The Government's Technology Hurdles

I will not do this justice, but I spent the weekend with a friend who works on Internet Security for NY State.  His team works on making sure that when you log in to a state website, your identity can be confirmed and everything to do with you is kept confidential.  Needless to say, his team is working on implementing Obamacare in NY.  He knows where the contractors need to place continued focus to help improve the system, which is working fairly well in NY, but could be better.

He shared a tech magazine article with me that highlighted the challenges the Federal website faces.  The government systems still work through Windows 2003.  I don't know how many iterations of Windows there have been since 2003, but I can think of at least 2 and know that if you don't keep up with stuff like that, you run into problems that will not be fixed until you get yourself onto a modern platform.

Why is the Federal government still using Windows 2003?  Well it starts with Bush II's starving the government of revenues through tax cuts.  Neither he nor the Congress allocated enough money to keep the government's operating systems modern.  Then the recession hit and bigger macroeconomic issues dominated the focus.  Then sequestration started and the revenues for such projects were cut further.  So, Bush, Obama and the Congress share responsibility for the mess that the Federal Government's computer systems are in.  Yes, many of them work, but they are not being updated the way the private sector or even many states do.

It is not encouraging to know this as no organization can function today without up to date technology. This is not just effecting the Obamacare websit, but also national defense.  Somehow the NSA is not effected, so perhaps they should work on the rest of the government.