The agency maintains about 37,200 total web pages — of which 26,600 are web pages written in English. The rest are translations in other languages.

IRS.gov chief Angela Render said about 85% of visitors go to the agency’s top 100 English-language pages, and another 12% of traffic goes to the 900 next-most popular pages.

“The first thing you might start to think is, ‘Well, if [1,000] pages satisfy 97% of the people coming to the site, why do we have the rest? Can’t we get rid of those?’ And the answer is that we have to serve everyone. We can’t pick our verticals like a business would,” Render said Tuesday during a virtual event hosted by ACT-IAC.

About 51% of the IRS’ web traffic comes from mobile devices, and 59% of users access IRS web pages through online searches.

Among its current priorities, the IRS is tapping into billions of dollars in multi-year modernization funds to provide a higher level of customer service to taxpayers — including making its website easier to navigate.

“One thing we do know about our visitors is that they are there to complete a task. People do not come to IRS.gov for entertainment or to socialize. They are focused and if they’re not tax professionals, attorneys or the media, they may be scared and frustrated also,” Render said.

More than half of the IRS’ online audience reads at a sixth-grade level or lower. About 88% consider IRS.gov a top source for tax advice, and about 47% of taxpayers report feeling anxious when they receive any notice from the IRS.

“IRS.gov is one of those rare digital experiences that must serve all American taxpayers, whether individual business or tax professional, across all demographics and business types,” Render said.

To make the IRS website easier to use, the is holding focus groups with certain demographics, such a first-time filers, to understand their challenges navigating the website.

Based on this group’s feedback, Render said the IRS recently rewrote content on some of its top 11 webpages — which draw about 712 million pageviews each year — to appear at the top search engine results, and added nine new pages to “to fill significant content gaps, as illustrated by high search volume with poor results in external search engines.”

Within a month, the 20 rewritten or new pages drew more than 103 million views — nearly 28% of all traffic coming to irs.gov. Six of the new pages at the top 500 most viewed on IRS.gov and five more were in the top 1,000.

Karen Howard, director of the IRS Office of Online Services, said the agency is expanding its recruiting efforts across the country.

“The website is 24/4. We don’t want to overwork our existing talent, but we also want to expand and recruit from areas that have really good talent, that can help address the dynamic nature of the digital needs of the organization,” Howard said.

Howard said the IRS is also taking steps to address is tech “talent gap.”

“As the technology evolves, as tech players evolve, we have to make sure the understanding of evolution and that we have the talent and the skills — whether it’s upskilling, whether reskilling —to be able to address the needs of the taxpayer evolving and transforming in a in a more real- time manner,” she said.

As the IRS rolls out new technology to benefit taxpayers, Howard said the agency is also taking steps to ensure IRS employees also have the tools they need to do their jobs.

“There’s a saying — if the employees isn’t having a good experience, you can’t expect that to happen at the customer experience level,” Howard said. “The user experience team spends a lot of time working with our internal call center teams and recently did a huge study trying to understand some of the journeys that employees go through, so that we can better design and improve design on some of our existing applications.”

Among those tools, the IRS is using artificial intelligence to improve its digital experience.

Render said the IRS can use AI to reduce time spent on certain tasks, such as qualitative data analysis. AI can also assess content on the IRS website against governmentwide standards, or review conversations between a taxpayer and a chatbot that require an IRS employee to intervene.

“We understand that AI is not a magic wand that will relieve us of the responsibility of monitoring and improving our content, Render said. “I don’t see AI and technology as a replacement for a human, but rather as a toll that will allow us to address content more efficiently.”

Render said the IRS is already fielding AI technology, in the form of chatbots and voice bots.

“While AI happens to be on everybody’s minds right now, it’s not new technology,” Render said.

Render said the IRS, “for a number of years,” has used AI to look through call center logs and identify patterns.

“We reviewed call center logs to understand what people call about and then use this information to see if the information available on the website is findable and useful. This uncovered many pain points. That’s not to say we don’t want people to call, there are many instances where the call is important. What we don’t want is a situation where people must call when they don’t have to. A lot of people would like to just take care of things on their own time. And we should support this,” she said.

The post IRS has 37,000 webpages. About 2% get nearly all of its traffic first appeared on Federal News Network.

That’s according to new guidance signed out by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on June 14. The document lays out priorities over the next two years for sector risk management agencies. SRMAs are responsible for overseeing the security of specific critical infrastructure sectors.

“From the banking system to the electric grid, from healthcare to our nation’s water systems and more, we depend on the reliable functioning of our critical infrastructure as a matter of national security, economic security, and public safety,” Mayorkas said in a statement. “The threats facing our critical infrastructure demand a whole of society response and the priorities set forth in this memo will guide that work.

The memo follows on the heels of a national security memorandum signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year. The memo seeks to expand federal oversight of the critical infrastructure sectors. It specifically directed SRMAs to develop new sector risk management plans in the coming year.

China, AI and space

In his memo this week, Mayorkas highlights “cyber and other threats” posed by China as a key priority risk area. U.S. officials earlier this year said Chinese hackers had breached the networks of multiple U.S. critical infrastructure networks.

“Attacks targeting infrastructure essential to protect, support, and sustain military forces and operations worldwide or that may cause potential disruptions to the delivery of key goods or services to the American people must be our top priority,” the memo states. “Leveraging timely and actionable intelligence and information and adopting best practices for security and resilience, SRMAs, critical infrastructure owners and operators, and other SL TT and private sector partners shall devise and implement effective mitigation approaches to identify and address threats from the PRC, including plans to address cross-sector and regional interdependencies.”

It also encourages agencies to work with their respective sectors to mitigate risks posed by artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. Mayorkas also highlights the need to address climate risks, supply chain vulnerabilities, and a growing reliance on space systems, respectively.

Critical infrastructure ‘resilience’

Meanwhile, the memo also highlights several specific mitigation strategies that SRMAs should work into their plans. It specifically states SRMAs should work with critical infrastructure owners and operators to “develop and adopt resilience measures, anticipate potential cascading impacts of adverse incidents, and devise response plans to quickly recover from all types of shocks and stressors.”

“While we cannot keep determined advanced persistent threats or ransomware actors completely at bay or prevent severe weather occurrences, we can minimize the consequences of incidents by understanding critical nodes, assessing dependencies within systems, and developing plans to ensure rapid recovery,” Mayorkas writes.

Furthermore, the memo continues the Biden administration’s push to set minimum cyber standards across critical infrastructure sectors.

“Individual critical infrastructure owners and operators must be encouraged by SRMAs and, where applicable, held accountable by regulators for implementing baseline controls that improve their security and resilience to cyber and all hazard threats,” the memo states. “Establishing minimum cybersecurity requirements as part of these efforts to secure critical infrastructure also aligns with the 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy.”

Mayorkas points to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Cyber Performance Goals, as well as the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, as models for cyber protection standards.

“DHS will work with SRMAs, regulators and private sector entities to ensure that baseline requirements are risk informed, performance-based and to the extent feasible, harmonized and to develop tools that support the adoption of such requirements,” Mayorkas adds.

The memo also encourages agencies to incentivize shared service providers to adopt stronger security measures. And it highlights the need to “identify areas of concentrated risk and systemically important entities.”

The post DHS names China, AI, cyber standards as key priorities for critical infrastructure first appeared on Federal News Network.

Comprehensive data management is key to unlocking seamless, personalized and secure CX for government agencies. Real-time data empowers informed, rapid decision-making, which can improve critical, high-impact federal services where time is of the essence, such as in response to a natural disaster. Alarmingly, only 13% of federal agency leaders report having access to real-time data, and 73% feel they must do more to leverage the full value of data across their agency.

While some agencies are making progress in their IT modernization journeys, they continue to struggle when it comes to quickly accessing the right data due to numerous factors, from ineffective IT infrastructure to internal cultural barriers.

Actionable intelligence is paramount. The ultimate goal is to access the right data at the right moment to generate insights at “the speed of relevance,” as leaders at the Defense Department would say. To achieve the speed of relevance required to make real-time, data-driven decisions, agencies can take steps to enable quicker access to data, improve their data hygiene, and secure their data.

How to effectively intake and store troves of data

From a data infrastructure perspective, the best path to modernized, real-time deployment is using hyper automation and DevSecOps on cloud infrastructures. Many federal agencies have begun this transition from on-premises to cloud environments, but there’s still a long way to go until this transition is complete government-wide.

Implementing a hybrid, multi-cloud environment offers agencies a secure and cost-effective operating model to propel their data initiatives forward. By embracing standardization and employing cloud-agnostic tools for automation, visibility can be enhanced across systems and environments, while simultaneously adhering to service-level agreements and ensuring the reliability of data platforms. Once a robust infrastructure is in place to store and analyze data, agencies can turn their attention to data ingestion tools.

Despite many agency IT leaders utilizing data ingestion tools such as data lakes and warehouses, silos persist. Agencies can address this interoperability challenge by prioritizing flexible, scalable and holistic data ingestion tools such as data mesh. Data mesh tools, which foster a decentralized data management architecture to improve accessibility, can enable agency decision-makers to capitalize on the full spectrum of available data, while still accommodating unique agency requirements.

To ensure data is accessible to decision-makers, it’s important that the data ingestion mechanism has as many connectors as possible to all sources of data that an agency identifies. Data streaming and data pipelines can also enable real-time insights and facilitate faster decision-making by mitigating manual processes. Data streaming allows data to be ingested from multiple systems, which can build a single source of trust for analytical systems. Additionally, these practices limit data branching and siloes, which can cause issues with data availability, quality and hygiene.

Data hygiene and security enable transformative benefits

Data hygiene is imperative, particularly when striving to ethically and accurately utilize data for an autonomous system like AI or ML. A robust data validation framework is necessary to improve data quality. To create this framework, agencies can map their data’s source systems and determine the types of data they expect to yield, but mapping becomes increasingly arduous as databases continue to scale.

One critical success factor is to understand the nature of the data and the necessary validations prior to ingesting the data into source systems. Hygiene can be improved by consuming the raw data into a data lake and then, during conversion, validate the data’s quality before applying any analytics or crafting insights.

In addition to data hygiene, data security must remain a top priority across the federal government as agencies move toward real-time data insights. Adopting a hybrid, multi-cloud environment can lead to a stronger security posture because there are data encryption capabilities inherent in enterprise cloud environments.

Agencies may consider using a maturity model to help their teams assess data readiness and how they are progressing in their cybersecurity frameworks. A maturity model lets agencies identify and understand specific security gaps at each level of the model and provides a roadmap to address these gaps. Ultimately, the cybersecurity framework is as essential as data hygiene to ensure agencies can harness data reliably and efficiently.

When agencies have data management solutions that reduce the friction of navigating siloed government systems and enable faster, more secure collaboration, it enables them to drive innovation. This is especially true for agencies that handle extensive amounts of data. For example, many High Impact Service Providers (HISPs) must manage vast amounts of citizen data to provide critical, public-facing services with speed and scale.

Data is the foundation for modern digital government services. Once data is ingested, stored and secured effectively, the transformational potential of emerging technologies such as AI or RPA can be unlocked. Moreover, with real-time data insights, government decision-makers can use actionable intelligence to improve federal services. It’s essential that agency IT leaders invest in a robust data management strategy and modern data tools to ensure they can make informed decisions and benefit from the power of AI to achieve mission-critical outcomes for the American public.

Joe Jeter is senior vice president of federal technology at Maximus.

The post Robust data management is key to harnessing the power of emerging technologies first appeared on Federal News Network.

The VA is looking at how smart home technologies and wearables like smartwatches could flag when aging and disabled veterans are having a medical emergency.

Joseph Ronzio, VA’s deputy chief health technology officer, said the department is also taking steps to ensure veterans have a stay in who gets this data, and how it may be used.

“Everyone nowadays has some smartness in their home, whether it’s a speaker, whether it’s light switches, whether it’s different types of lights or other physical devices — cameras, motion detectors that leave a digital service,” Ronzio said during a Federal News Network-moderated panel discussion at ATARC’s DevSecOps Summit.

“Most of the time we’re not able to access that digital footprint because it’s kept in a cloud service or a cloud system, and that’s masking to us what’s going on,” he added. “We’ve been able to implement some technologies that have actually been able to unmask it, and then evaluate what is the best kind of healthy and then start detecting where there’s problems.”

This use case hits close to home for VA’s tech leadership. VA’s Chief Health Technology Officer Craig Luigart is a disabled veteran.

Ronzio said Luigart’s Apple Watch has saved his life “multiple times already,” by alerting family members when he’s experienced a medical emergency — and that the same technology can help veterans continue to live in their own homes.

“As we look more and more towards our veteran population who are aging in place and look at the need for skilled nursing beds and skilled nursing facilities over the long haul, or nursing homes, there’s definitely a need for this capability to be refined and developed,” Ronzio said.

The VA pays for disability modifications to veterans’ houses and provides veterans with accessible equipment.

“We are providing those sensors and those technologies. Now we just have to peel the onion on this and start building better algorithms to detect and share that data with caregivers – whether that’s a spouse, whether that’s a child, whether it’s a loved one, whether it’s a friend of the family,” Ronzio said.

As VA continues to develop this project, Ronzio said veterans get to decide who they wish to share data and alerts with, so that that person can support them.

“Everyone always talks about sending data to VA, but we are not ambulance crews, we’re not 9-1-1,” he said. “We need to interact with family members. Having this data available to the family, so that they can understand if that patient’s at a dehydration risk, [or] a fall risk, having mobility challenges, needs to go through advanced rehab — that they can live a happier and healthier life within their home, instead of being put off into a skilled nursing facility or even hospice at a time.”

Ronzio said veterans will always have a say in how their personal data is used.

“Having those data controls in place is tremendously important. From my perspective, I wouldn’t want all of my home data, all of my sleep data, all of my stuff, getting out there to anyone,” he said.

“As we talked about smart homes, my goal has always been to keep the data local to the person’s house. I don’t even want people sharing their data 100% with their medical staff. If you have a problem, we would be pushing out analytics that your devices can analyze your data with. And once you hit a tripwire or you hit a concern, you can select that you just want to share it with your loved ones,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the VA is setting up a Digital Health Office.

“This realignment is going to align a lot of virtual, a lot of AI, and a lot of technologies that typically had responsibilities in other places, into one area,” Ronzio said.

The creation of the Digital Health Office, he added, will impact the reporting structure of several hundred officials within the VA’s Central Office.

“It’s a major change to the organization. They’re moving a lot of different arms of VA under a Digital Health Officer. We have actings and interims in these positions right now for all the senior executives, so we’re still trying to figure out what this is really going to mean for the workforce,” Ronzio said.

VA’s Office of Information and Technology will remain its own separate entity, but Ronzio said the Digital Health Office will allow for greater collaboration with OIT.

“I’m hoping that we can actually improve the speed and efficiency of OIT’s processes to have secure systems rolled out. I’d anticipate that we can save some time just by having our internal communication. But if we can actually develop better relationships with OIT, this will have the potential to have dramatic results,” he said.

“Some of my projects in the past have taken two or three years to manifest. Now that we have access to people in our own organization and have more communication at the undersecretary level and above for digital health, this should actually speed up our iteration and speed up our ability to produce something,” he added.

The post VA looking at ‘smart home’ tech to keep aging, disabled vets living independently first appeared on Federal News Network.

The work is being led out of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER). It comes amid growing concerns about hackers infiltrating U.S. critical infrastructure, including the electric grid.

Puesh Kumar, the director of CESER, said “traditional large fossil generation” is often prohibited by regulations from using the cloud. But he said renewable energy providers are often starting out by relying on cloud computing.

“But really, we haven’t really sat down to define what are the security requirements? Who owns what part of the security picture? Is that the owner and operator? Or is it the cloud service provider?” Kumar said during a cybersecurity panel discussion hosted by Semafor in Washington on Tuesday.

“One of the big efforts that we’re going to be undertaking this year is really bringing together companies like [Google], to actually come together and establish those requirements for both sides, so that we can set up the energy sector of the future with that security built in,” Kumar added.

The CESER office is tasked with addressing emerging threats to energy infrastructure, including cyber risks, climate change and physical security. CESER is leading several initiatives to secure new energy technologies from cyber threats. Those programs are funded as part of the $27 billion Congress provided the Energy Department to modernize the electric grid in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Kumar said the energy sector is going through “tremendous change” right now.

“We’re trying to combat the climate risk,” he said. “We’re trying to deploy more clean energy. We’re trying to deploy more renewables and electric vehicles and all that’s really great. And that can be a source of resilience in our energy sector in the United States. It can bring online more generation that hasn’t been online into our grid. But we also have to do that with security in mind. And so, as we’re fundamentally changing this grid, we have to ensure that security is baked into it.”

In addition to cyber threats targeting the electric grid, policymakers are also focusing more on the so-called “shared responsibility model” that lays out the cybersecurity responsibilities of cloud providers and their customers. The security responsibilities of cloud providers has come under particular scrutiny in the wake of China’s hack into Microsoft’s cloud email infrastructure last year.

Jeanette Manfra, global director for security and compliance at Google, argued large cloud providers can make security “cheaper and easier” for their customers. Manfra is a former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official.

“There’s a huge opportunity to leverage that scale, and to drive cloud providers to increase that level of security and safety and reliability,” Manfra said during the Semafor event. “I do believe it is the responsibility of cloud providers, particularly the largest ones, who are increasingly serving more and more critical infrastructure sectors, to have that high bar of security and safety. But there’s also risk because you start to consolidate on just a few companies. And so you have to think about what does that mean, that concentration risk? You have to think from a policy perspective of how you both leverage that opportunity, while also managing that potential concentration risk.”

The post Energy working with renewables industry, cloud providers on cyber requirements first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that Oregon will opt into Direct File next year, and expects other states will also do so ahead of the next filing season.

The IRS announced last week it will make its Direct File platform a permanent option for taxpayers to file their federal tax returns, after piloting the system this year with 12 states.

More than 140,000 taxpayers used the platform to file federal tax returns this year — exceeding the IRS’ goal of 100,000 users. About 19 million taxpayers living in those 12 states were eligible to use Direct File this year.

The Treasury Department expects at least 580,000 Oregon residents will be eligible to use the free online filing tool next filing season.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told reporters that Direct File will give taxpayers more options to file their taxes.

“Direct File is long overdue. It’s the kind of public service the government ought to be providing to Americans and Oregonians whenever they can,” Wyden said in a call Tuesday.

At a committee hearing at the end of this year’s filing season, Wyden praised the IRS for creating a free website that allows taxpayers to file their federal tax returns.

“The website was user-friendly, quick and easy to use. I went out and talked to some of those people who used it, and that was the answer that I got,” he said. “It didn’t hassle users with up charges for add-on services they didn’t need. It got overwhelmingly positive reviews. With Direct File, I believe the IRS has built a good tool that people are going to like, because it saves time, headaches and money.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement that expanding Direct File will help taxpayers save time and money, “and ensure they receive the tax benefits they are owed.

“After a successful pilot this Filing Season, we are pleased to expand the program as a permanent offering and welcome Oregon as the first new state to offer this free new option to taxpayers,” Yellen said.

The IRS is adding more states to Direct File as House Republicans propose defunding the program.

The House Appropriations Committee released a fiscal 2025 spending bill earlier this month week that would cut IRS funding by nearly 18% and zero out funding for Direct File.

The full committee advanced the bill last week, and awaits a House floor vote.

Wyden told reporters he’ll “fight with everything I’ve got to protect Direct File.”

“If Republicans in the Congress have the opportunity, they are going to put an end to it,” he said.

Congressional Republicans have called Direct File wasteful and duplicative, since some tax software companies already allow taxpayers below a certain income threshold to file online for free through the Free File Alliance program. 

The IRS and U.S. Digital Service spent a combined $31.8 million to launch the Direct File pilot.

However, Wyden said taxpayers deserve more options in how they choose to file.

Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, no longer participates in the IRS Free File program. But Intuit notified some taxpayers in Oregon that its TurboTax software might not have selected the best deduction option, resulting in a possible overpayment to the state.

The state of Oregon says this issue affects about 12,000 of its residents.

“It was another example of how the big software companies have been upcharging for products that aren’t that great to begin with,” Wyden said.

States that opt into Direct File have options in how they participate.

During the Direct File pilot, taxpayers in Arizona, Massachusetts, New York, and California were directed to a state-run tool to complete their state tax returns, after they filed their federal tax returns.

Taxpayers in Arizona, Massachusetts, and New York were also able to import their information from Direct File directly into the state-run platform, making it faster to file their state tax returns.

“Moving from Direct File to the state tool went very smoothly. Taxpayers were able to bring their information with them. It was able to prepopulate a lot of the information needed for a state tax return. And then taxpayers had to answer just a couple of additional state-specific questions to complete the filing of their state return,” an administration official told reporters.

The IRS limited participation in this year’s  Direct File pilot to taxpayers only reporting certain income types, such as wages on a Form W-2, and tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

“Over the next few years, the goal is that direct files eligibility is expanded to cover the most common tax situations, especially those that affect working families,” another administration official told reporters.

The post IRS adds another state to Direct File, as House Republicans seek to defund it first appeared on Federal News Network.

Under the ongoing federal “zero trust” push, data is often considered one of the most important but least mature area for federal agencies.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which maintains the “zero trust maturity model” that serves as a roadmap for agencies, is also working to better understand, protect, and connect its cybersecurity data, according to Grant Dasher, architecture branch chief within the office of the technical director at CISA.

“Data is one of the areas of the zero trust transition that probably has gotten a little bit less attention, but that’s not because it’s not critically important,” Dasher said on Federal News Network. “We do think it’s critically important.”

Dasher said one of his big jobs is to help CISA’s cybersecurity teams gain an understanding of the agency’s internal data holdings. That work is critical to programs like Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM), which provides cybersecurity services and dashboards to the entire federal civilian executive branch.

“We are applying strong security controls to the data that we steward, and making sure that we understand it and connect it between different parts of the mission, so that they can make effective use of it,” Dasher said.

CISA’s chief data stewards

To help address the data challenge, Dasher said CISA has identified “chief data stewards” who are responsible for managing specific datasets across the agency. Those responsibilities include identifying the metadata characteristics that are necessary to both share and protect the information in question.

“We think developing that understanding is critical, because then on top of that, you can put in place data governance controls,” Dasher said. “You can say, ‘Okay, well, this person is the data owner, or the data steward. And so this is the person who should be able to approve, for example, access requests to that data by other parts of the organization’.”

CISA’s zero trust support

Combining data access controls with strong identity governance is a key aspect of moving away from perimeter-based cybersecurity and toward a zero trust architecture.

Within the CDM program, CISA has made a major investment in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools that agencies are adopting as part of the zero trust push. Dasher said CISA has also helped some smaller agencies with identity security. And the cyber agency is also helping agencies adopt its Secure Cloud Business Applications (SCuBA) guidance.

Ultimately, though, Dasher said there’s no one-size-fits all solution to improving data security across federal agencies. But he said its key for agencies to embrace established best practices in cyber risk management.

“There’s a natural tension here between enabling access to support the mission and providing security,” Dasher said. “We can’t let security become something that prevents the government from delivering services to its to its constituents. But we have to protect the data. And so finding how to triangulate that is really the crux of data protection.”

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In a step toward enabling the next-generation synchronized command and control, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks recently announced the Defense Department has delivered its initial iteration of the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) capability. While this marks a notable advancement, DoD must continue its efforts to evolve CJADC2 beyond its current basic operational ability. To achieve seamless integration of assets and personnel, defense leaders should model after the successful implementation of the Mission Partner Environment (MPE) in the Indo-Pacific region, which offers valuable lessons.    

The operational intricacy    

At their core, MPEs are designed to facilitate real-time communication of relevant information among U.S. military and mission partners while maintaining necessary security levels to guide warfighter decision-makers. Traditionally, it involves a desk with multiple screens, each connected to a different network, unique access codes and encryption protocols, and a KVM switch to control it all.     

In the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), those days are gone.     

Taking a multi-enclave client (MEC) approach, the desk is now simplified to a single console. Authorized users can access and share relevant information from various sources using an integrated mission network, so decisions can be made in real time, and coalition environments can be formed in days instead of weeks.    

Conquering the complexity    

DoD can duplicate USINDOPACOM’s transformation to rapidly implement multi-enclave environments on a broader scale in support of CJADC2. The sheer volume of approximately 17,000 isolated and protected computing environments supported by the command’s network is a testament to the MEC capability built on a hyper-converged infrastructure and private cloud architecture. Virtual infrastructure, which includes desktop virtualization hosting desktop environments on a central server, plays a vital role in connecting all the elements of the MPE landscape, such as applications, data, clouds, APIs, processes, chat, voice and video devices.     

USINDOPACOM’s effective consolidation of siloed data, duplicate copies of information, and separate networks into a single sign-on, data-centric information domain represents a pivotal stride toward the realization of JADC2 and, ultimately, CJADC2. This demonstration of the U.S. military’s robust capability to share information across domains instantly and securely will encourage allies and partners to actively engage in the exchange of intelligence and collaboration necessary to establish a formidable and unyielding collective defense posture.     

However, the next step of enabling instantaneous but strictly controlled access to ensure the right data is released to authorized users is an intense undertaking. It requires a ground-up, zero-trust architecture design that undergoes continuous testing to detect vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them.    

To facilitate safe and secure communication for the U.S. and its allies during peacetime and conflict, USINDOPACOM transitioned defenses from static, network-based perimeters to focus on the users, assets and resources. Bolstering security through zero trust identity verification to provide the right people access to the right information in the right place enabled granular control of data and assets, resulting in a more secure and controlled mission partner environment.    

Setting the stage for AI     

By prioritizing data and taking a rigorous approach to its access to ensure integrity, USINDOPACOM has paved the way for the adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning to support decision-making. In such a data-centric network environment, artificial intelligence and machine learning can be deployed to continuously monitor and analyze information to identify threats or opportunities as they emerge. The ability to quickly scour through thousands of pieces of data to elevate pertinent information for review and flag trends, threats and opportunities provides a significant decision advantage, allowing accelerated tasking and advanced force management. It is an example of a proactive approach to future readiness that can guide the evolution of CJADC2.     

Success template    

The deployment of USINDOPACOM’s MPE has been a sophisticated and collaborative effort that required a combination of best practices, advanced technologies and skilled personnel. It relied on a multi-team integration framework that functioned as a requirements traceability matrix for all projects. The project lifecycle comprised repeatable processes mapped to a structured work plan that supported over 250 standard and non-standard USINDOPACOM Theater Component Command requirements.    

Several operational lessons can be drawn from USINDOPACOM’s MPE deployment to aid CJADC2 success. First, designing, implementing and maintaining information domains involves adept configuration of hardware and software, security and integrity assurance, performance monitoring, and troubleshooting for numerous application service centers, hundreds of service points and thousands of endpoints. Second, a team of proficient network engineers is essential for this rigorous undertaking. Lastly, managing MPE enclaves and their authority to operate necessitates a disciplined, structured process and the integration of information security and risk management activities throughout the system development life cycle.  

 Proof positive  

USINDOPACOM has dramatically enhanced its capacity to exchange information and intelligence, collaborate, and establish interoperability with partner nations and organizations. That transformation illuminated the path forward for enabling JADC2 and, subsequently, CJADC2.  

Steve Robles is vice president of Coalition Network Engineering at SOSi.  

The post USINDOPACOM Mission Partner Environment success:  A blueprint for CJADC2 path forward  first appeared on Federal News Network.

After June 2024, the National Archives and Records Administration will no longer accept analog records into their collections. Agencies across the country are tasked with transitioning paper and physical records into digital formats. One of those agencies, the Tennessee Valley Authority, has already taken significant steps to meet those requirements.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility corporation, provides services to Tennessee, along with portions of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, a population of approximately 10 million customers. With that mission comes the responsibility to collect, maintain and provide public access to an enormous and ever-growing number of records and documents like annual and quarterly reports, bond offerings, notice of reservoir levels, maps, charts, models and other general information.

“Over the last five years, we’ve consistently generated around five million electronic records a year. That’s just under about 10 terabytes of records. Now overall, on any given day, we manage around 200 million temporary and permanent records that are in various stages of the records management lifecycle,” said Rebecca Coffey, Tennessee Valley Authority agency records officer and senior manager of enterprise records, on Federal Insights – Records Management.

Temporary and permanent records

The TVA, like most agencies, manages a collection of temporary and permanent records. The process for disposition of records is public to provide stakeholders continued access to where they are in the records management lifecyle.

“An agency will prepare a proposed schedule, send it to their designated archivist. Once we get an informal nod that this looks good and it aligns with other agencies, then those schedules get published in the Federal Register, and the public and other federal agencies have a chance to comment on them.” Coffey said

Records are made up of a variety of formats. What were primarily reports on paper make up about 70% of what is generated at TVA. The other 30%, considered mixed media, consists of text messages, emails, instant message chats, maps, photographs and other data streams that are generated as TVA conducts its work, like monitoring river levels.

“When they go to NARA for the final approval, they will decide the time frame. If the records have significant value, historical value, whether they are telling the story of TVA or the impact in the national story, the federal records will become permanent, which means that at a designated time, they will get sent to NARA. We will turn over ownership of those records to the National Archives,” Coffey said, on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. “We obviously have different plans for how we’re going to manage those records, and it changes every year. With new technology comes new formats.”

Digital Transformation

“NARA is not focused so much on ‘have you digitized everything by this deadline,’ as much as it is ‘what is your plan,’ because obviously, across the federal agencies we don’t all have the resources to be able to implement it immediately,” Coffey said.

Agencies must also contend with digital records organization. Once transformed from paper to a digital entity, documents must also be encoded with metadata to make it searchable and easily retrieved when needed. NARA works as a partner for agencies in the digitization process. In the past, most records could be counted on to be a printout, but that has changed. Following directives from NARA and the Office of Management and Budget in 2011 and beyond, requiring an overhaul of records management, TVA has been operating under a series of initiatives.

“I’m really proud of the work our TVA team is doing. This has to do with some of our cultural resource records, our mapping and aerial photographs. We have a collection that goes back 100 years, and obviously those are not going to be the easiest things to digitize. We have our project: We are processing over a million frames of film and about 300,000 hard-copy maps. And what the team has done is they’ve thought about not just how we use them today, but how we could possibly use them in the future,”  Coffey said.

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As its own ‘client zero’, IBM identified its human resources function back in 2017 for transformation with artificial intelligence. Today, the function is fully automated, and IBM has a wealth of insights and learnings to share that they hope can help federal agencies avoid some of the same pitfalls.

IBM took an AI-driven approach to transforming its HR function. For its test bed, the company used itself and came away with valuable lessons learned.

Now IBM can help federal agencies apply those lessons and — hopefully — avoid some of the same mistakes. That’s according to Mike Chon, IBM’s vice president and senior partner of talent transformation for the U.S. federal market.

“IBM has gained the efficiencies, it’s delivered on the employee experience, it has achieved a lot of the automations [and] productivity gains,” Chon said.

He cited statistics that tell the story. IBM employees have had nearly two million HR conversations with a virtual agent. Those have achieved resolution in 94% of the cases, meaning the employee didn’t need to proceed to a conversation with a live person.

Manager productivity

When seeking HR efficiencies, organizations tend to think initially in terms of self-service for employees. But Chon urged IT and HR staffs to think more broadly to include managers too.

“I also want to emphasize manager self-service,” he said. “I think that’s where the additional value can come in.”

It also requires a bit of rewiring of manager habits. Chon said that initially, he, like many experienced managers, was less inclined to invoke a chatbot than to simply call his HR representative with questions.

“I myself did not really adopt that [AI] paradigm right away,” he said. “My muscle memory was to call an HR person. Clock forward to today … I actually tend to go to our AI chatbot more than an HR manager.”

He added, IBM managerial uptake of the HR chatbot has reached 96% worldwide, accounting for 93% of the transactions.

HR presents a natural entry point for AI because it touches everyone.

“By introducing AI through HR, you’re really having this ability to embed the use of these tools throughout your enterprise,” Chon said. “I think that really starts to get people more comfortable.”

Use case approach

Having chosen the HR function, Chon said, IBM initially tried an overly comprehensive approach.

“When we first started this journey, we tried to boil the ocean. It was this big bang approach,” Chon said.

The company realized almost immediately that the tool wasn’t quite right, and people weren’t embracing it.

Lesson learned?

“Never seek the silver bullet,” Chon said. “It really forced everyone to put the brakes on this process” and rethink their approach.

The rethinking resulted in what Chon called a building block, use case-by-use case approach. The team started by identifying specific high-frequency or highly repetitive tasks, the automation of which would allow the team to spend less time on routine tasks and more on strategic, value add work. Data connected to each task helped with this identification, which  ultimately allowed the team to identify two use cases: employee time off and proof-of-employment letters. Before AI, employees would ask their HR representative how many vacation days they had left, and it could take days for HR to prepare and send employee proof of employment letters, Chon said. These tasks represented some of the most repetitive and time consuming for the function.

“AI gave employees the ability to find out their vacation days in seconds and generate their own employee verification letter from anywhere, anytime. And they get instant satisfaction because it happens right in front of them,” Chon said.

In the employment verification letter  use case, AI took the form of robotic process automation, he added.

Moreover, if a particular step to a task doesn’t work, HR and IT could simply turn it off and improve it, without affecting everything else that’s working well.

It’s also important to understand that in a small percentage of cases, employees will need to interact with humans; no AI agent can do everything. Therefore, Chon said, “we always give people the ability to connect to a live agent.” Careful data analysis of what leads to “off-ramps” helps with continuous improvement of the AI tool, he said.

Ultimately, Chon said, the HR AI-driven self-service option for employees and managers lets HR professionals become more productive, taking the drudgery out of HR processes, leaving people more time for “tackling things like recruiting and other high value activities like talent development.”

Ultimately, the key lessons learned from IBM’s experience center on employing a use-case driven approach. AI is successfully adopted with small wins, building blocks and steps. Larger, more strategic and transformational use cases don’t have one clear answer or outcome. The key is finding a use case — a workflow, process or task — that could be accelerated or improved through automation. This also allows for easier scaling to other parts of the agency.

“Now, I would say, seven years later, each time the team launches a new use case, it’s actually getting better and better,” Chon said.

Listen to the full show:

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During this webinar, you will gain the unique perspective of top federal and industry technology experts:

• David Larrimore, Chief Technology Officer, Department of Homeland Security
• Kaschit Pandya, Chief Technology Officer, Internal Revenue Service
• Doug Robertson, Chief Technology Officer, Small Business Administration
• Christopher Wallace, Chief of Cybersecurity and Chief Technology Officer, Program Executive Office, Defense Healthcare Management Systems
• Adam Clater, Chief Architect, North American Public Sector, Red Hat
• Greg Carl, Principal Technologist, Pure Storage
• Moderator: Luke McCormack, Host of the Federal Executive Forum

Panelists also will share lessons learned, challenges and solutions, and a vision for the future.

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In Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike frequently sponsor bills to invest more in STEM education and fill gaps in the cyber workforce. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is also implementing a widely supported national cyber workforce and education strategy.

But while everyone agrees there’s a gap, data on the U.S. cyber workforce is severely lacking compared to many other occupations. And as a new report shows, it’s often because official labor and education sources don’t yet reflect the changing landscape of cybersecurity work.

The Cybersecurity Workforce Data Initiative, authorized as part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, aims to “assess the feasibility of producing national estimates and statistical information on the cybersecurity workforce.” The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, housed within the National Science Foundation, is leading the initiative.

In May, the CWDI released a report on “cybersecurity workforce supply and demand” led by RTI International, a nonprofit research institute.

The report lays out many of the challenges in obtaining granular, ground-truth data on the cybersecurity workforce, as well as some recommendations for addressing those problems.

For instance, one of the most commonly used guides for explaining cybersecurity work is the “NICE Framework,” maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Widely regarded as essential to understanding different cyber roles, the NICE Framework has not been translated to align with traditional federal labor data used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Census Bureau.

“The NICE framework is not intended to be a prescriptive taxonomy. By our definition, and that within the NICE framework, cybersecurity does not fit easily into a single occupation code or title, and this presents a challenge to using existing labor market data,” Michael Hogan, one of the lead authors on the new repot, said during a June 10 workshop hosted by CWDI.

“In the absence of traditional data, administrative data providers have filled that gap,” Hogan added.

Those administrative providers include CyberSeek, a public-private partnership, that serves as one of the most commonly cited sources for cyber workforce data. CyberSeek currently estimates that there are nearly 470,000 open cybersecurity jobs across the country.

Another commonly referenced resource is ISC2’s cyber workforce study, which recently estimated there are 5.5 million cybersecurity workers and nearly 4 million job opening across the globe.

“These data and surveys are very valuable for capturing a subset of the workforce, but we believe that this data does not yet encompass the entire state of supply and demand for cybersecurity workers,” Hogan explained.

While many new pieces of legislation focus on increasing STEM education and expanding the pipeline of STEM graduates, the CWDI report notes that only 46% of college graduates in core cybersecurity positions had a degree that was closely related to their work.

“There is a lack of information about the knowledge, skills, and credentials required for cybersecurity work, the on-ramps into cybersecurity jobs, and the source of a potential mismatch between the work experience sought by employers versus the experience held by new graduates,” the report explains.

Part of the challenge is that cybersecurity is still a relatively new and evolving field. But yet another wrinkle is that while there are jobs that are clearly cybersecurity positions – information security analyst, for example – many other jobs could be considered cybersecurity-adjacent, as the CWDI report notes.

“We know that nearly every occupation today touches digital technology, and there are cybersecurity components to go along with it,” Hogan said. “This presents a challenge for us in putting a boundary around the cybersecurity workforce.”

The report offers a range of initial recommendations to better understand the cybersecurity workforce. It recommends, for instance, merging NIST’s NICE Framework with the Occupational Information Network, a public database sponsored by the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration.

It also recommends improving the Standard Occupational Classification to better reflect cybersecurity workers. The SOC is maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is used by federal agencies to classify workers into occupational categories.

Similar, the report recommends improving the Education Department’s Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) to better capture cybersecurity schooling data.

Meanwhile, Hogan said CWDI will continue to collect data and feedback as it prepares to potentially launch a pilot survey of the U.S. cybersecurity workforce later this year.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michele Sandiford

The first known computer virus (worm) to replicate over a computer network (The Creeper worm) was created by BBN engineer Robert Thomas in 1971.

Source: Computer Timeline

The post NSF initiative aims to bring better data to the cyber workforce challenge first appeared on Federal News Network.

The agency’s Document Upload Tool is giving taxpayers an online option to submit required documents to the IRS when they get a notice from the tax agency in the mail.

Taxpayers no longer have to snail-mail their documents, and they can expect a faster response from the agency. The IRS launched the Document Upload Tool in 2021, and recently received its millionth submission from the tool.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement that the Document Upload Tool “is a key part of our ambitious initiative to transform the IRS into a virtually paperless agency, and we continue to see increased use of this by taxpayers.”

Wanda Brown, project director of Inflation Reduction Act Implementation within the IRS’ Wage and Investment division, called the 1 million submissions a “big milestone” for the Document Upload Tool.

“Consider the fact that we get a lot of paper in from the mail, this is making a dent in that,” Brown said on June 5 in a panel discussion on IRS IT modernization hosted by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

The IRS estimates more than 94% of individual taxpayers no longer need to send mail to the agency, and that 125 million pieces of correspondence can be submitted digitally each year.

“People say, ‘Oh, you’re just digitizing paper. Yes, but we’re providing access to it,” said Darnita Trower, the director of emerging programs and initiatives at the IRS. “Think about all the times a taxpayer has called and you need something. Someone somewhere has to make a request to files, to go pull the file and get that piece of paper. We are now providing data at your fingertips. You can just go to the screen search for it and render it as long as you have the security rights to do so.”

Brown and Trower are both finalists for this year’s Service to America Medals program — in addition to Gerald Johnson, an IRS IT specialist.

A backlog of paper-based tax returns and correspondence hobbled the IRS at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Taxpayer Advocate went so far as to call paper the agency’s “kryptonite.”

For taxpayers who still prefer filing paper tax returns, Trower said the IRS is working on being able to digitize that paper return.

“If you choose to send us the paper, we will process it. But we are ushering in some nice tools with the modernization. We don’t intend to have people continue keying in tax returns manually. We want to scan and extract that data,” she said.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found the IRS received about 1.2 million paper tax returns during this year’s filing season. That’s about an 8.5% reduction from the more than 1.3 million paper tax returns it handled the previous year.

“We are actively working on one of our initiatives, so that for taxpayers that choose to send in their tax return to us via paper, that we’re able to take that and really put it into a digital format and process it through our downstream systems,” Trower said.

The IRS is also scanning and digitizing some of the paper documents at its service centers.

“It’s a two-pronged approach – reducing the amount of paper that we have coming into the organization and files that we’re storing. Being able to scan some of that paper, that helps us to make data available, information and images available for our employees, so they can assist the taxpayers,” Brown said.

The IRS sends out about 3,600 notices and letters to taxpayers. But as of April this year, the agency now has 20 of its most commonly used forms available to fill out and submit on mobile devices.

“Taxpayers can go to IRS.gov, pull down their form, enter it on any device. It’s adaptive – and be able to just hit submit,” Brown said.

Trower said the IRS plans to make an additional 150 forms mobile-adaptive over the next calendar year.

“The majority of those that require a response, you can just go to any device and upload and provide your response to the IRS,” she said.

The IRS is also taking steps to modernize and improve its internal systems, in an effort to provide better customer service to taxpayers.

The agency is looking to consolidate its 63 legacy case management systems into one enterprise case management system.

The IRS has been working on moving to a single enterprise case management for years. Trower said the next step is to roll out a digital inventory management system.

“That will allow us to have enhanced workflows, get things where they need to be, if it landed in the wrong bucket, we can redirect it. But more importantly, when it comes to case management, we’re building it on the same platform as enterprise case management,” she said.

The IRS next year will also test out a long-awaited update to the Individual Master File, its authoritative data source for individual tax account data.

The IRS expects to turn on a modernized version of the IMF for the first time in April 2024 – after the tax filing season — and run it in parallel with its legacy system. Werfel said the IRS hopes to have the updated IMF up and running by the following filing season.

Trower said the IMF serves as the backbone of the filing season, and modernizing the legacy system will give IRS employees “real-time access to all the data that they need to be able to do their job.”

She added that the updated IMF will also give taxpayers better access to their own history of interactions with the IRS — and the status of receiving those.

“You should be able to upload something from your phone and log into your account and see, ‘Here’s my upload that’s tied to this notice that I received,’ and maybe get some of your own questions answered — like, ‘Did you get it?’ That’s probably a common question — ‘I sent something in the mail. Did you get it?’” Trower said.

Jessica Lucas-Judy, director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office, said the IRS, as it modernizes its legacy IT infrastructure, should also address the fact that it doesn’t have a comprehensive inventory of systems that contain taxpayer information.

“It’s very difficult to know if you are being successful in protecting that information if you don’t know where it is,” Lucas-Judy said.

GAO recommends the IRS complete a comprehensive inventory of where it stores taxpayer information.

Much of the IRS’ ongoing IT modernization efforts are supported by the Inflation Reduction Act, which gives the agency about $60 billion in multi-year modernization funds.

The legislation provided $4.8 billion in business systems modernization at the IRS.

“Consistent funding for the IRS is key. Right now, with the IRA, we’re able to make leaps and strides in that space. With the funding, we can do the right planning, we can incorporate new technology,” Trower said.

The post IRS hit a ‘big milestone’ to wean itself off paper. What comes next? first appeared on Federal News Network.

A pivotal deadline looms large for federal agencies: digital message compliance. Starting June 30, 2024, all federal agencies will be required to archive agency records digitally. That’s right, the end of paper culture is finally here. But for far too long, there’s been a lot of confusion over what exactly digital messages entail, what the expectations are for reporting them and a lack of tools to submit data to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in a way that’s easy, secure and proactive. And to further complicate things, NARA broadened the meaning of digital messages in January 2023 to include text messages, so there’s yet another factor to consider. Let’s focus on text messages since that’s the latest addition.

So many important business transactions, official policies and decisions are done via texting, so failing to archive them can make it hard to stay transparent, accountable and in compliance with the law. Once NARA’s deadline hits, non-compliance can lead to information gaps during federal investigations, create PR headaches, and potentially result in substantial fines and penalties.

Understanding NARA’s text message regulations

So, what exactly is NARA tracking? Text messages from federal workers are deemed public records and must be archived. NARA is expecting access to digital messages sent or received by federal employees, including SMS and MMS messages – meaning photos, videos, voice notes and even emojis. Considering these different types of messages plus the fact that they need to be monitored across agency networks, personal devices and different phone operating systems like Android and iOS means there are several layers of complexity to navigate.

NARA also expects agencies to retain metadata associated with these texts. Including timestamps, device information, attachments and even emoji reactions. Yes, you read that right – even a simple thumbs-up emoji might serve as evidence in a federal case.

The NARA guidelines recommend evaluating whether messages need to be archived based on whether they contain:

• Evidence of agency policies, business or mission
• Information that is exclusively available in electronic messages
• Official agency information
• A business need for the information

It’s clear that federal agencies are facing an increasingly complex and dynamic digital landscape filled with constantly changing expectations. Outdated processes are no match for this complexity, and they’re holding agencies back from staying compliant. The answer? Solutions that do the heavy lifting. To make life easier, agencies should have a platform that automatically captures text messages, images, and videos, and is tightly integrated with their wireless provider. It should also leverage the latest security protocols and make it easy to generate reports that are audit ready.

Streamlining text message archiving for federal agencies

Companies like 3rd Eye Technologies have spent years perfecting a solution to keep data safe for federal organizations, including agencies in charge of the highest levels of national security and intelligence. That’s why T-Mobile teamed up with the mobile solutions provider to make it as easy as possible for federal customers to know that the data they’re archiving is not only easy to manage but safe.

Mystic Messaging Archival is a turn-key solution from 3rd Eye Technologies that specializes in securely capturing and archiving texts – that includes SMS and MMS message logs for federal and enterprise customers. Mystic is fully integrated into the T-Mobile network, meaning there is no need for any additional applications or software on the phone, making implementation across the agency simple and swift once the agency purchases the solution from 3rd Eye Technologies or T-Mobile. And because the solution is configured at the network level, it is archiving every SMS/MMS message in real-time and is storing them securely for reporting, so the messages do not need to be self-reported unless specified by agency protocols. The messages then travel over 5G where they’re archived in a hosted cloud and the data remains owned by the agency.

Mystic’s cloud-based solution is also “FedRAMP Ready” in the FedRAMP marketplace, which means it is ready for Agency Authority to Operate (ATO). Not all archiving solutions have that distinction due to the highly rigorous standards involved, so it’s a major advantage. And when pairing Mystic technology with T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G network and 5G standalone technology, messages are transmitted over a secure channel, enhancing protection against vulnerabilities such as cyber attacks (commonly found in Wi-Fi networks).

Mystic also ensures that SMS/MMS data from any lost, stolen, or damaged mobile device is automatically archived, safeguarding information despite the physical status of the device.

Preparing for NARA compliance

Mystic’s eDiscovery console – the mechanism that actually generates the reports — is designed to streamline the entire process of collecting, storing, managing, securing and reviewing text messages from mobile devices. This centralized reporting console consolidates all data from subscribed agency enterprise mobile devices. This console is accessible by the Agency Headquarters, allowing for efficient management and oversight of all archived communications. This way agencies can quickly and easily respond to all types of legal requests, investigations or regulatory requirements. And because Mystic and T-Mobile are already tightly integrated through the 5G network, getting set up takes only 10 days or less.

Here’s the bottom line: agencies need to move fast. The NARA deadline is close and the right tools and partners will make all the difference in preparing for it. The clock is ticking, but it’s not too late to get ahead of the game with a solution that makes text archiving easy, integrates into your existing processes seamlessly and stays up to date with the latest guidelines so you don’t have to.

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