Topic: It Infrastructure

Industry analysts suggest Southwest Airlines' collapse was caused by an obsolete crew-rescheduling system known as "REACCOM" that failed to handle mass disruptions. The airline's corporate culture reportedly declined following the death of founder Herb Kelleher, leading to speculation about potential bankruptcy or acquisition. There is further speculation that the crisis may be used to renew political interest in high-speed rail projects.

The Pentagon is moving toward a single service provider for its IT needs to cut redundancies, a move the hosts view as a major security risk. They also discuss the "Einstein 3" intrusion detection system, which monitors government traffic on private sector sites like AT&T, and criticize the program's effectiveness.

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified that the Healthcare.gov website cost approximately $118 million. IT insiders report that the contractors, including CGI Federal, failed to use basic version control systems like Git or Subversion. The project is described as "amateur hour," with testing consisting of simple command-line tools rather than robust quality assurance.

Sylvia Burwell, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, discusses the logistical hurdles of restarting the federal government after a 16-day shutdown. The hosts find humor in her claim that government-issued handheld devices might face technical issues due to lack of use.

During her town hall, Hillary Clinton announced that the State Department would finally be upgrading its IT infrastructure to include Internet Explorer 8 and an optional deployment of Google Chrome. The hosts mock the department for being years behind modern technology standards and discuss the internal "sounding board" where employees complained about browser limitations.

HP offices in Moscow were recently raided, leading to speculation that data from the crashed Polish presidential plane may have been intercepted. HP is deeply embedded in European government IT systems, including the Swedish Parliament and the UK Ministry of Defense, raising concerns about mass information collection.

The stimulus package allocates $20 billion for health information technology, which is compared to the failed, over-budget IT projects of the UK's National Health Service. Additionally, $11 billion is earmarked for a "smart grid" to transmit renewable energy, despite questions about the actual state of the current national grid.