The panelists agreed that the problems with security are not technical.

"The basic technology for making the information highway definitely exists," Lampson said.

According to Lampson, many different reasons account for the lack of security on the 'Net. "Few people understand it, companies don't want to pay for it and many vendors don't provide it," he said.

Many security issues involve the government's interests in surveiling citizens and the desire of businesses to market and conduct transactions over the 'Net.

"A lot of the work on information security has been done by the government and the military, but they face threats very different from the ones you and I do," Lampson said.

The panelists also agreed that the government, which has advocated tighter encryption--or coding--policies, has been one of the main obstacles to developing international Internet security.

"We call government regulation of encryption the Bosnia of technology," said panelist Clint Smith, who is an attorney with Steptoe and Johnson, a Washington law firm.

The government has proposed a system called key escrow in which all financial and other personal information transmitted over the 'Net is also stored with a trust company or a government agency.

However, panelist Jeff Schiller, a network manager at MIT, argued that the key escrow proposal makes many experts uncomfortable.

"We have to balance the requirements of law enforcement with those of public privacy," Schiller said.  --By Amita M. Shukla

Panelists Debate Universal Access

Panelists discussed the merits of universal access to the Internet before a crowd of about 125 at Science Center C on Thursday.

"Universal access is a new tool for creating understanding and wisdom," said Jock Gill, president of Penfield Gill, Inc. and former director of special projects at the White House Office of Media Affairs.

Gill described the Internet as a storytelling machine, saying, "We must have universal access in order that all of us may be storytellers."

"This is a democracy. If we want more access, we can vote for it," Gill said. "Forget the American dream. Let's create the new American story."