Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awareness

This podcast explores the evolution of networking and the role of APIs, discussing their importance in the modern world. It highlights how scraping APIs has become a method for data breaches and emphasizes the challenges of network visibility and API security. The podcast also delves into Akamai's success in protecting applications during large DDoS attacks and their expansion into other verticals.

Learn how to protect your identity online and the increasing threat of online crime. Understand the importance of identity protection for individuals and organizations. Explore the role of Aura and its innovative approach to digital safety. Discover the advancements in AI technologies for call protection and intelligent safety features.

A wise man once said two things can be true at once.  On the one hand, federal law enforcement agencies are being bombarded with data.  Petabytes seem to be leaking in from the roofs and seeping in from the basement. On the other hand, they are being pushed to give analysis quickly while being understaffed. Not a problem to solve for the sight of heart. Into the fray steps Siren. During today’s interview, Brian Gilkey explains that Siren was founded with the idea of using concepts from the semantic web to be able to absorb mountains of data, digest it, and then present the findings in an easy-to-use graphical manner. Siren’s technology enables agencies to gather the most common data sources and most desired data sets.  They could reach into the mysterious dark web as well as social media. Brian expands on the dilemma facing federal agencies.  Even if they have the funding to add analysts, it may take up to eighteen months to get them productive.  The graphical capabilities of Siren allow the Matrix-like stream of ones and zeros to make sense.  If you are interested in learning more about Siren they have a free PDF titled “Investigating Data Driven Law Enforcement.”    Follow John Gilroy on Twitter @RayGilray Follow John Gilroy on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Listen to past episodes of Federal Tech Podcast  www.federaltechpodcast.com  

Tyler Johnson from CloudBees explains how their company can help federal leaders achieve their goals by providing a unified test and deployment platform. They discuss the concept of release orchestration and the challenges of coordinating software pipelines in complex systems. The podcast also covers the benefits of continuous delivery and Jenkins in the federal government, as well as predictions for the future of process automation and release orchestration in the federal community.

The good news is that today’s digital technology allows for seemingly infinite variations on a code; the bad news is malicious actors know this and change their code constantly. One of today’s responses to this constant attack is called “continuous” improvement.  Quite a simple phrase to type, but difficult to accomplish.  How do you continuously improve a complex software application that is used by a federal agency?   How can anyone know what impact revised code will have on dependencies?  We all know that large teams produce the application programs used by the federal government. That code may go through an iterative process and can be improved through testing.  Although agile practices may be used in development, the release can be compared to the waterfall process, when the code is released – it is released in full. That means when a security patch is included, it is released in full – with only a partial knowledge of what implications it will have on today’s hybrid cloud systems. Today’s interview with Sara Mazer from LaunchDarkly suggests that a better approach is to release revisions in a “modular” manner.  A federal agency can take 10% of the code, release it and see what kind of problems develop.  Once developers and program managers are happy with the functionality, they can release it to an increasingly larger percentage. Sara goes into the way this works – with a “feature flag.”  She describes this idea as a “wrapper” around the code that allows partial release.  It also allows an easy rollback.  The net effect is faster iteration by being able to test one version, correct it rapidly, and then move on to the next iteration. During the interview, Sara talks about LaunchDarkly being able to improve citizen experience with websites. She indicates that this test and rollback can allow federal leaders to try out different citizen-facing websites to determine which ones work best.  Listen to learn ways to continuously update your federal systems. Follow John Gilroy on Twitter @RayGilray Follow John Gilroy on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Listen to past episodes of Federal Tech Podcast  www.federaltechpodcast.com

There are certainly many ways to approach security in today’s complex hybrid federal cloud. raditionally, a manager would look at a system and have an agent assigned to each machine. This could be a virtual machine or a real instance. This structure goes back to the days of servers in the back room and megabytes of storage.  Once you put a few “zeros” behind some data stores, then you have a problem with scaling.  The business problem is simple: the old “tried-and-true” may have worked for years, but it doesn’t work in the cloud. When Avi Shua launched Orca Security, he solved the scaling problem with a technique called “side scanning.”  It is kind of like a football team taking a photo of another team’s formation.  The game is not impacted at all, but a person can see what is going on.  This is what Orca Security does for the federal government.  Doug Hudson explains that their patented technology enables a systems manager to take a “snapshot” of system information and not impact the environment. From there, Orca Security can look at system health. Orca can go beyond blocking and tackling. Today’s emphasis on continuous integration means that there may be dependencies introduced that have unintended consequences.  Just because a system is acceptable at noon does not mean it is safe after an update has been made.  Technology from Orca Security allows to identify mis configurations that modifications may introduce. During the interview, Doug Hudson indicated they did not need agents because their innovation allowed them to use native cloud technology to get information out of the cloud ecosystem. Listen to the interview to get a better understanding of data leakage and the relationship Orca Security has with AWS as well as Snowflake. Follow John Gilroy on Twitter @RayGilray Follow John Gilroy on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Listen to past episodes of Federal Tech Podcast  www.federaltechpodcast.com    

When 10,000 people show up to talk about cloud computing, what topics do they cover? Today, we sit down with Jeffery Kratz, Vice President, of Worldwide Public Sector Channels & Alliances to find out. With a conference this large, there are hundreds of stories to tell.  To focus on the needs of the federal government, we will look at how improvement with Amazon partners can help federal agencies reach their goals. First, Amazon is targeting partners with Transformation Modules.  This means that a partner can do the face-to-face work of understanding the needs of a specific federal program.  From there, they can take advantage of one of these modules to deepen their understanding of how innovations from Amazon can help federal agencies reduce costs and improve security for that specific initiative. Second, sometimes, great ideas come out of startups. Approaching solving federal concerns from a different perspective, Amazon is launching an AWS GovTech Accelerator for Startups.  They take the modules to the next level. The program includes a one-month virtual and combines it with in-person opportunities for technical and business mentorship for GovTech startups.  It is one thing to have a great solution, quite another to be able to package it in a format that will adhere to stringent federal requirements. It looks like this program will bring innovation faster to the federal government. Third, we learn something new.  According to the well-respected consulting firm Euroconsult, we will see 17,000 new satellites by 2030. Today’s ground station technology is based on outdated proprietary hardware and software. Amazon is leading the charge when it comes to making today’s ground stations simple and scalable. Jeffery Kratz mentions the success of a company out of Japan called Infostellar with a new array of 26 ground stations serving the satellite and space community. This is especially important for the newly created Space Force as well as existing programs at the Department of Defense. Listen to the interview to catch up with how Amazon is responding to the dynamic needs of federal agencies. Follow John Gilroy on Twitter @RayGilray Follow John Gilroy on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Listen to past episodes of Federal Tech Podcast  www.federaltechpodcast.com  

Forty years ago, the boxer Roberto Duran famously said, “No mas.”  Translated from Spanish, it means, “no more.” Sugar Ray Leonard was bombarding him with too many punches to handle. The flood of data and the incredible size of data stores in the federal government is causing the federal government to examine how to store and categorize data more efficiently. We could be reaching the point where federal agencies say, “No mas.” Today’s interview with Chris Brown from Immuta offers a solution:  federated governance.  This is a decentralized approach to ingesting data where tags can be automatically added, and data is classified by attribute-based access control. During the interview, Chris talks about policy management through what is called mesh architecture. Essentially, it is a method that is cloud agnostic and allows for scalability and reliability that today’s data stores can’t provide. Most readers know about the federal data strategy as recommended by the Data Act and the Evidence-based Policy Act.  They encourage something called “self-service analytics.”  This means that a domain expert can retrieve data and derive insight from it without having to engage with information technology experts.  Immuta’s proprietary method originated with the company founders working with people in the Intelligence Community.   Their challenge was sharing information about threats without compromising sensitive data.  Their approach allowed for the automation of tags that could provide for the much-desired collaboration without revealing details that weren’t appropriate for consumption outside a specific realm.   Follow John Gilroy on Twitter @RayGilray Follow John Gilroy on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Listen to past episodes of Federal Tech Podcast  www.federaltechpodcast.com        

If you go to Google Trends and compare “Artificial Intelligence” to “Chief Data Officer” you will find a hockey stick for AI and a pancake for Chief Data Officer.  It seems that many are ignoring the importance of the Chief Data Officer in assuring that the data used for AI is accurate. The importance of managing data in the federal government has been reflected in the formation of the Federal Government’s Chief Data Council. In a remarkably mature analysis, they decided that they needed to ask fellow members what their priorities were to serve them better. Mitre was commissioned to execute the survey and they chose Andrea Heithoff and Nick Pesce to write the report.  There are two reports, both free.  One is at a high level for the benefit of the entire federal community. One is much more detailed and available for the Chief Data Officers themselves. They have taken a provocative approach to summarizing their findings.  Rather than a mechanical representation, they decided to structure the answers into three categories:  Model, Improving, and Challenged.  Listen to the interview to learn so much about success in today’s madcap world of exploding data streams, ransomware attacks, and federal mandates.  Conclusions include the importance of foundational work that is needed to make AI successful. Federal mandates are filled with suggestions about collaboration and sharing data, you can read what the CDO members think are the best approaches to this initiative.  Follow John Gilroy on Twitter @RayGilray Follow John Gilroy on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Listen to past episodes of Federal Tech Podcast  www.federaltechpodcast.com

In this episode, data scientist Steve Forster from the DLA talks about their digital transformation efforts. He emphasizes the importance of data security and draws an analogy to owning a firearm. They discuss the benefits of AI in data management and the role of collaboration in overcoming challenges. They also explore the concept of solutionology and the DLA's partnership with Click for real-time data visualization.