Industry & Government Tackle Security Issues

In late March, the Wireless Eavesdropping Protection Act was introduced into the U.S. Senate. The bill, the Senate echo of a measure passed by the House in February 1999, proposes strengthening laws against eavesdropping. CTIA supported the measure, which forbids the sale and use of scanners modified or modifiable to decode voice and data transmissions. The bill also fortifies enforcement by requiring the FCC to investigate and take action on all violations.

A few days after the bill was introduced, Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia addressed wireless security in another way: a joint effort to develop a security standard and security procedures for mobile commerce or "m-commerce." The standard and procedures will combine existing WAP security technologies, such as wireless transport-layer security, wireless-identification module and public-key technologies.

"The ambition is to formulate an environment that allows mobile operators, financial institutions and other service providers to facilitate secure mobile transactions," said Jan Ahrenbring, Ericsson vice president of marketing and communications.

Goals include improving the chances of consumers using mobile devices for small transactions, such as purchasing tickets, and increasing consumer confidence in the security of m-commerce.

Consumer confidence and security have become hot topics for government and industry following recent attacks on wireline Internet services. In March, a survey linked recent attacks on wireline Internet services to waning consumer confidence in e-commerce security. The @plan Internet Poll gathered information from 1,000 adults who are active Internet users. About a third of the respondents said recent attacks on Internet sites decreased the likelihood that they would make electronic purchases in the future.

"Anyway you cut it, these results indicate a real warning sign for e-retailers," said Mark Wright, @plan chairman & CEO. "Consumers are clearly alarmed by these recent hacker attacks and, according to the survey, most online consumers are indicating that the onus to resolve these problems falls squarely on the shoulders of the online industry."