Abstracts of Recent Articles and Literature

theft would be wire transfer of funds to accounts in banks offshore. To manage the risk, companies have hired outside consultants to review theY2K remedia- tion work that has been done on their systems. 7’he

journal of Commerce,July 2 1, 1999.

New Polish law to fight intellectual property theft. Poland’s Culture Ministry announced that a new Bill is being prepared to enable the Polish intel- lectual property protection laws to be in harmony with the standards of the European Union.The Bill is partly an answer to a request from the United States, whose companies are frequently hit by the illegal pro- duction and distribution of video films, compact discs, audio tapes and computer programs. Under the Bill, jail terms of up to two years would be imposed for petty sellers of illegal material, and large-scale profi- teers from intellectual property theft would face five years in jail. Producers have acknowledged significant improvement since the collapse of communism in 1989, when Poland lacked any anti-piracy law. New Europe,July 25, 1999.

‘Bug’ fears cut demand for Japanese bonds, Gillian Tett and Naoko Nakamae. Bids for Japanese gov- ernment bonds (JGBs) have fallen to their lowest level for at least 12 years.This is the result of concerns about the liquidity of Japanese bond markets in the run-up to 31 December 1999. Investors fear that JGB institu- tions will refuse to lend bonds out over the end of the year because of the risk that customer’s computers will fail. Some US banks are appealing to the Japanese authorities to restore liquidity by encouraging institu- tions to continue lending bonds during this period. The Japanese government insists that it is taking nec- essary measures to avoid millennium bug problems. Financial Times, August 8, 2 999.

Security flaws reported in BC’s prescription drug network, Stewart Bell. PharmaNet connects pharmacies throughout British Columbia with the BC’s government drug insurance plan, Pharmacare. The system records all prescription drug purchases, and thus holds highly personal information. A govern- ment-commissioned report outlines numerous flaws with PharmaNet. The most serious problem concerns access to the database - people both inside and out-

side the government have access to it, but adequate steps have not been taken to ensure that people keep the information confidential. Auditors say that gov- ernment employees and contractors who use the net- work should have to sign confidentiality agreements every one or two years. More restrictive access has been called for, because in the past, contractors have been able to continue to access the network even when their work has been completed. Other problems ranged from the absence of security policies to the lack of planning in the event that the system crashes for an extended period. Y2K compliance strategies have also been called for. National Post, August 12, 1999.

IPv6 chaos to eclipse Y2K, John Leyden. Network managers can expect upgrade costs that are 10 times more expensive than those forY2K compliance work if they do not start planning for migration to the next- generation Internet protocol. Existing IP addresses will run out in three to four years time, making migra- tion to IPv6 necessary. Addresses will be increases from 32 bit to 128 bit with IPv6, which will markedly mul- tiply the number of potential combinations and improve the quality of service. Users are advised to contact their ISPs and to push their suppliers to deliv- er IPv6-compatible products. During the transition to IPv6, all networked devices will need new IP stacks and addresses, but no hardware will need to be replaced. Network News,July 14, 1999, p. 1.

France to propose Internet legislation; focus is on security. Plans have been announced by French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, to create substantial Internet-related legislation in early 2000. This propos- al will be an attempt to formalize mechanisms for applying traditional laws to cyberspace in areas such as encryption, confidentiality, consumer protection, copyright and piracy. It will also try to reinforce authorship rights for material distributed on the Web. An independent body has also been proposed that would bring together both public and private players to set standards for these and related issues. Jospin will pursue a significant increase in the defence budget to fund efforts to protect France’s information infrastruc- ture. Wall Street Journal, August 27-28, 1999.

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