Washingtonpost.com: At FOSE, English as a Second Language

Byline: Robert MacMillan

I spent part of the last two days at FOSE , and now I find myself reevaluating my English skills.

FOSE is a technology trade show financed by washingtonpost.com's parent company. Representatives of hundreds of technology firms descend upon the Washington Convention Center every spring about this time and try to persuade federal government decisionmakers to buy their products for their agencies. It's pronounced "FAH-see" like Dian Fossey or Bob Fosse . It used to stand for "Federal Office Systems Expo," but the acronym clings on even though it's come to mean much more than staplers and copy machines.

FOSE celebrated its 29th anniversary this week, and based on the several years that I've attended it, I can say that its participants remain dedicated to a patois of technology terms and government gobbledygook that would bewilder Umberto Eco . The result is that the news organizations that cover this annual trade show write about it in such a way that few would bother reading about it.

This aversion is unfortunate, if understandable. It's difficult for the average reader to get excited by come-ons such as "viewable solutions for facility management" and "the only KVM switch evaluated by NIAP to meet EAL4 common criteria."

Nevertheless, FOSE is the first stage in a process that will touch people's lives. Most importantly, one could argue, this trade show is about money. Many technology companies hawking their wares here specialize in "streamlining" processes now used by government agencies. The ultimate goal? Making the agencies' technology more efficient. We the people see the practical effects of such efforts at Web sites such as the IRS.gov , which allows us to file our returns online. (Psst, you have one week left!)

The lingo bandied about at FOSE also tends to mask some services that are pretty cool. At booth 3629, I was bewildered by the mission statement of a company called Tadpole Computer : "Deployable solutions for secure applications." What on earth does that mean? I asked two of the company's executives.

It turns out that what the company does is way more interesting than its tagline. Tadpole develops computers and servers (with names like "Bullfrog," of course) that military and covert forces can drop into a remote area or combat zone with their troops, and then quickly move them out again. Normally, this would involve moving hundreds of pounds of equipment, but Tadpole has it down to a couple small laptops and a server that could fit in a backpack. It's technology for the busy black ops professional.

There are other genuinely interesting companies making pitches at FOSE. Red Dot Solutions , says President Detlef Kamps , helps people who don't know much about technology create and publish their data in electronic media. OK, not too sophisticated a purpose, but an invaluable one for people who don't like getting technical.

Then there's Senforce , which designs technology to let people use wireless devices without exposing sensitive data. You, the busy Dept. of Energy analyst, want to take your laptop to Starbucks to do some work on their wireless network, but don't want the top secret nuclear reactor safety plans to be available to any espresso-fueled hackers nearby? Senforce has your back.

These are the kinds of technologies that have far more practical uses than the deadening FOSE jargon would ever lead anyone to believe. Some, however, say that talking the talk is part of the process. Washington, D.C., is, after all, a company town. From defense contracting to Capitol Hill to the intricate federal personnel management system, Washingtonians rely on acronyms, abbreviations and varying strains of bureaucratese that were designed to streamline their jobs. In doing so, they've made the term "Inside the Beltway" a synonym for alien, unintelligible or, worse, detached from reality.

The federal government's technology procurement process is, at its root, about making government work better. That is supposed to make it better equipped to serve us. After two days at FOSE, I recommend that the contractors and government officials declare a jargon cease fire. A little demystifying of the presentation would go a long way toward making this topic fascinating to the American public that all this technology is supposed to be serving.

So, when do we start?

Instant Mess

We already brought you the story of thieves robbing people of their iPods on the New York City's subway system. Now, instant messaging chatter has led to a physical assault that occurred just off the Boston T . A group of teenagers attacked a 14-year-old girl as she got off the train, leaving her unconscious on the railroad tracks.

"The victim said that through friends last fall she met the boy she believes arranged the ambush. The boy asked her out, she said, but she turned him down, because her parents do not allow her to date. She could not see him in person, she said, so they chatted online. She exchanged instant messages with the boy and his friends, she said. They sparred online one day in January," the Boston Globe reported. "... A girl who was friends with the boy then immediately sent her a message threatening to beat her up, she said. Weeks went by and she forgot about it, until Wednesday, she said, when more than a dozen teenagers surrounded her on the train at Ashmont Station and taunted her until the train pulled into Adams Station in Milton, where she got off to walk home."

The Globe article quoted the father as saying that his strict household is about to get stricter, Internet-wise: "The freedom with the computer will change."

Online: It's Where the News Is

Jonathan Dube , the MSNBC editor who runs CyberJournalist.Net , spotted what he thinks is a first -- a Pulitzer Prize handed out for a story that broke online.

Willamette (Oregon) Week reporter Nigel Jacquiss won the Pulitzer this week for investigative reporting on his story about former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt and his past sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl. When the paper summarized the article for Goldschmidt and asked him for comment, the former governor resigned from Oregon's board of higher education and the Oregon Electric Utility Co. The paper, which publishes weekly, worried that it would be scooped by the dailies, so it broke the story on its Web site.

"The Pulitzer Prizes -- a newspaper award -- only allow online materials to be submitted as part of entries in the Public Service category, so technically the print version of the story won the award," Dube wrote. "Still, Jaquiss and the Willamette Week deserve kudos for recognizing the value of the Web and using it to help ensure that the Willamette Week -- and not the daily Portland Oregonian -- broke the news first. It would be nice if the Pulitzer committee could recognize that as well."

Gambling With Your Fate

In yesterday's column I made a passing reference to online gambling's popularity in the United States despite being illegal. An alert reader wrote in saying that this is in dispute at the World Trade Organization . It was good timing, as the WTO finally had something to say about the case yesterday.

"An appeals panel of the World Trade Organization ruled yesterday that the United States can maintain many of its restrictions on Internet gambling, largely reversing an earlier ruling that the country was violating its international obligations," the New York Times reported. "The decision removes a major threat to United States gambling law, several specialists said, but Internet gambling is already rapidly developing and there are questions about how long the United States can hold out. Under the 1961 Interstate Wire Act, which outlaws betting over interstate phone lines, Internet gambling has been illegal under federal law."

Despite online gambling's outlawed status, the United States accounts for half of the $7.4 billion worldwide market, said Sebastian Sinclair , president of New York-based gambling consulting and research firm Christiansen Capital Advisers . Sinclair told the Times that the market could be worth $18.4 billion by 2010.

The WTO's decision was designed to resolve a dispute with the Caribbean island nation of Antigua, which relies on Internet gambling as an alternate revenue source to tourism. On a sidenote: The organization's ruling also included a victory for Antigua, which claimed that a U.S. law that allowed Americans to bet on horse races only through U.S.-based off-track betting companies was illegal.

Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com .