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DoD issues cloud solicitations to AWS, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle | Breaking Defense

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The Defense Department today announced it has issued solicitations to Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle for its Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, or JWCC, an important development in what has been the Pentagon’s longer-than-expected journey to acquire enterprise cloud computing capabilities.

JWCC is envisioned to be the Pentagon’s premier enterprise multi-vendor, multi-cloud computing contract. The program is the follow-up to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), cancelled by DoD acting chief information officer John Sherman in July after years of delays due to legal battles. JEDI was envisioned as a single-vendor, single-cloud computing contract worth $10 billion dollars over 10 years, which Microsoft won in October 2019. But JEDI faced legal challenges from Oracle before the contract was even awarded. Amazon then challenged the award to Microsoft, and the contract languished in legal limbo for years.

Source: DoD issues cloud solicitations to AWS, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle – Breaking Defense Breaking Defense – Defense industry news, analysis and commentary

CISA Moves to Standardize Federal Cybersecurity Responses With New Playbooks

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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published a document outlining procedures on how civilian agencies should respond to information system incidents and vulnerabilities.

CISA said Tuesday it incorporated the private sector’s best practices into the Federal Government Cybersecurity Incident and Vulnerability Response Playbooks.

Source: CISA Moves to Standardize Federal Cybersecurity Responses With New Playbooks; Matt Hartman Quoted

With Zero Trust, What’s Old Is New—and Critical | SIGNAL Magazine

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More than just a technology focus, zero trust (ZT) is an invitation for all of us to think differently about cybersecurity. We are losing on the cybersecurity battlefield, and continued investment in more advanced versions of the same architecture patterns will not change that.

Zero trust is a recurring theme in the Biden administration’s May 2021 cybersecurity executive order, which has generated online discussions, white papers and guidance across public and private sectors, including the critical infrastructure community. More recently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of Management and Budget released a series of key documents for public comment. These documents include the Federal Zero Trust Strategy, the Zero Trust Maturity Model and the Cloud Security Technical Reference Architecture.

Source: With Zero Trust, What’s Old Is New—and Critical | SIGNAL Magazine

Why do we need a European digital public sphere? | Katrin Dapp, Johanna Niesyto, Jan-Hendrik Passoth and 2 more

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For many years, the European Union has faced a crisis of legitimacy—being said to have no demos—which the Conference on the Future of Europe in part seeks to address. Yet the EU is of utmost importance for future development opportunities for Europeans, facing such transnational challenges as climate change and the pandemic. Strengthening European opinion-forming is hence more important than ever.

In Europe we however talk mostly about each other rather than with each other. National lenses shape our perspectives. At the same time the current logic of digitalisation and platform-isation gives preference to those who surf the attention-driven economy for their own ends—nationalists and populists—as recently evident in anti-vaccination campaigns.

Source: Why do we need a European digital public sphere? – Katrin Dapp, Johanna Niesyto, Jan-Hendrik Passoth and 2 more

Into the Metaverse: Can Facebook Rebrand Itself? | Knowledge@Wharton

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Mark Zuckerberg wants to lead consumers into the metaverse, but it’s unclear whether they will follow.

The enigmatic Facebook founder raised eyebrows last month when he unveiled the company’s new name and logo — Meta. Branded with a distended infinity symbol, Meta is meant to reflect the future of the world’s largest social media platform. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus now fall under the Meta umbrella, along with Zuckerberg’s vision for an immersive, virtual reality world where people can meet in a digital space.

“Our mission remains the same. It’s still about bringing people together,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcement. “We are still the company that designs technology around people. But now we have a new north star to help bring the metaverse to life.”

Source: Into the Metaverse: Can Facebook Rebrand Itself? – Knowledge@Wharton

EXPLAINER: Why are foreign tech firms pulling out of China?

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Yahoo Inc. is leaving the China market, suspending its services there as of Monday amid what it says is an “increasingly challenging” business and legal environment.

Foreign technology firms have been pulling out or downsizing their operations in mainland China as a strict data privacy law specifying how companies collect and store data takes effect.

Such companies have decided the regulatory uncertainty and reputational risks outweigh the advantages of staying in the huge market.

Source: EXPLAINER: Why are foreign tech firms pulling out of China?

John Carmack, one of the key players in building Facebook’s metaverse, is pretty bearish about the idea | Fortune

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Mark Zuckerberg may have spent much of his appearance at Facebook’s Connect conference yesterday talking up his vision of the “metaverse”—a fully-immersive virtual world in which people will interact as avatars—but another speaker at the very same event was much less bullish: John Carmack, one of the key players in building the thing.

Carmack is a legend in the gaming and virtual-reality (VR) worlds, being co-founder of id Software, the firm that published the seminal Doom game. Eight years ago, he became chief technology officer (CTO) at Oculus VR, the VR-headset outfit that Facebook—which was rebranded as Meta on Thursday to reflect its new focus—acquired soon after he joined. A couple years ago he stepped back into a consulting-CTO role. He’s highly respected to say the least…and he doesn’t think much of Zuckerberg’s plan.

Source: John Carmack, one of the key players in building Facebook’s metaverse, is pretty bearish about the idea | Fortune

Hillicon Valley — TikTok, Snapchat seek to distance themselves from Facebook | TheHill

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Senators grilled executives from TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube Tuesday as they continue to weigh proposals aimed at boosting kids’ online safety. Executives from the companies made one thing clear during the hearing — they don’t want to be tied to Facebook.

Source: Hillicon Valley — TikTok, Snapchat seek to distance themselves from Facebook | TheHill

Russia’s Worldwide Influence Relies on YouTube | EURACTIV.com

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Without Silicon Valley’s continuing goodwill, the Kremlin’s information machine is in trouble.

Ben Dubow is founder of Omelas, which specializes in data and analysis on how states manipulate the web a nonresident fellow at CEPA.

On September 29, RT DE, a property of the Russian government and YouTube’s fourth most-watched German news channel, went dark. The day before, YouTube had issued new guidelines on vaccine misinformation and as a result removed a video from RT DE. When the channel attempted to upload the banned video to a sister channel, YouTube banned both.

Source: Russia’s Worldwide Influence Relies on YouTube – EURACTIV.com

French cloud industry regrets government’s ambivalence in dealing with digital giants | EURACTIV.com

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France’s “trusted cloud” strategy sends “contradictory messages” and leaves little room for competition in the race for digital sovereignty already dominated by the likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft, French cloud industry players have said. EURACTIV France reports.

Cloud industry players have criticised the French strategy for getting lost in a two-pronged approach that shows a willingness to back promising initiatives on EU soil while at the same time crying for help from the big names.

Source: French cloud industry regrets government’s ambivalence in dealing with digital giants – EURACTIV.com