true when I left two months ago, but the challenge, for us anyway, was how we extend our security boundary to encompass cloud technology without breaking the bank. Anything managed at levels higher up and offered as a "service" typically proved to be stringent to operate inside of.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  US federal government really needs its own cloud computing agency full of stick-up-the-butt security and reliability fanatics. 99.999% availability. Formally verified code everywhere. Built on a real-time OS. Guaranteed periodic permanent backups. Anything the gummint does pretty much needs to scale immediately to 400 million users, can never experience a data breach, and needs to stay available constantly, possibly for decades, or maybe even forever. The loss of the 1890 census records by fire is still significant today. If every copy of the quarterly reports for GE from 1982 were lost, the impact would be much smaller. The current cloud service offered commercially today are plenty good enough for even some of the hugest public companies, but not quite good enough for an entity with vastly different goals and needs. The different flavor of requirements might mean that private sector business will never offer a suitable class of service. Currently, some agencies run their own data centers, so the necessary expertise certainly exists, but that is not currently contributing in any way to a common infrastructure.
  - zacharycohn 9y ago
    Something like www.cloud.gov?

xamuel 9y ago

This. When "left-pad" messes up some Facebook-for-dogs startup, that's bad. When "left-pad" messes up the social security system, the army, etc., that's really really bad.

mattnewton 9y ago
You think our government websites aren’t already messed up? Look at the ACA site for example. There are plenty of websites that suffer from mundane reliability and maintenance problems. 18F was a crucial step in modernizing our infrastructure and attracting people to work for their government who would normally never touch this Byzantine nonsense with a 10 foot pole. God bless the people still in the government fighting for good tech.
- clintonb 9y ago
  Are you referring to the initial ACA website? The USDS and 18F came about as a result of resolving that particular debacle.
  - mattnewton 9y ago
    Yes exactly, bringing expertise in house was supposed to solve things like that, and AFAICT it helped.
    - geekamongus 9y ago
      This is exactly what the article talks about, but I don't think you guys read it.
      - mattnewton 9y ago
        The article talks about how new people aren’t being recruited in the new administration. 18F under Obama was a major recruitment effort for quality talent.
- chrisfosterelli 9y ago

book_mentioned 9y ago

Evaluation of 18F’s Information Technology Security Compliance | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13697302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13697302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13711187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13711187

geekamongus 9y ago
I love that comment.

prepend 9y ago

You must have a lot of really useful efficient software products at DOC right? Good thing you’re all compliant. There’s a healthy balance between shiny object syndrome and jdk1.1 projects. Cloud isn’t bleeding edge. It was 10 years ago though.