https

From Launch to Landing: How NASA Took Control of Its HTTPS Mission

18F Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Karim Said of NASA. Karim was instrumental in NASA’s successful HTTPS and HSTS migration, and we’re happy to help Karim share the lessons NASA learned from that process. In 2015, the White House Office of Management and Budget released M-15-13, a “Policy to Require Secure Connections

Karim Said

May 26, 2017

DotGov Domain Registration Program to Provide HTTPS Preloading in May

Effective May 15, 2017, GSA’s DotGov Domain Registration Program will begin providing HSTS Preloading services for federal agencies. HSTS stands for HTTP Strict Transport Security (or HTTPS, for short). This new service helps ensure that visitor communication with .gov websites is not modified or compromised, and hostile networks cannot inject malware, tracking beacons, or otherwise monitor

Marina Fox

Eric Mill

Apr 12, 2017

New ITIF Report Inspires a Closer Look at Website Performance and Security—Here Is Where to Begin

The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) recently published a report, Benchmarking U.S. Government Websites, that looks at the performance, security, and accessibility of the top 297 government websites. ITIF is a think tank in Washington, D.C. whose mission is to formulate, evaluate, and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation in technology and public policy.

Digital.gov Team

Mar 24, 2017

Automatic HTTPS Enforcement for New Executive Branch .Gov Domains

HTTPS is a necessary baseline for security on the modern web. Non-secure HTTP connections lack integrity protection, and can be used to attack citizens, foreign nationals, and government staff. HTTPS provides increased confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity that mitigate these attacks. In June 2015, the White House required all new federal web services to support and

Eric Mill

Marina Fox

Jan 19, 2017

Why Switching to HTTPS Will Make Your Analytics Better

Federal agencies are required to make all federal websites accessible through a secure, HTTPS-only connection by the end of the 2016 calendar year. What you might not have known is that the switch to HTTPS will improve your ability to track which sites are directing web traffic to yours. Recently, a federal colleague reached out

Tim Lowden

Jun 06, 2016

Trends on Tuesday: 10 Mobile, Government and Tech Trends for 2016

As we move into 2016, here are 10 trends I foresee flourishing around mobile, technology and government: The mobile-majority tipping point in government. Many agencies are already past this point, but as a whole, government websites are still desktop-majority, with 66% of people accessing federal websites via desktop and 34% on mobile. In 2016, the double-digit mobile

Will Sullivan

Jan 12, 2016

18F Reflects on Their Most Meaningful Projects in 2015

2015 was a big year for 18F. We almost doubled in size, worked with 28 different agency partners, and released products ranging from Design Method Cards to cloud.gov. Internally, we improved onboarding and our documentation by releasing guides on topics as diverse as content, accessibility, and creating good open source projects. To mark the end

Melody Kramer

Dec 29, 2015

The Content Corner: The Balance Between SEO and the User

I always think of SEO like the dentist—no one really likes it, but you need to do it. Yet, despite my lack of excitement for the topic, this will be at a minimum my second post (here’s the first) about the relationship between creating good content and SEO practices. Today I want to dive a little

Tyrus Manuel

Nov 30, 2015

HTTPS and Other Ranking Factors: What Impacts the SEO of Government Websites?

Following the recent OMB memo that all publicly available federal websites and Web services must implement HTTPS by December 31, 2016, Web content managers across government are considering the SEO (search engine optimization) implications of the transition, among other details.

Dawn Pointer McCleskey

Sep 02, 2015

Secure Central Hosting for the Digital Analytics Program

The U.S. government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP) collects Web traffic and analytics data from across the federal government.

Eric Mill

Aug 14, 2015

HTTPS For All

With the release of a new dashboard to measure best Web practices in the federal government and the establishment of a government-wide HTTPS Only Standard, the time to make the switch to HTTPS has arrived. Agencies have until December 31, 2016, to make the switch. The move to HTTPS is not only happening in government;

Kendrick Daniel

Jun 15, 2015

Taking the Pulse of the Federal Government’s Web Presence

The U.S. federal government is launching a new project to monitor how it’s doing at best practices on the Web. A sort of health monitor for the U.S. government’s websites, it’s called Pulse and you can find it at pulse.cio.gov. Pulse is a lightweight dashboard that uses the official .gov domain list

Jun 03, 2015

HTTP vs HTTPS: Is it Time For a Change?

Data. Security. Privacy. These are the cornerstones of many discussions concerning technology. The security of citizen information when interacting with the federal government will be increasingly important as we progress into the future. A few agencies have begun to use Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) in lieu of the standard HTTP. For these agencies,

Kendrick Daniel

Mar 25, 2015

DigitalGov Monthly Theme: How Data and Code Improve Government Services

Data and code are the foundation, building blocks, and cornerstone of government digital services. They are the keys that open the door to a better digital government future and are fundamental in making government more open.