Internet Seminar Focuses on Security

Speakers examine threats to intellectual property and freedom

Six speakers on Internet security took on a multitude of issues at a UniForum-sponsored forum this month. They agreed on two overriding points-that both the security of intellectual property and First Amendment rights are threatened, and that the security issues are far from solved.

Of immediate concern to Jay Friedland, vice president of SurfWatch Software, was the telecommunications bill amendment sponsored by Sen. James Exon, D-NE, that would ban indecent and obscene materials on computer services and the Internet. As written, it apparently would make services liable for transmitting obscene content, no matter where or how it originates. The amendment passed the U.S. Senate by an 86-14 vote.

"This is a very, very significant threat to our freedoms," Friedland said. He noted that even though such a law would probably be struck down by the courts as a violation of free speech, it might take five years for the Supreme Court to rule. "We all feel five years is a very long time to wait to get resolution on this issue," he said.

Friedland's company makes a product that blocks designated obscene sources on the Internet from viewing on a local PC and is marketed to parents who want to regulate their children's computer use.

Content Protection

Making Internet content secure is the business of David Bernstein, vice president of Electronic Publishing Resources. His company produces InterTrust, a virtual distribution tool that enables interoperable electronic commerce while protecting various rights and privileges. In the current environment, "You can't control who has access to your document, where the information goes, and how many people pay for it," Bernstein said. For example, false economic information published under the name of The Wall Street Journal could paralyze the economy. "How can a publisher imagine launching content on the Internet in this kind of environment?" Bernstein asked. Although publishers would like to send their publications electronically to save printing and distribution costs, he called the Internet without security "a hostile environment for publishers."

Peter Neumann, author and scientist with SRI International, agreed about the threat to intellectual property. "If you're going to put valuable intellectual property on the Net, you're going to get taken to the cleaners," he said. "The infrastructure stinks, PC software is a disaster, and networking software is outrageously bad. Any self-respecting cracker can break you into pieces with relative ease. We've got to start using cryptographic services and we've got to start using them pretty fast."

Verifying that danger was John Smith, high-tech investigator for the Santa Clara County, CA, District Attorney's office. "Intellectual property theft is alive and kicking in Silicon Valley," Smith said. "We do not lack for work." Companies spend a lot of time and effort keeping people out of files where they don't belong, Smith said.

Pornography is also a concern for companies, which see it taking up valuable disk space, he said. In addition, high schoolers are especially adept at cracking systems. About pornography, he said, "Some of this stuff makes your skin crawl. I don't like censorship, but how do you keep this stuff out of the hands of kids?"

What Will Happen?

Smith said he doesn't think much would come of a legislative prohibition of obscene material on the Internet, since "Law enforcement just doesn't have the resources to go out and enforce that kind of stuff." But Steve Kirsch, founder and president of InfoSeek Corp., disagreed. "I don't care whether law enforcement enforces it or not, no one is going to take the liability," if such a law goes into effect. "It will be the end of Usenet as we know it" because America Online and other services won't carry Usenet newsgroups anymore, he said. Kirsch, whose company produces a Web search tool that now has 400,000 users a day, says 10 to 20 percent of the queries on his service are sexually related. His service, which requires users to register for free trials, has problems with people using phony e-mail addresses to register, but has come up with an effective system to prevent credit card thefts when people pay for the service, he said.

The Exon amendment is "a pretty important blip, but only a blip on the global information scene," Bernstein said. "The fundamentals of freedom of speech and people's natural tendencies are going to prevail. It's certainly not going to stop free information exchange over the Internet. It is going to change the course a little bit."