Pentagon tech chief nominee wants more upfront funding for programs

The Biden administration’s nominee for the role of top technology official at the Department of Defense wants to see an overhaul of budgeting processes that could allow for more innovation and lower sustainment costs.

At a confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Heidi Shyu told Senators that extra early-stage funding for the DOD’s weapons platforms, tech projects and other systems would keep programs running and help to curtail their costs in the long term.

“Today, sustainment makes up 70% of total weapon system cost, with development and procurement making up 30%.

“DOD should strive to flip this ratio and invest more in the development of new technologies than it does in the sustainment of legacy systems,” Shyu told lawmakers.

Such a change would represent a shift in funding practices, and a move towards more agile systems development.

The technology leader was speaking alongside nominees to the posts of Air Force Secretary, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering at the DOD, and Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation at the DOD.

Air Force Secretary nominee Frank Kendall agreed with Shyu, and added that for the USAF such an approach to program funding would permit greater experimentation and allow for more failures.

“Having the discipline to do the things that are necessary up front that would lower sustainment costs is critical,” he said.

Additional early-stage funding permits more agile development of modular systems, which ultimately can make it easier and cheaper to fix errors that arise at a later stage. Currently, programs run through a two-year budgetary cycle where requests need to be proposed by the DOD to Congress before they can get off the ground. At the current pace of development, military technology is often outdated by the time it is fully implemented.

The two-year budgeting cycle has hit software acquisition especially hard, as code needs frequent updates to patch security flaws and bugs.

Shyu’s job, if confirmed, would be to oversee all research and engineering projects, from basic research to advanced artificial intelligence work. Shyu has a background in both tech and contracting. Previously she served as the head of acquisition, technology and logistics for the Army during the Obama administration.

Addressing lawmakers on Tuesday, Shyu also advocated for the use of rapid prototyping contracts, like Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs), which she said could be used more throughout the department to navigate around the budget cycle. According to the senior tech leader, the DOD would also benefit significantly from flexible research techniques used by the private sector, such as “plug and play”.

“There is absolutely a gap in terms of our ability to purchase tech.

“Software is ubiquitous in all of our weapons systems and we have to think about how we can develop software continuously and test it continuously,” she added.

If confirmed as Air Force Secretary, Kendall will oversee the vast, highly technical suite of programs in the Air and Space Force, from new network-of-network systems like Advanced Battle Management System to jet fighters and satellites.

GSA tech procurement leader Nakasone to depart June 1

Federal IT procurement leader Keith Nakasone will leave his role at the General Services Administration at the end of May.

He departs after working at the agency since 2017 as deputy assistant commissioner of acquisition management within the Office of Information Technology Category (ITC).

Nakasone’s last day is June 1, leaving GSA after 32 years in the federal government to take up a role in the private sector.

Following his departure, Nakasone’s responsibilities will be taken on in an acting capacity by Cheryl Thornton-Cameron, who is executive director of ITC Schedule Contract Operations at the agency.

The IT Category team is a workstream within the GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service that develops contracts for technology services and is focused on limiting duplicate purchases across agencies.

Previously, Nakasone was a senior procurement executive at the Federal Communications Commission, and before that was a technical director within the Defense Information Systems Agency’s procurement directorate. At DISA he has also served as chief of strategic planning.

During his tenure at GSA, Nakasone spearheaded the introduction of new requirements to federal government IT contracts to address supply chain risk and prohibit the use of telecommunications equipment and services produced by Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE.

Earlier this month, the GSA launched an industry consultation over plans to issue a multiple-award cloud blanket purchase agreement as part of a government-wide acquisition strategy.

Next Generation Computing Act proposed to speed U.S. supercomputer development

Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., has introduced legislation to bolster one of two high-priority, advanced scientific computing programs at the Department of Energy (DOE).

The Next Generation Computing Research and Development Act would create the Beyond Exascale Computing Program for developing systems with capabilities that exceed those of the fastest supercomputers in the U.S., set to start arriving at the National Laboratories later this year.

The proposed legislation was introduced last Thursday in the House of Representatives, and comes as U.S. lawmakers devote increasing attention to the country’s supercomputing arms race with China. The DOE is targeting the launch of a new exascale computing platform, which is known as Frontier, in October this year.

Exascale refers to a computing system that can perform at least one exaflop – or one quintillion (a billion-billion) calculations per second.

DOE has spent $460 million on its Exascale Computing Project to date. And the proposed successor program would refocus those efforts on new computing architectures, models and simulations, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.

Commenting on the proposed legislation, Obernolte said: “The future of innovation lies in our ability to unlock new answers about the workings of our world.”

“Those answers will only come with the help of the next generation of supercomputers,” he added.

Obernolte’s bill would establish a special energy efficient computing program, where national labs partner with industry and academia to develop technology and applications that decrease supercomputers’ energy needs. Federal partners would be selected through a competitive process.

DOE would have a year from the bill’s passage to report back on the progress of both new programs.

The bill also requires an upgrade to a user facility designed for the secure transport of researchers’ data, as well as a workforce development program out of the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research. It would also create a computational science fellowship with a $21 million-a-year grant.

The IRS wants help breaking into seized cryptowallets

As the popularity of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin ceases to fade, the federal government is focused on obtaining the technological know-how to seize digital cash and the cryptowallets that hold the keys needed to access it. The problem is, once federal agents seize the cryptowallets in investigations, they can rarely obtain the necessary keys.

The IRS wants the help of industry in researching techniques to exploit the seized digital wallets, it says in a new request for information. Cracking the cryptographic keys that keep these wallets secure can be so difficult that owners themselves frequently lock themselves out and pay hefty rewards to researchers who can help them break the code.

“It is a priority to combine the leading-edge cybersecurity research available on the topics of embedded hardware exploitation with the disciplined, established science of digital forensics,” says the document. “The explicit outcome of this requirement is to tame the cybersecurity research into measured, repeatable, consistent digital forensics processes that can be trained and followed in a digital forensics’ laboratory.”

This is of great interest to the IRS’s Criminal Investigation unit as it tracks down and enforces cases of fraud and other violations of tax law, such as the failure to pay taxes on cryptocurrencies, the agency said in a separate contracting document from March. The unit also assists other law enforcement agencies with money laundering and narcotics investigations.

The difficult-to-track nature of cryptocurrencies make them popular among criminals seeking, who can use them anonymously for illicit transactions. For example, the DarkSide hackers responsible for the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack allegedly collected their $5 million ransom payment in the form of bitcoin.

“The emergence and rapid adoption of cryptographic currencies over the last decade has created a gap in digital forensic capabilities. The decentralization and anonymity provided by cryptocurrencies has fostered an environment for the storage and exchange of something of value, outside of the traditional purview of law enforcement and regulatory organizations,” the IRS says in the request for information. “While research exists on the analysis and tracking of blockchain transactions, there is a portion of this cryptographic puzzle that continues to elude organizations – millions, perhaps even billions of dollars, exist within cryptowallets, but the value cannot be realized because of the challenging cryptographic problem.”

It continues: “Since hardware cryptographic wallets contain digital data – public and private cryptographic keys – these small hardware computing devices may provide crucial data in investigations.”

The IRS hopes to validate existing research into breaking into cryptowallets and also to identify new methods, document the processes to replicate them and create training for the agencies criminal forensics specialists.

The IRS did not comment on the procurement outside of the RFI.

The RFI comes as the tax agency places a greater focus in recent years on the emergence of cryptocurrencies. In 2019, agency documents showed it began training agents to hunt for cryptowallets. And earlier this year, the IRS launched “Operation Hidden Treasure” to sniff out people who are leaving crypto-related income off of their tax returns by tracking crypto transactions.

The federal government’s procurement portal leaves beta with focus on data security

The federal government’s one-stop-shop for contracting activities SAM.gov dropped the “beta” from its name Monday.

The General Services Administration, which hosts the website, finalized the integration of the original System for Award Management (SAM) system — which featured entity registration, entity reporting and disaster response registry — with functions from beta.sam.gov, like contracting opportunities, on Monday to create a single system spanning all elements of federal contracting.

GSA made about 50 improvements to SAM.gov from its beta version based on 35,000 pieces of user feedback, with a focus on data security, during the transition.

Changes include single sign-on across datasets, optional identity proofing for entity administrators via login.gov that’ll become mandatory in fiscal 2022, and user roles controlling information access.

“We heard from our users that data security was critical to them and were asked to ensure our products include the latest security controls,” Katherine Rollins, project analyst at GSA, told FedScoop. “With over 734,000 active registrations as of April 2021, we understand the balance of data transparency and data protection.”

SAM.gov now allows users to check entity registration status and search reports and exclusions directly from the homepage, so long as they sign in. More than 54,000 registrations were started or updated in the last month, and a new “Getting Started” page walks users through the four main steps while explaining requirements and timelines.

GSA is in the process of assigning every organization that does business with the government a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), and SAM.gov displays UEIs along with their current Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number — slated for retirement in April 2022. UEIs are now visible on contract opportunities if the corresponding entity won an award.

“By assigning the UEI in the entity record, we’re enabling those doing business with the government to begin the conversion now,” Rollins said. “Making it visible almost a year before it becomes authoritative gives you time and flexibility to prepare.”

SAM.gov’s search function remains a work in progress since being one of the first features added to the website in 2017. Users can now manage saved searches across domains in one place, and existing filters have been streamlined and new ones added.

Users still want more advanced keyword options based on focus groups that have provided feedback on more than 50 iterations of the search function.

“The search is working for a lot of our current users, so we don’t want to make a change that breaks it for them,” Rollins said. “But we do want to allow for those advanced keyword operators in the search, and that is a huge ask from our user base.”

According to Rollins, easing users into the transition has been a priority for the agency.

GSA migrated all user roles and permissions and entity-related data ahead of the switch while ensuring existing beta.SAM.gov logins still worked.

“This integration couldn’t interrupt the work or the business of the federal government or the work that the entities needed to do,” Rollins said. “In order to help with this — because we have over 1.5 million registered users as of April 2021 — it was essential to create a seamless transition for our users.”

While beta.SAM.gov is no more, six remaining legacy award systems still need to be merged as part of GSA’s larger Integrated Award Environment initiative.

Wage Determinations Online and the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance were the first two systems retired, followed by FedBizOpps.gov and SAM.gov. The remaining systems are: the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation, Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System, Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, Past Performance Information Retrieval System, Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System, and FFATA Sub-award Reporting System.

“The new SAM.gov is the foundation for more improvements to come,” Rollins added. “As more systems merge, you’ll begin to see even more connections within the data.”

Department of Justice closes criminal investigation into Booz Allen Hamilton

The Department of Justice has shuttered its criminal investigation into Booz Allen Hamilton, the company revealed on Friday.

The federal contractor in its report for the financial year 2021 said the criminal probe had been abandoned but that civil DOJ and SEC investigations into the company are still pending.

“I am pleased to report that the Department of Justice has closed the investigation that we first disclosed in June 2017,” said Booz Allen President and CEO Horacio Rozanski, speaking on the company’s fourth-quarter conference call.

Booz Allen in 2017 disclosed that it was under criminal and civil investigation by the DOJ in relation to accounting and indirect cost charging practices relating to its government work.

“The company may receive additional regulatory or governmental inquiries related to the matters that are the subject of the DOJ’s investigation,” Booz Allen wrote in a regulatory filing last week. “In accordance with the company’s practice, the company is cooperating with all relevant government parties.”

The federal contractor said also that it has been in contact with other regulatory agencies and bodies including the SEC, and it is working with lawyers to respond to probes that remain ongoing.

It comes as Booz Allen on Friday reported a 14.7% year-on-year rise in operating profits for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021, as well as earnings per share of $1.43, up from $0.98 in the prior-year period. The company’s net income rose by 43.4% year on year to $199.2 million.

Despite COVID-19 headwinds, the company said it had been able to preserve its profitability in part through strong cost management efforts and reductions in travel expenses.

Speaking on its Q4 earnings call, CEO Rozanski noted that growth at Booz Allen’s civil business segment had slowed during the second half of 2020.

“This was largely related to a pause on a large cyber program due to funding availability, which occurred in the third quarter and continued into the fourth quarter.

“Given the importance and criticality of this program for the client, we believe work will ramp up again in the coming quarters,” the executive added.

Bill Hunt joins SEC’s Cloud Center of Excellence

Senior government technologist Bill Hunt has joined the Cloud Center of Excellence at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

He takes up the role of assistant director at the unit, after previously working as chief enterprise architect at the Small Business Administration (SBA). Hunt reports directly to the agency’s CIO, David Bottom.

Prior to working at the SBA, he was cloud policy lead at the Office of Management and Budget, and before that was a digital services expert at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Earlier in his career, Hunt held frontline development roles at nonprofit organizations including the Sunlight Foundation and the OpenGov Foundation. Before this, he worked in the private sector, including as a developer at WillowTree Apps and Boyd Caton and Grant Transportation Group.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the SBA was tasked by Congress with distributing about $350 billion in small business loans and grants. The agency spends a little more than $100 million on IT annually.

The SEC’s Cloud Center of Excellence was established with a view to accelerating the implementation of new systems at the agency and to promoting experimentation. In 2019 the Office of Inspector General identified failings of the SEC’s adoption of cloud computing services, including that it had not effectively implemented strategy or tracked related goals.

The SEC did not respond to a request for comment on Hunt’s appointment.

U.S. Army will transfer staff and tech to Space Force without disruption: Lt. Gen. Karbler

The most senior officer in charge of the U.S. Army’s space and missile defense command has said that the service will transfer staff and technology to the recently-established Space Force without any gaps or lapses in capabilities.

“The expectation is, when it goes over to the Space Force, it stays the same,” said Lt. Gen. Karbler, referring to space assets and capabilities.

“[T]here is going to be no such thing as an [initial operating capability] or [functionally operating capability] it’s an operational capability,” he added.

The comments come as the army works with the Space Force to establish how the two services will share resources and operate together in space, which will involve the transfer of some technology and personnel.

According to Karbler, the U.S. Army Satellite Operations Brigade will be among the units that move to the Space Force. The unit is responsible for the operation of military communication satellites.

Military strategists and members of Congress have debated how the Space Force will fit into the current structure of military organizations. Members of the defense committees have largely been supportive of launching the new service, but some have questioned how space operations will be shared.

The transfer will be gradual after Oct. 1, the first day of the fiscal 2022 year. Most of the change will be in the who gets the money in their budget for the capability and which service has management over the programs.

Air Force to trial Wi-Fi hotspot-like tech in tankers and fast jets

The Air Force announced Friday that it is taking a “critical step” towards a new internet-of-things for war by installing communications pods into certain air tankers and fast jets.

The pods act like Wi-Fi hotspots, allowing the aircraft to relay large streams of data without having to land. The technology will initially be used with F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, and also with KC-46 Pegasus tankers.

“A critical step in the progress of any military program…is the establishment of the manpower, resources and doctrinal infrastructure that underpin the program,” the Air Force said in a statement announcing the new technology trial.

The trial is part of the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which aims to connect everything in and around a battlefield and then to use artificial intelligence to make sense of the data.

ABMS is the Air Force’s part of the broader Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) strategy. JADC2 is the Department of Defense’s plan to connect sensors from all US military services into a single network which, theoretically, could be more effective and less costly.

As part of the program, the Air Force has appointed new senior management as part of the program, as well as investing in technology. A new cross functional team has been established under the command of Brig. Gen. Jeffery Valenzia.

The new communication pods are some of the first physical pieces of ABMS tech reaching the field, but the Air Force is previewing new digital components coming online soon. The backbone of much of the program will be data libraries and new digital infrastructure that will store and transmit data between any platform in a battle, Air Force leaders have said.

Oracle files response brief in JEDI contract fight

It’s been almost three years since Oracle first launched its bid protest campaign to invalidate the Pentagon’s potential $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract. This week the cloud company made its latest case to the U.S. Supreme Court for why it believes the cloud mega-contract is in violation of federal law.

In a response brief filed Monday, Oracle continued its push to label the Department of Defense acquisition as an irregular single-award contract with “prejudicial,” competition-limiting gate requirements.

“Absent this Court’s intervention, the JEDI contract will proceed for the next decade as an illegal single-source award,” the company said in its submission to court.

Earlier this year, Oracle filed a petition for writ of certiorari, which is the legal process required to appeal for the Supreme Court to review a lower court’s decision. In this case, Oracle has asked the Supreme Court to review the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to uphold the JEDI procurement. Oracle has previously lost out in appeals made to the Government Accountability Office and the Court of Federal Claims.

Government lawyers have previously argued that Oracle failed to meet basic gate requirements for the contract, which prohibited it from progressing in the bid process. The company has pursued almost every legal option available to contest the acquisition.

In its latest response brief, Oracle reintroduced allegations of conflicts of interest between the DOD and Amazon, which a lower court previously affirmed but said did not “taint” the overall acquisition. Oracle, however, believes that decision is not in line with Supreme Court precedents, according to court documents.

In a separate brief from earlier this month, the U.S. government argued to the Supreme Court that Oracle continues a tactic of “cherry pick[ing] from the vast amount of communications and isolat[ing] a few suggestive sound bites” as it relates to conflicts of interest. It also reminded the court that it is Congress’ “preference, though not a requirement, that task order and delivery order contracts be awarded to multiple sources, rather than a single source”.

Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision on Oracle’s case, it’s possible there may not be a JEDI contract for much longer. Amazon Web Services has had success building a case in the Court of Federal Claims that prevented contract winner Microsoft from building out an enterprise cloud system for the DOD. The department said recently that if things were to continue on much longer with that lawsuit, it might consider alternatives to JEDI. 

Oracle was contacted for comment.