I'm intrigued by your analysis of the dated "modernizations" the government has implemented, ie the SCADA networks. Iirc, this president was the first to have a "CTO" (I forget the exact title); any comment on the effect6 of this position existing?
Among people who actually operate companies or top the commit charts on major projects, "CTO" is already a stigmatized title. Tom Preston-Werner is clearly not a do-nothing status-obsessed hanger-on at Github, but truly excellent people who hold the CTO title may actually be the exception. At any rate: the joke is that CTO is the title you get when your team stops letting you commit to the main branch anymore.†
The stigma to holding the title "CTO" in any Government is way, way worse.
At any rate, whichever private sector notable is promoted to whatever vanity "technology" role in the government is of little impact to the security of SCADA networks, which are virtually all operated by private companies. The Secretary of Energy had more impact on utility security than any other person in government, and that impact was (from what I can tell) largely negative.††
† Again: I'm sure Tom can commit to whatever branch he wants.
†† I'm not myopic or tunnel-focused on my own field; the social value of getting responsive billing and utilization deployed may end up dwarfing the cost of widespread utility vulnerabilities or breaches. Steven Chu is probably an excellent Secretary of Energy.
