7-2-96 UST, page one: "Companies fear losing privacy, customers' trust." In a show of self-reliance reminiscent of the old West, companies are taking matters into their own hands, hiring security firms to protect their computer systems and ignoring the convention that law enforcement is the best defense. It's a stance that has implications for law enforcement and commerce, raises broad questions of privacy and control, and pits the philosophy of the Clinton administration directly against that of many Fortune 500 companies. "An organization has very little to gain" by reporting, says Lloyd Hession, of IBM's Business Recovery Services. There seems to be universal agreement that the strongest means for securing computer data against theft lies in cryptography, but the Clinton administration, citing fears that criminals would use cryptography to cloak their activities, is setting regulations slowing development of cryptography software. The Clinton administration is to announce, as early as this week, a commission to determine the federal government's role in securing cyberspace, from terrorism to petty crimes. http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/lostit.txt (13 kb) Go via www.anonymizer.com. Pipeline now belongs to Mindspring, an Atlanta company. LOS_tit