Government

The battle over Net neutrality has been reignited, dashing the hopes of those who thought it might be settled in February, at least in part, when the United States Federal Communication Commission is expected to make its ruling on the issue. Democratic members of congress led by Sen. Patrick Leahy...

Information technology providers who market to the federal government got some holiday cheer as the U.S. Congress and the White House approved legislation to improve the way the government acquires IT equipment and services. The reforms are significant and welcome, and no doubt will facilitate the m...

Concern over government surveillance has been so heightened by confidential information leaked by former intelligence hand Edward Snowden that writers in free countries are as worried as those in autocratic nations, according to a report released Monday. Three-quarters of writers in countries classi...

Malware is running rampant on the Internet, affecting smartphones, tablets and personal computers. Relatively new malware allows bad guys to encrypt devices until a ransom is paid. Usually the ransom is required in bitcoin, rather than U.S. currency, as it cannot be traced. What are the legal and ...

China last week apparently began blocking Gmail, and the outage was still in effect on Tuesday, although to a lesser degree, according to reports. A sharp drop in traffic from China to Google services began last Friday, according to its Transparency Report, and the company could find no explanation ...

The political spotlight in Washington was on congressional approval of the 2015 budget before legislators broke for the holidays, but a less volatile proposal also was passed in the closing days of the session -- one of considerable importance to the information technology sector. In addition to the...

Boeing has enlisted BlackBerry to help bolster the security of its Black smartphone, BlackBerry CEO John Chen said Friday during the company's earnings call. "Boeing is collaborating with BlackBerry to provide secure mobile solutions for Android devices utilizing their BES-12 platform," confirmed Bo...

The U.S. government will remain a steady and significant customer for information technology providers over the next several years. That's the good news. For the foreseeable future, though, the days of ever-growing federal spending for IT are over. Vendors will have to work harder to obtain governme...

Apple, Amazon, AT&T, CNN, National Public Radio and The Washington Post were among numerous companies to support Microsoft this week, as it battled U.S. efforts to seize a customer's emails. A coalition of supporting organizations filed 10 amicus briefs with the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appe...

Does anyone really think that we have any privacy? Probably not. Between GPS tracking and our favorite app, most of us gave up on privacy long ago. Some privacy advocates claim that cell carriers have not been transparent about what personal data they have been gathering and using, although we now k...

Federal agencies will be keeping a sharp eye on how much they spend on information technology over the next several years, as budgets will remain tight. In order to deal effectively with tighter budgets, IT providers to the government will have to understand the complex contracting procedures federa...

The U.S. Trade International Trade Commission has broad investigative powers on matters of trade, gathering and analyzing trade data, and providing it to the White House and Congress to help formulate U.S. international trade policies. Its statutory authority is based on legislation that is 20 or mo...

Bidding for wireless spectrum in the United States Federal Communications Commission's latest auction has gone through the roof, raising more than $36 billion as of Tuesday morning. A total of 70 qualified bidders are seeking 1,614 licenses in the 1695-1710 Mhz, 1755-1780 Mhz and 2155-2180 MHz bands...

Information technology vendors have spotted the next big thing for serving the U.S. government market. The only questions -- and they are big ones -- are 1) whether federal agencies themselves have seen the same thing; and 2) if so, whether they are prepared to jump into yet another new procurement ...

The United States Department of State on Sunday announced its unclassified email system has been breached, making it the fourth U.S. government organization to have fallen prey to hackers in recent months. The State Department took down its website and unclassified email system and reportedly used G...