From: IN%"educom@elanor.oit.unc.edu" 1-MAR-1996 00:53:05.93

***************************************************************** Edupage, 29 February 1996. Edupage, a summary of news items on information technology, is provided three times each week as a service by Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. *****************************************************************

The below has some relevance for the discussion on firewalls vs encryption. It seems to give evidence for the needed solution being either firewalls and encryption (external _and_ internal) or encryption alone.

NO SAFETY ON THE NET A recent survey of businesses found nearly one in four are staying away from the Internet because they worry about electronic security breaches. For instance, Merrill Lynch refuses to use the Net for any "value-bearing" business and has doubts about allowing customers to link up via the Internet. Meanwhile, if your company uses an Intranet, you're not immune to security problems -- experts estimate that as much as 80% of all security losses are committed by company insiders. The technical staff manager at Bell Labs notes: "Our firewall keeps the bad guys out. But you can't say there aren't bad guys inside the company." (Information Week 19 Feb 96 p34)

The below is worrisome; I am willing to bet that the European governments might try to require it, and that the US might follow suit if the CDA gets tossed out (analogous to the V-chip). I'll send a further message after I've analyzed the rating system in question a bit more.

SELF-PATROLLING THE WEB The World Wide Web Consortium is pushing the Web page rating system that it developed in cooperation with the Platform for Internet Content Selection, a group of 22 online firms. Operators at about 20,000 Web sites have already coded themselves using the Internet Relay System, which is similar to the rating system for films. To rate your Web site, go to the SafeSurf site at < http://www.safesurf.com/ > and fill out the form that helps them come up with a rating. PICS members plan to pitch the system to European governments in an effort to avoid continental content restrictions. (Investor's Business Daily 28 Feb 96 A6)

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