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Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

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Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#51

Post by ryanmarsh »

vonmoltke wrote: post #8
cs702 wrote: post #7

The federal government hires a team of young, talented, motivated engineers and managers, puts them in charge of failed software projects, gives them the resources and authority they require to turns things around, and -- surprise! -- it turns out they do a GREAT job. In hindsight, this shouldn't be too surprising. What might be surprising is that the same logic should apply to ALL government functions, not just soft…

> Why do government projects and agencies have to be poorly run? Because lots of people, inside and outside of government, derive significant money, power, or both from government dysfunction. A classic case of goal misalignment.

This is the default for large human organizations. The differences are merely shades of the same color.

Also, the purpose of any bureaucracy is self preservation.

The government is a complex adaptive system with almost no external signaling from it's environment. It's an extreme example of how large companies behave when they have no external pressures (competition).

Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results that it produces. I know gov't waste is appalling but you should expect it until selection pressures are applied from the outside. Contrast NASA 1969 vs. 1986 and you'll get what I mean.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#52

Post by MrMullen »

elicash wrote: post #4

I love this part: Another project involves working on the Global Positioning System. Lynch still can’t believe that he can work on something that cool while serving his country. “I didn’t even know that we ran GPS, right?” he says. “That’s crazy shit.”

It is funny to explain to people that don't know anything about GPS that the government not only runs it, the Department of Defense is the steward of it. I guess people assume that something as "cool" as GPS system can't be owned and operated by the US government.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#53

Post by nickparker »

saosebastiao wrote: post #47
pjungwir wrote: post #20

I'm curious if anyone here from USDS or 18F has deployed Postgres in a FIPS 140-2 environment, and if so what challenges they had. The VA seems to be saying that Postgres should not be used: http://www.va.gov/TRM/ToolPage.asp?tid=5692&tab=2 contrast that with Oracle: http://www.va.gov/TRM/ToolPage.asp?tid=9&tab=2 (Don't miss the difference in tone on the "Analysis" tabs.) I'm sure some of that is due to lobbyists, bu…

I'm pretty sure the only OS that is approved for electronic voting systems is Windows XP, which has obviously become a problem, but a new OS would likely take two or more years to go through the approval process. Ubuntu changes so much in two years that by the time it is approved, it would have lost 2/3rds of its life even as an LTR. I would assume that the main reason that Oracle is preferred is due to lobbying, but…

Does anyone else find it extremely discomforting that the voting machines even have a full fledged OS?

It's a throwback to this xkcd https://xkcd.com/463/

In my mind, the ideal electronic voting machine:

- Has mechanical buttons which simultaneously punch a paper ballot in a manner observable to the voter

- Runs on a small (open source) microcontroller that's been audited for backdoors.

- Runs (open source) crypto directly on the metal

- Publishes the results in a cryptographically verifiable way.

IMO, anything else is evidence of at least government/contractor ineptitude, and potentially malfeasance.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#54

Post by glup »

cs702 wrote: post #7

The federal government hires a team of young, talented, motivated engineers and managers, puts them in charge of failed software projects, gives them the resources and authority they require to turns things around, and -- surprise! -- it turns out they do a GREAT job. In hindsight, this shouldn't be too surprising. What might be surprising is that the same logic should apply to ALL government functions, not just soft…

> Who says government projects and agencies have to be poorly run?

I'm not sure how to test this empirically, but it's always seemed to me that these are the inefficiencies that emerge with scale and incredibly broad objectives—and that the federal gov't actually does a decent job considering. Remind which company has 320m consumers, annual revenue of 6.7 trillion, and 2.8m (non-uniformed) employees? The federal government is 10x the size of IBM—it can't be agile. That said, tech is in general not a strong suit for gov't agencies—and it needs to be both 1) for planning, analysis, logistics and 2) for dissemination of information to citizens about what the agency does.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#55

Post by saosebastiao »

nickparker wrote: post #53
saosebastiao wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the only OS that is approved for electronic voting systems is Windows XP, which has obviously become a problem, but a new OS would likely take two or more years to go through the approval process. Ubuntu changes so much in two years that by the time it is approved, it would have lost 2/3rds of its life even as an LTR. I would assume that the main reason that Oracle is preferred is due to lobbying, but…

Does anyone else find it extremely discomforting that the voting machines even have a full fledged OS? It's a throwback to this xkcd https://xkcd.com/463/ In my mind, the ideal electronic voting machine: - Has mechanical buttons which simultaneously punch a paper ballot in a manner observable to the voter - Runs on a small (open source) microcontroller that's been audited for backdoors. - Runs (open source) crypto di…

In terms of security, that is probably exactly correct (I'm a complete security novice FWIW). Way too high of an attack surface area. That being said, as soon as you get into microcontroller territory, you turn it into a niche thing that makes it inaccessible to most. What are the chances of finding talent that can write user-facing code that runs bug free on microcontrollers while simultaneously writing/proving the crypto? Maybe that talent is more common than I suspect, but I certainly haven't seen it. I would be happy with rust/ocaml on a unikernel or rump kernel though :)

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#56

Post by sailfast »

GVIrish wrote: post #12

It's heartening to see some new approaches government IT actually getting high level support to make a positive impact. Funnily enough I see someone I used to work with in one of the pictures. Hopefully this will lead to more substantive change to how government IT is done. It's great to have teams that can drop into problem areas with a clear mandate to get things moving, but the whole system needs some serious refo…

In addition to providing technical expertise on the customer side which is hugely helpful, there is also a program from 18F focused on digital acquisition that is helping change the way technology RFPs are written that I think will have a huge downstream impact for any group trying to win the work (internal, or otherwise). The better the customer understands the value and roadmap of the work and can put that into words, the better the outcomes will be: https://18f.gsa.gov/tags/digital-acquisition-accelerator/

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#57

Post by liyanchang »

impostervt wrote: post #22

"U.S. Digital Service salaries are set in accordance with the General Schedule Pay Scale, which is capped at $160,300." That's not bad, but not great for really high talent employees. I wonder how many people get that rate though. https://www.usds.gov/join#compensation

Disclosure: I'm an engineer at USDS and these are my own opinions.

That's right. The US Government is probably not going to win on compensation - salary limits, no stock options, no lunch. However, while it's not a money making enterprise, it's enough to do just fine. I recognize the sacrifices that many of my colleagues have made to be here, not to mention the sacrifices that federal employees and contractors have made (some who are very good and could be making more in the private sector) and that makes this even more worthwhile.

The thing that government can offer is impact. I've always known that government has a big impact on people's lives but not sure if I could personally make an impact. That's what USDS, 18F, a number of other opportunities are offering.

This is not a job for everyone. But if you're a certain type, there's nothing quite like it.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#58

Post by sailfast »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #48
macintux wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how many people are going to take a 10% pay cut in hopes that 5 years from now their taxes might be a few bucks cheaper (which of course they won't be because the money would just be spent elsewhere). Admirable intent, I'm suspicious of its prevalence.

They call it a tour of duty for a reason. $163k would be a massive paycut for me but I'd do it and happily burn savings to make a difference for the lives of my fellow veterans.

Love your second sentence, but really wish they would stop calling it a "tour of duty". It's still a pretty solid amount of money (nevermind Federal benefits) but to really transform we need people willing to work over the long haul not just parachute in for short terms.

Also (slightly biased of course) I bet you get a bit addicted to the mission and that provides a non-monetary incentive to stick around a bit longer :)

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#59

Post by joeyo »

DannyBee wrote: post #33
liyanchang wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I'm an engineer at USDS and these are my own opinions. So in my admittedly short time in the government [0], I've witnessed how all of these problems are due to good intentions. That's what makes this all really tough because everything you think is bonkers actually has a reason. The 1400 page travel regulations is a result of trying to prevent fraud - every single issue that comes up results in a new rul…

"The 1400 page travel regulations is a result of trying to prevent fraud - every single issue that comes up results in a new rule." This seems like a serious inability to understand that no process designed to prevent future things you can't forsee is 100% effective (by definition). At some point, you have to declare "good enough", and live with it until the error rate becomes unacceptable overall again, then modify…

Some of it comes down to agencies needing to protect themselves from congressional witch-hunts. Consider a congressman or political party that has ideological objections to an agency even existing and wishes to neuter or eliminate it. A stellar way of achieving this is by making the target seem wasteful and fraudulent [1]. If there is actual fraud, no matter how small or how much of a corner case, this task becomes even easier.

1. A good example of this is how Republicans periodically attempt to defund science agencies by mocking research projects that sound frivolous.

Re: Inside the Obama Tech Surge as It Hacks the Pentagon and VA

#60

Post by saosebastiao »

What I would love to see is an 18F-like organization that creates open source software that helps user-facing government organizations at the state and local level. All of these things should be simple but (typically) are not:

* Paying a utility bill online

* Registering to vote

* Finding out how to get from place to place using public transportation

* Paying for public transportation passes

* Signing up for unemployment benefits

* Proving residency

* Getting an ID card

* Registering a vehicle

* Paying taxes

* Entering pleas to local courts for minor offenses and infractions without taking a day off work

* Reporting non-emergency code violations (like construction noise after hours)

* Knowing who your representatives are

* Communicating with your representatives when you do know who they are

We actually use and interact with local and state governments far more than we do with the federal government. And yet when it comes down to it, they are the most difficult to work with because their resources are so constrained. I honestly believe that local governments could benefit from some resource allocation on their behalf at the federal level for the creation of highly scalable technological public goods that will only ever be used at the local level.

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