Critical Update

We rely on a variety of different encryption techniques to keep our digital lives safe as we bank, chat and conduct business online. It takes today’s most powerful computers thousands, if not millions of years to break the strongest codes, but quantum computers threaten to crack through them in a fraction of the time. The National Science Foundation’s Thyaga Nandagopal explains where quantum efforts are now and where they’re going.

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If 4G networks connected everyone, 5G promises to connect everything—self-driving cars, service robots, wearable devices and sensors. But with more connectivity comes greater cyber risk and serious national security questions about network infrastructure, including how Chinese telecoms fit in. Nextgov talks to former Federal Communications Chairman Tom Wheeler, current FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, and former National Security Council Senior Director for Strategic Planning Robert Spalding about risks, benefits and whether America can keep the edge it established during the 4G boom.

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Salary caps, lengthy onboarding and rigid career ladders have historically made it hard for federal agencies to recruit top cyber talent, and as threats increase, the competition is only going to get stiffer. Nextgov talks to Homeland Security Department’s Chief Human Capital Officer Angela Bailey and former undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate Suzanne Spaulding about the challenges the agency faces when recruiting cybersecurity pros and how officials have tried to overcome them. 

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They say you catch more flies with honey, and a research team at Sandia National Laboratories has taken that to heart. The team—led by Vince Urias, a distinguished member of the technical staff, Caleb Loverro, principal member of the technical staff, and Will Stout, senior member of the technical staff—created a massive honeypot to lure hackers into a fake environment. From there, defenders can gain valuable insight into who is attacking the system and what they appear to be after.

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Critical Update is coming back! Heather and Aaron preview Season 4, “The New Cyber Landscape.”

In the late 1990s, Eric Schmieman, then-chief engineer at Battelle Memorial Institute, and his team were tapped to head to Chernobyl—the infamous site of the largest nuclear accident in history—to build a never-before-attempted containment system for the radioactive facility. The New Safe Confinement team faced difficult bureaucratic conditions left in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse plus other barriers that may sound familiar to many federal employees trying to solve problems in innovative ways.

“If you care about people, they’ll care about their work,” Labor Department Director of Employee Engagement Kristin McNally told Nextgov. Figuring out clever ways to engage employees can pay off big for agencies. Engaged employees perform better, but in the long run, the agency wins by being able to retain great workers.

In the latest episode of Critical Update, USDA’s Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation, Bill Northey, joins Nextgov’s Brandi Vincent to highlight how the agency is leveraging new technologies to enhance its service to farmers and producers across America. For Northey, such an endeavor—continuing to operate while simultaneously making improvements and introducing new tech—is “like driving a car down the road 70 miles an hour and changing your tire at the same time.”

You can read more about USDA’s modernization efforts and its centerpiece—Farmers.gov—on Nextgov.

The Pentagon’s research wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, was created when Russia launched Sputnik and the U.S. had no response. And within DARPA, the Defense Sciences Office tackles big, forward-looking technology issues so the country is never caught off guard by another “technology surprise.” Nextgov’s Jack Corrigan chats with DSO Director Valerie Browning to discuss the implications of machines that can think for themselves, when we should expect our first personal quantum computer and why more money doesn’t always mean more results when it comes to government research.

The Defense Digital Service has a simple motto: Get shit done. But within the government's largest agency, that’s easier said than done. Nextgov’s Aaron Boyd talks to then-Director Chris Lynch (who announced he would leave government shortly after our interview) and former Chief of Staff and current Hack the Pentagon program manager Reina Staley about the projects and challenges the team has been working on since its inception in 2015.