back to article You probably have more CIO experience than the incoming White House CIO

The US has a new federal chief information officer who, based on his resume, has no prior experience as a CIO but is now tasked with overseeing IT operations and strategy for the entire federal government. Greg Barbaccia made the announcement in a LinkedIn post last week, which was later confirmed by other outlets. Appointed …

  1. beast666 Silver badge

    Based Barbaccia.

    1. Dimmer Silver badge

      Simple test

      Do you know what Wireshark is?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Simple test

        A wire shark is what you use to feed cable thru conduit when rewiring a building, right?

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Simple test

          No, a wireshark is any shark breed that munches on submarine cable.

          Might want to research that before responding ...

          1. Brave Coward

            Re: Simple test

            Oh! I thought a wireshark was a shark that doesn't have any functional blue teeth.

            Always pleased to learn.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Simple test

        Wire snark is what we do here.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Have you any idea of the state of US government IT? It's an Lovecraftian nightmare shambles, and an ungodly expensive one at that.

    Talking up the outgoing CIO is an odd flex.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Of all of the parade of incompetent morons

      Trump has put up for big jobs, the CIO is one I'm worried about the least. People in charge of the military, DOJ, and intelligence agencies can do lasting damage. The CIO can't mess up government IT a whole lot more than has been messed up for decades.

    2. EricB123 Silver badge

      ID.ME?

      Try using ID.ME! I need to go to the condensate in Vietnam to keep me Social Security going. Total incompetence.

    3. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Angel

      ...doubling as a museum of obsolete hardware?

      1. jake Silver badge

        There is obsolete and then there is obsolete.

        If it's still doing the job it was designed to do, and more, is it actually obsolete?

        Take for example the Stanford Dish (or the Mark I telescope at Jodrell Bank[0], for you Brits).

        [0] Yes, I know, it was renamed after Lovell a while back. I'm an old fart, habits die hard.

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    So, blockchain and Palantir

    Sounds like the perfect scum to fit in with this government.

  4. ChodeMonkey Bronze badge
    Trollface

    Merit

    Another merit based appointment to stem the rising DEI tide.

    1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Re: Merit

      Well to be fair, the president is coloured himself. Very brightly coloured.

  5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    I'm sure if he lacks a bit of experience Musk will be able to spare a few minutes of his time now and again to give him a few pointers. It shouldn't be a problem for he man who knows everything.

  6. jake Silver badge

    "You probably have more CIO experience than the incoming White House CIO"

    Well, yes. Yes I do. But that's not all that surprising ... What may be surprising is that so does my 13 year old grand daughter.

    Or perhaps scary.

    ::sighs:: I weep for my country.

  7. Tron Silver badge

    Surely you are not doubting Glorious Leader? Tariffs if you are...

    I think the rationale goes: At each decision, ask yourself, what would Donald do? And then you do it.

    If it helps, people in charge never actually do any real work. Everything is done by the people below them who have experience and expertise, and so are paid less.

    1. UnknownUnknown

      Re: Surely you are not doubting Glorious Leader? Tariffs if you are...

      … and are about to be illegally mass fired.

  8. Alistair
    Windows

    I was wondering which finger Theil was sticking in.

  9. the Jim bloke

    having your profile on LinkedIn

    ... does not speak well of your IT mojo ..

    LinkedIn is where recruiters circle-jerk each other, and clueless wannabees lie about their qualifications..

  10. Dan 55 Silver badge

    P.S. 72 million now have no health insurance

    In other countries they'd be out on the streets the next day for that.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    His next job might be in UK Local Government

    (he just doesn't know it yet).

  12. Lazlo Woodbine Silver badge

    I thought the Florida Man had banned DEI because vacancies should be filled on the basis of merit and experience...

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      .. and being the chairman's nephew or something similar.

    2. Jadith

      Are you implying these positions are not being filled based off merit and experience*? I say they most certainly are!! I'm afraid you may have missed the fine print though

      *All mentions of merit and experience refer to the merit of the person's lips and the experience of placing them on a certain orange posterior.

  13. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

    Tech knowledge does not equal good CIO

    The CIO does not need to be the most technically proficient person. What they need to be is a good manager, be able to listen to their people, determine who's right and who's full of it, and have the guts to push back on management and department heads when they come up with asinine ideas that IT knows will be a waste of time.

    In this role, you need someone who is going to be able to push back against the "immovable object" of departmental change resistance. That;s probably one of the biggest reason's the governments IT is a mess of dinosaur gear and software.

    I work for someone like this, she is not technical at all and had no problem telling people that, but she will a,so tell them that her people are "top notch" and she values their knowledge. After over 30 years in IT she it the best CIO I've ever worked for,

    Maybe that's why he was chosen. Experience in government should be a negative, not a positive. Career government employees are the problem!

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Tech knowledge does not equal good CIO

      Immovable objects also include higher management including, possibly especially, in government. It's more likely he was chosen for a reluctance to do that.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Tech knowledge does not equal good CIO

      Someone like that came to be our CIO. Weeks later, she was gone, she came up against the immovable wall of resistance to change. Our loss.

      AC because ….

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CISSP respected?

    Not round these parts. A few years back I seemed to be in the habit of sorting out hacked Wordpress sites.

    Not sure how this guy came to me - via another customer perhaps - but anyhoo his front page now

    said "har har har you has been h4x0red!" OSLT. So in the process of unborking his site, he gave

    me his admin password. Which, naturally was his wife's maiden name. Which was five letters long.

    And a common dictionary word. Something like "white" or "smith".

    I decided that a complete reinstall was not necessary, for the benefit of commentards who are even

    now reaching for the keyboard to tell me that the only safe thing to do is blow the server up and

    bury it in concrete, and unborked it.

    The nature of the site? Advertising his services as a "Certified Information Systems Security Professional"...

  15. JRStern Bronze badge

    Sounds OK-ish to me

    CIO for the White House? Just keep Trump's phone charged. Actually it looks like he delegates some of that now. Job complete.

    New guy seem to have some qualifications, give me a break.

    I applied for a job a few years back, what was it - "Chief Data Officer". I'd never been a CDO, but hey. Made it through a first round but not a second. Thought I'd made a good presentation. Then I looked at the outgoing guy's CV. Nothing. Nada. So I was overqualified. Not for the first time. SMH. Now I'll bet ChatGPT could write me a really great CDO resume. That's how you do it.

    Or mostly be someone's buddy.

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