Online Voting Has a Security Problem. Is Blockchain the Answer?

Plus, Oracle's federal comments draw tech community criticism, DigitalTown makes sixth acquisition since 2015, and more.

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Can Blockchain Bring Voting Online? There are already companies, political parties and governments running experiments to try to answer that question. But when it comes to voting technology, and an uneasy national moment surrounding election technology, many say that government should not trust its vote to the much-hyped blockchain. We delve into the experiments, the concerns and the context.


Oracle's Federal Comments Draw Tech Community Criticism The vendor, well-established in government IT work, came out swinging against open sourcing, custom-coding and federal tech shops 18F and the U.S. Digital Service. It did not sit well with some people.

 
DigitalTown Makes Sixth Acquisition Since 2015 The company has acquired a legal services directory, much in line with its other merger and acquisition activity.
 
Hackers May Have Accessed Deloitte Server Containing Government Emails ...But the company maintains that the hack didn't "impact" government clients.
 
Los Angeles Crams as Much Hardware into One Light Pole as It Can The city Bureau of Street Lighting has debuted a "smart node," essentially a lighting pole packed with technology. Inside the test device: cell service antennae, Wi-Fi, speakers and charging ports for both phones and electric vehicles. Oh, and lighting.
 
California Fires Spur Thousands to Sign Up for Emergency Alerts Nixle reports that at times 15,000 new people signed up for emergency notifications per hour during California's ongoing fires.

Where is State Government Shedding Jobs? Overall, state government employment is slowly ticking upwards. But in some states and job categories, that isn't true. Find out where.

GovTech company on our radar this week:

NICE Public Safety: Evidence management software, with an emphasis on audio, for public safety officials.

EasyVote Solutions: Election management software provided on a software-as-a-service model.

Run a GovTech company? Get on our radar here.




Why Bureaucrats Don't Seem to Care (The Atlantic)

Why Microsoft Rules the Cloud and Amazon Won't Catch Up (Bob Evans/Forbes)

Why Isn't Agile Working? (John Cutler/HackerNoon)

GovTechBiz is our weekly newsletter covering the companies, deals and trends in the business of gov tech. Got a news tip? Other feedback? We're listening. Send it to GovTechBiz Writer Ben Miller at biz@govtech.com.

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Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.