Irish firm wins contract in Australia: The Department of Justice in Adelaide, South Australia, has awarded a contract to Irish software firm dataKraft. Under the terms of the deal, dataKraft's software will be used to help the Attorney General's Office with data importing, data manipulation and extracting and reporting requirements. The Irish firm's applications will replace the department's existing Microsoft Excel-based solution for the collection of data. This method was deemed to be time-consuming, labour-intensive and costly to maintain and operate by the department. The contract was secured on behalf of dataKraft by Intec, an indigenous Australian re-seller, which dataKraft met following a visit to the ICT Electronics Fair in Hong Kong in association with the Irish Exporters Association in June this year.
Dutch e-voting machines criticised: A European group of hackers has urged governments not to use the Dutch-made e-voting machines currently stored by the Irish government for future elections. The German Computer Chaos Club (CCC) has called for a ban on the Nedap ES3B voting machines because of fears that radio emissions from the electronic voting booths could be intercepted and citizens' voting preferences exposed. According to Margaret McGaley of lobby group Irish Citizens for Trustworthy E-Voting, the ES3B is "practically identical to the machines we have in Ireland besides a few extra LED lights on the front." Dutch lobby group Wij Vertrouwen Stemcomputers Niet took part in a TV programme in the Netherlands recently demonstrating how the machines could be made to record inaccurate voting preferences. For more on this story, see ENN.
US government explodes e-gov 'myths': The White House is attempting to quell criticism of its e-government agenda by issuing a fact sheet dispelling a number of "myths" about its progress. One of the myths the document aims to explode is in the area of savings; contrary to what critics believe, e-government initiatives have saved taxpayer dollars, the fact sheet claims, citing examples such as the Department of Labor's E-Travel project, which has reduced voucher costs for travel expenses by more than 60 percent. In the area of improving services for citizens, the document draws attention to services such as GovBenefits.gov, which provides users with a "single point of access" to government benefits. In August, the Government proposed measures to assess the level of savings generated by e-government initiatives, in response to members of Congress who have blocked funding for such projects in the past. The fact sheet is available from the White House website.
Chinese hackers target US websites: Chinese hackers have launched a sustained attack against the web systems of the US Department of Commerce. Security experts reckon attacks originating from computer crackers largely located in China's Guangdong province are aimed at extracting sensitive information from targets such as the Commerce Department's technology export office. Security consultants and US government officials reckon the assaults have at least the tacit support of the Chinese government, according to AFP reports. The scope of the attacks has prompted the Bureau of Industry and Security, which manages US technology exports for both commercial and military use, to overhaul its computer systems and security defences. Information housed on the department's systems includes sensitive commercial and economic data on US exporters, as well as data involving law enforcement records. For more on this story see ENN.
UK mapping service safeguards digital assets: The UK's national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, has selected a combination of technology from BridgeHead Software and Plasmon to deliver a storage management system to safeguard its digital geographic assets. Ordnance Survey collects more than 40 terabytes of new cartographic, photographic and administrative information every year. To address its demanding archive requirements, Ordnance Survey worked with storage solutions integration firm OptoMedia to deploy a Plasmon G638 UDO library with 19 terabytes of online storage capacity and a second, smaller Gx24 UDO library for a disaster recovery site. BridgeHead's HT FileStore software was then selected for its ability to automatically classify file data and select it for inclusion in the UDO-based archives. "The archive solution we chose had to be capable of managing such a high volume of files of this size [around 1GB], for the longest time period possible," said Dave Lipsey of Ordnance Survey. "Magnetic disk and tape can't match the media life provided by UDO, and with BridgeHead's storage management software, we can safely archive, manage and migrate our data for ever."
Autor(en)/Author(s): Sylvia Leatham
Quelle/Source: ElectricNews, 11.10.2006
