NCJ Number
150670
Date Published
1994
Length
432 pages
Annotation
This book provides an overview of where we are today on the "information superhighway," where we are going, and what issues we must address if we are to design our future rather than be consumed by it.
Abstract
With over 125 million computers inextricably tying our economy together through complex land and satellite-based communications systems, a major portion of our domestic $6 trillion economy depends on their consistent and reliable operation. Our dependence on these communications systems for financial and information exchanges and transactions makes them an attractive target for industrial and international espionage designed to gain a cheap and unfair advantage in the marketplace. Through sabotage, theft, data manipulation, and other means, our economy could be crippled beyond any crisis in recent history. Currently, within the banking community it is common practice to use creative accounting to hide millions of dollars lost every year through "information warfare." In "information warfare" the "digital persona" plays the role of victim and perpetrator. The wrong hands could extract the most personal information about the "digital you," including medical, financial, business, legal, and criminal documentation. Individuals could alter their own records to eradicate damaging histories; an individual could alter anyone's electronic documentation for any reason. In outlining every conceivable informational disaster imaginable in the new age of the information superhighway, the author impresses upon the reader the importance of foreseeing the potential for abuse and crises so as to motivate policymakers to preventive action. The author's major proposal is for the creation of a national information policy that will include a constitution for cyberspace and an electronic bill of rights. His outline of a national information policy calls attention to critical issues that must be resolved if the future is to provide freedom, growth, reward, security, and privacy for those who choose to live and work in cyberspace. Chapter footnotes, a list of organizational resources, and a subject index