Cody Taylor

Ripit writes “President Obama on Tuesday nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation’s top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive. Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers. He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Genachowski has been mentioned as a likely candidate for the Federal Communications Commission post, in part because he participated in the Obama campaign’s Internet efforts and previously worked as chief counsel to Democratic FCC chairman Reed Hundt.

Yes, that’s right. Mozilla. For those who wonder how software could have anything to do with politics, well, you haven’t been around open-source software long enough.

Classified information about the communications, navigation and management electronics on Marine One, the helicopter now used by President Barack Obama, were reportedly discovered in a publicly available shared folder on a computer in Tehran, Iran, after apparently being accidentally leaked over a peer-to-peer file-sharing network.

nandemoari writes “As his administration continues to work on a stimulus plan that can save America’s economy, Obama’s latest course of action will see millions of dollars being allocated to heighten cyber security. The move will assist government officials in preventing future attacks on the United States. The President recently addressed his 2010 budget, outlining funding plans that will grant the Department of Homeland Security 5 million to secure the nation’s most essential computer systems. The money will be spent on both government and private groups, with much of the funding going to the National Cyber Security Division and the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative programs.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes “A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama’s helicopter. ‘We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president’s helicopter,’ says Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, a security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology. Tiversa was able to track the file, discovered at an IP address in Tehran, Iran, back to its original source. ‘What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, Md., had a file-sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One,’ says Boback, adding that someone from the company most likely downloaded a file-sharing program, typically used to exchange music, without realizing the potential problems. ‘I’m sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went.’ Iran is not the only country that appears to be accessing this type of information through file-sharing programs. ‘We’ve noticed it out of Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar and China. They are actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes “Not to apologize for an industry that charges ,000 to catch a Chicago Bears game, but will the huge spectrum fees charged by the government block the emergence of low-cost cellular service? In the most recent FCC spectrum auction, carriers paid nearly billion to grab a swath of the 700MHz spectrum. And now under President Obama’s proposed budget, wireless carriers would be hit with huge annual fees — eventually reaching 0 million per carrier per year — for the right to hold a spectrum license. Critics say the carriers will simply pass these fees through to consumers.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gov IT writes with this excerpt from NextGov: “Just days after President Obama signed a law giving billions of dollars to develop electronic health records, a university technology professor submitted a paper showing that he was able to uncover tens of thousands of medical files containing names, addresses and Social Security numbers for patients seeking treatment for conditions ranging from AIDS to mental health problems. … The basic technology that runs peer-to-peer networks inadvertently exposed the files probably without the computer user’s knowledge, Johnson said. A health care worker might have loaded patient files onto a laptop, for example, and taken it home where a son or daughter could have downloaded a peer-to-peer client onto the laptop to share music.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

adeelarshad82 writes to point out that details have been provided for President Obama’s proposed .7 billion in funding for NASA in 2010 (up from .2 billion in 2008). Quoting: “The budget calls on NASA to complete International Space Station construction, as well as continue its Earth science missions and aviation research. Yet it also remains fixed to former President George W. Bush’s plan to retire the space shuttle fleet by 2010 and replace them with the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, which would fly astronauts to the space station and return them to the moon by 2020. The outline does make room for an extra shuttle flight beyond the nine currently remaining on NASA’s schedule, but only if it is deemed safe and can be flown before the end of 2010.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CWmike writes to tell us that Sun’s Scott McNealy is pushing for the Obama administration to adopt a much more open-source friendly policy similar to what has been done in Denmark, the UK, and other countries. “Although open-source platforms are widely used today in the federal government — particularly Linux and Sun’s own products, Solaris and Java — McNealy believes many government officials don’t understand it, fear it and even oppose it for ideological reasons. McNealy cited an open-source development project that Sun worked on with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, during which a federal official said “that open source was anti-capitalist.” That sentiment, McNealy fears, is not unusual or isolated.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.