US Government, Domains, and Search
February 11, 2011
There’s been a flurry of search-related news from the US government. We have noticed that some health related content is moving around. Hearings with Health and Human Services executives produced 404 errors last week. We were able to locate the documents, but a 404 is suggestive. The FBI rolled out its new search service. Then we read about a security compliance glitch.
We found it interesting that half of the US Federal government’s sites have failed to comply with mandated security measures. In an article appearing on the NetworkWorld news site, we learned that The Office of Management and Budget issued said mandate requiring agencies to add DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) in 2008. The piece goes on to cite a study which claims that as of January 2011, fifty one percent of these agencies have failed to comply.
“DNSSEC is an Internet standard that prevents hackers from hijacking Web traffic and redirecting it to bogus sites. It allows Web sites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses using digital signatures and public key encryption.”
Understanding the importance of safeguarding data and activity online, especially on the federal level, the question becomes why has the failure to adopt this precaution been so broad? Mark Beckett, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management for Secure64, offers his view stating that while the numbers of those in compliance this year as opposed to last have more than doubled, it is the low rate itself which illustrates the difficulty in employing the security measure. Beckett feels that as more parent domains and sub domains sign, the market for protection will expand creating more user friendly DNSSEC. Search can be tricky if the crawlers cannot access or find the content. Alternatively, search can be even more exciting if content that should not be indexed is.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2011
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3 Responses to “US Government, Domains, and Search”
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Take look at this day-by-day comparison of search engines:
http://analyzethis.ru/?&location=en&lan=en
Sorry, the previous comment was to “Comparative Searches Ding Google”, http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2011/02/11/comparative-searches-ding-google/ . I’ve missed the article.
Maxime,
Thanks. We will do a short item about this service.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2011