Summary

To take advantage of emerging technologies to create, manage, and use information that could be of strategic importance to the United States, the administration has launched an initiative to guide industry's development of the national information superhighway. While the structure and services to be offered by the information superhighway have not yet been determined, several critical technical challenges are emerging. These include the necessity of ensuring data security and protection of users' privacy: provision of a "seamless" web of features that will require standards and common interfaces and protocols; and measures to ensure reliability.

GAO found that: (1) the information superhighway poses technical challenges concerning the security, privacy, and reliability of personal and proprietary information; (2) a large proportion of the information that will traverse the superhighway will be sensitive and a tempting target for hackers, foreign governments conducting political and military intelligence operations, domestic and foreign enterprises engaged in industrial espionage, or terrorist groups seeking to disrupt society or the economy; (3) significant effort will be needed to define, develop, test, and implement measures to prevent unauthorized access to the superhighway; (4) although the federal government could play a leading role in ensuring the superhighway's security, critics argue that individuals should be free to choose the technical means for meeting their security requirements; (5) a major challenge facing the development of the information superhighway will be creating a consensus between the federal government, computer and communications industry, business community, and civil liberties groups on how to ensure information security and privacy; (6) federal and private sectors have begun establishing uniform standards to ensure the superhighway's interoperability; and (7) questions remain about how to protect the superhighway from large network failures and encourage the telecommunications industry to develop a secure and reliable infrastructure.