Interesting conjectures! But... What do they have to do with https everywhere that Eric mentioned? They're very general thoughts. And even if we only have 5 years, why not enforce https on .gov sites until then? Seems like a win to me, no matter how long government survives.
Parker > Am 14.11.2014 um 09:06 schrieb Georgi Guninski <[email protected]>: > > Didn't know .gov dudes _openly_ post here. > > For a discussion, let me make some conjectures about *us.gov. > > Conjecture 1. USA is a pyramid, AKA Ponzi scheme > Conjecture 2. USA will die in its present form in at most 5 > years (possibly causing troubles to other nations too). > Conjecture 3. USA will be bought by the People's Republic > of China (PRC) in at most 5 years (possibly with other > investors). [This already happened to some USA corporations]. > > Best of luck, > -- > gg > > >> On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 11:13:41AM -0500, Eric Mill wrote: >> Hey, >> >> I wrote a piece today for my organization, 18F, about our HTTPS-everywhere >> policy for the .gov websites we build inside the US government: >> >> https://18f.gsa.gov/2014/11/13/why-we-use-https-in-every-gov-website-we-make/ >> >> I wanted to give this list some extra context, since I understand the US >> government is a big, complicated, freighted topic. Below is my *personal* >> attempt to describe my workplace and is not anything close to an official >> description or the voice of the government. >> >> 18F[1] is a team of ~70 people working as full time employees inside the US >> federal government. (The name comes from the street intersection -- 18th St >> & F St -- that its HQ is at in DC.) 18F as a unit was created around a year >> ago to be a competent, top class in-house technology team for the US >> federal government. >> >> A driving idea here is that the government shouldn't need to outsource its >> *entire* technical brain to contractors, and that government services can >> be simple and even beautiful. If you've noticed what's happened over the >> last few years in the UK at https://www.gov.uk by the Government Digital >> Service[2], 18F takes a lot of inspiration from them. >> >> 18F is housed inside the General Services Administration, an independent >> federal agency[3] that does as many different things as its name implies, >> from running all the buildings to housing the nation's data catalog at >> Data.gov. It's an "independent" federal agency in that it's not subject to >> the same level of direct executive and White House control that cabinet >> agencies are. It's the same kind of "independent" that lets the FCC >> potentially disagree with the President on net neutrality, for example. >> >> The team has people all over the country (it has a big SF office, for >> example), many of which have either never been in government before, or who >> came in after doing the Presidential Innovation Fellows[4] program. >> >> I joined 18F after working for 5 years on open data apps, infrastructure, >> and policy at the Sunlight Foundation[5], a non-profit in DC that pushes >> for open government. I had also done a fair amount of work around privacy, >> HTTPS, and ongoing judicial activity around surveillance. I get to continue >> doing all of that work in my personal capacity. >> >> I say this just to try to communicate that the 18F team has some very >> sincere people trying to make the US government work better for people all >> over the world, and to do right by technology in the process. We have >> substantial support and autonomy to make that happen. >> >> When it comes to HTTPS, the .gov surface area is absolutely enormous, and >> moving it helps move the whole Internet forward. Bringing the government in >> line with the rest of the web/security community (and being loud about it) >> is one of my big priorities at 18F, and so I wanted to share this here with >> you all. >> >> -- Eric >> >> [1] https://18f.gsa.gov/ >> [2] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/ >> [3] >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_United_States_government >> [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Innovation_Fellows >> [5] https://sunlightfoundation.com/ >> >> -- >> konklone.com | @konklone <https://twitter.com/konklone>
