Forum on Internet Dangers Sponsored by UniForum

Speakers to focus on security, censorship, privacy, and copyrights

By Debbie Murray

In an age when everyone is doing it on the Net, who is to know what's safe and what's not? From commerce on the net to sexual exploitation, what's secure and what's private?

Find out by attending UniForum's upcoming security forum, where you can learn what dangers exist and what you can do to protect yourself and your business.

UniForum is sponsoring:

"Security, Censorship, Privacy and Copyrights:
Warning, Dangers on the Internet" 
Wednesday, June 14 
6 to 8 p.m. at the Hyatt Hotel, Burlingame, CA.

A highly qualified panel of experts will share their knowledge and experience:

Internet Censorship and Freedom of Expression

Currently more than 200 Internet newsgroups contain sexually explicit material. Sites on the World-Wide Web contain explicit images. Until now there hasn't been a way to shield people from receiving this material.

SurfWatch is a new software product that provides an alternative to Internet censorship, giving parents and educators the opportunity to limit unwanted material locally without restricting the access rights of other Internet users.

In Washington, Congress is now struggling with the issue of how to protect children from access to material on the Net that might be considered harmful. As the policy debate over obscenity on the Internet heats up, SurfWatch is one of the companies providing information to the Interactive Working Group, an ad hoc coalition of industry and public interest organizations that are studying technological alternatives that empower parents without the need for burdensome regulation. Educators welcome the new software product.

SurfWatch Software was founded in January 1995 with a vision of creating high-quality technology products that have a positive impact on people's lives.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

The protection of intellectual property rights on the net is a necessity for a robust electronic information infrastructure. The very properties that make the Net attractive as a distribution medium-ease of manipulating information in electronic form-also appear to make protection of property rights and copyrights intractable. People will shortly be using new category information technology tools that truly support electronic commerce, as well as ensuring that the various rights and privileges of the parties are enforced and respected. Information providers must know their content is used only in authorized ways. Privacy rights of users of content will be preserved. Business models related to content will be electronically implemented. The Internet and other information commerce infrastructures will require a management component that enforces rules that ensure a safe, coherent, fair, and productive community. This technology component will be critical to the electronic highway's acceptance and its functioning in a global society.

Electronic Publishing Resources, founded in August 1990, architects, designs, and markets a family of software technologies for distribution of electronic commerce. EPR has met the electronic community's needs through the invention of its InterTrust virtual distribution environment. InterTrust enables interoperable electronic commerce, including full digital information rights protection. InterTrust delivers a rich array of secure transaction control, auditing, reporting, budgeting, privacy, and related capabilities. These capabilities complement and extend networks, point-to-point security, and digital payment systems by managing and analyzing the use of electronic content and protecting the rights of electronic community members. They address the transaction management needs of all electronic highway participants, from government intelligence agencies to creators of entertainment products, to providers of telecommunications infrastructure.

Computer-Related Risks

Security and reliability issues of computers and the consequential effects on people and our society in general is an area of great concern. Dr. Peter Neumann has done extensive research and findings on computer risks. In fact, he recently published his book, Computer-Related Risks. Dr. Neumann has worked in the computer science lab at SRI since 1971, working on security, reliability, safety, system development methodology, privacy, and risks. He moderates the ACM Risks Forum (computer risks), and is a Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE. He is currently on the National Research Council study of U.S. cryptography policy, and chairs the Technology, Security, and Privacy subgroup of the Internal Revenue Service Commissioner's Advisory Group.

Copyright Violations

"A lot of the Internet copyright issues are up in the air and are being decided by the courts," says Steve Kirsch. "Virtually all the Internet providers are liable for copyright violations as things stand now." Kirsch is InfoSeek's president and was named by Newsweek last February as one of the 50 most influential people to watch in cyberspace.

InfoSeek enables customers to perform low-cost, high-speed searches on the Internet. InfoSeek is a convenient one-stop shopping for a variety of both public and commercial data sources. Users can search WWW pages, Usenet News, over 50 computer magazines, newspaper news wires and press releases, company profiles, medical and health information, movie reviews, technical support databases, and much more.

Investigating and Prosecuting Network Intrusions

The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office High Tech Computer Crime Team has had years of experience investigating and prosecuting trade secret thefts, network intrusions, chip thefts, and other types of high technology thefts in Silicon Valley. John Smith, Santa Clara County's senior investigator, was the primary investigator in the Kevin Mitnik case. He has over 30 years' experience in California Law Enforcement. He has investigated over 25 crimes involving computer networks, 26 trade secret theft allegations, and 20 cases requiring computer searches. According to Smith, "The amount of hi-tech theft that occurs in the Silicon Valley alone is phenomenal." Smith will discuss actual criminal cases and share his valuable insight into how users can protect themselves.

Don't miss out on this very enlightening evening. Admission is free. RSVP by June 8 to UniForum Association, (800) 255-5620.

Debbie Murray is conference and seminar manager for UniForum.