Publications

This report follows a series of recent Internet security policy recommendations made by the Obama administration. In order to gather additional stakeholder input and refine this report’s preliminary recommendations, the Commerce Department will seek public comment and publish questions from the report in a Federal Register notice. The Commerce Department’s Internet Policy Task Force will also continue to work with others in government to engage the domestic and global privacy community, and will consider publishing a refined set of policy recommendations in the future.

The full report, including questions seeking additional stakeholder input, can be found on the NIST web site, http://www.nist.gov/itl/upload/Cybersecurity_Green-Paper_FinalVersion.pdf

Executive Summary

The United States has rapidly become a society where access to information plays a dominant role in the economic and social progress of daily life. Along with the telephone, the computer and the Internet are the primary tools used to communicate in a fast-paced and quickly changing society. Americans use the Internet for numerous reasons, including to complete business transactions, conduct research, collect health, life and automobile insurance information, and to receive interest rate information and quotes for home mortgages. This report, Electronic Signatures: A Review of the Exceptions to the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, contains a detailed review of the nine exceptions to the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN or Act), an examination of how the exceptions are handled in electronic commercial and personal transactions, and recommendations regarding whether each exception should remain in the Act for the protection of consumers. The ESIGN Act facilitates the use of electronic records and signatures in interstate and foreign commerce and grants legal validity and enforceability to electronic signatures, contracts, and records. This general rule of validity does not apply, however, to the nine exceptions provided at section 103 of the Act.⁽¹⁾

The information and data gathered regarding the ESIGN exceptions demonstrate that some industry and consumer interactions using computers and the Internet have become quite routine since the passage of ESIGN. In these areas, procedures designed to protect consumers also have developed in accordance with ESIGN's consumer protection provisions. With regard to areas involving highly personal matters, however, protective mechanisms have not evolved rapidly. As a result, consumers have less confidence in computer technology and continue to rely on written documentation of business and financial transactions. In summary, this evaluation reveals the following:

• Federal and state courts, the insurance and health industries, and the commercial and financial services industries have made significant advancements in developing optional electronic filing and information systems and the respective consumer groups have adapted to electronic filing and purchasing systems.


• Governmental agencies with oversight for recall information and manufacturers have found electronic mail a useful tool in contacting consumers for product recalls.


• ESIGN exceptions involving highly personal or financial interests, such as mortgage foreclosures and domestic law areas, are matters that may be unsuited to electronic information or access systems at this time. Consumer privacy interests and the high risk of loss or damage to personal interests as the result of a failure to receive required information in a timely manner causes consumers to rely on paper documentation and makes the electronic transfer of information unsuitable in some cases.


• The nature of hazardous waste and dangerous substances management requires that written documentation accompany shipments, even though a portion of the documentation process may be accomplished through electronic means.


• Overall, consumers, government, and industry leaders appear to prefer the option of electronic transactions accompanied by the reliability of paper documentation for some matters.

In Electronic Signatures: A Review of the Exceptions to the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, we are pleased to report that there has been significant progress in the use of electronic signatures since Congress passed ESIGN. There are, however, hurdles to overcome related to the lack of consumer confidence in electronic media as the sole method of conducting all business, financial, and personal transactions. This evaluation provides a review of the response to the exceptions to the ESIGN Act by federal and state agencies, private industry, and consumer groups and associations. This evaluation also presents an analysis of whether the exceptions to the Act are necessary to protect consumers in light of the current use of electronic signatures in the United States. In summary, the evaluation recommends that Congress retain the nine exceptions, with modifications to the utility cancellation notices exception to allow utility companies to send electronic cancellation notices to customers voluntarily enrolled in electronic billing services, and to the exception regarding contracts governed by the Uniform Commercial Code, to remove electronic letter of credit transactional records governed by Article 5 and electronic notices governed by Article 6 from the list of exceptions to the Act.

NTIA released a report pursuant to section 1703 of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), Pub.L.No. 106-554, 114 Stat. 2763, 2763A-336 (2000), evaluating the effectiveness of technology protection measures and safety policies used by educational institutions. The Act requested NTIA to evaluate whether the currently available Internet blocking or filtering technology protection measures and Internet safety policies adequately address the needs of educational institutions. CIPA also invited NTIA’s recommendations to Congress on how to foster the development of technology protection measures that meet these needs. NTIA’s report concludes that the currently available technology measures have the capacity to meet most of the needs and concerns of educational institutions and makes the following recommendations: 1) technology vendors should offer training services to educational institutions on specific features of their products; and 2) expand CIPA’s definition of “technology protection measures” to include additional technologies in order to encompass a wider array of technological measures to protect children from inappropriate content.

The objective of Phase 1 of this task was to undertake a broad review of receiver spectrum standards to characterize their status, both domestically and internationally. This Report presents the results of this phase.

This paper focuses on one of the communications protocols that lie at the heart of the Internet — the Internet Protocol (IP), which enables data and other traffic to traverse the Internet and to arrive at the desired destination. IP not only provides a standardized “envelope” for the information sent, but it also contains “headers” that provide addressing, routing, and message-handling information that enables a message to be directed to its final destination over the various media that comprise the Internet.

IPv6 offers a number of potential advantages over IPv4, most notably a massive increase in the number of Internet addresses. Demand for such addresses will increase as more and more of the world’s population request Internet access. While there is considerable disagreement about whether, to what extent, and at what pace, such demand will develop, IPv6 would provide the address space to accommodate whatever level of demand does emerge.

NTIA report to Congress on "further actions needed in the allocation of spectrum to the civilian sector for the effective deployment of third generation (3G) wireless devices in the United States."

The BPL Phase 1 Report (NTIA Report 04-413) is split into two volumes. Volume I is the main report, and Volume II is comprised of all of the appendices. The report was written in Microsoft Word and the files that make up the two volumes are as follows:

The United States’ radiocommunication interests are global.  Communications are the backbone of our economic and national security and radiocommunications are a critical component of the United States’ overall communications interests.  Radio signals traverse borders, oceans and space.  The mobility of radio systems leads to services, technologies, and operations that span the global community and economy.  The successful development and implementation of radiocommunications depend on international agreements reached at World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRCs).  These conferences meet every three to four years under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to update the international radio regulations on the use of the radio spectrum.  The ITU is a specialized agency of the United Nations, and has 189 member states.  The outcome of WRCs provides the international regulatory framework for the use of radiocommunication systems vital to U.S. economic growth, U.S. national security, safety of life and property, and scientific investigations.  The United States must continue its success at these international conferences in negotiating spectrum allocations and regulations forward-looking and flexible enough to accommodate technologies and operations that the United States will need in the future.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
launched this two-phase study of interference protection criteria (IPC) in order to
compile, explain and validate, modify or supplement the levels of protection from
interference that are generally expected and provided for various radiocommunication
systems. The study is an integral part of President Bush’s Spectrum Policy Initiative
that was established in May 2003 to promote the development and implementation of a
United States spectrum policy for the 21st century. The Secretary of Commerce then
established a Federal Government Spectrum Task Force and initiated a series of public
meetings to address improvements in policies affecting spectrum use by the Federal
Government, State, and local governments, and the private sector. The
recommendations resulting from these activities were included in a two-part series of
reports released by the Secretary of Commerce in June 2004, under the title Spectrum
Policy for the 21st Century - The Presidents Spectrum Policy Initiative. Based on the
recommendations contained in these Reports, the President directed the federal
agencies on November 30, 2004, to plan the implementation of the 24
recommendations contained in the Reports. There were several recommendations that
will consider the interference protection criteria contained in this study including:
• assessment of new technologies and their impact on incumbent
radiocommunications;
• managing interference;
• development of a “Best Practices Handbook” for spectrum engineering;
• establishment a pilot program and long-range plan for improved sharing of
spectrum between federal and non-federal entities; and
• creation of new analytical computer models that will facilitate spectrum
engineering.

Report by the Federal Rights-of-Way Working Group
April 2004