Lax security could spell E-gov disaster

Imagine a world without automobile safety standards. Imagine

going into a store to buy an electric appliance without the benefit of an Underwriters Laboratory tag to tell you that the appliance will not harm your home's electrical system. That's the world in which every federal computer user lives today. Already a critical problem, this lack of standards likely will become catastrophic when government goes fully electronic.

Sit down at a computer, connect to the Internet, and try to answer any of these basic security, privacy and reliability questions:

If your computer has a microphone, do you know whether it has been compromised and is transmitting every phone call and conversation you have to unknown people on the Internet?

Do you know whether the computers in your agency have been compromised and are recording all your passwords and personal data so that others can use your information for their gain?

Do you know whether your agency's Web site has been changed so that the public is getting incorrect data?