WORLD FEDERATION OF SCIENTISTS PERMANENT MONITORING PANEL ON INFORMATION SECURITY

Abstract

The Panel met on August 19th and continued its work in the days thereafter, including in the framework of a larger Working Group on Information Security on August 24'. Its work was based on a number of drafts for the various chapters of its planned comprehensive interdisciplinary report, prepared on the basis of an agreed work schedule adopted last year. These drafts will now be revised by their respective authors, in the light of the Panel's discussions, and additional chapters will be included. The group concentrated its work on a package of recommendations addressed to the international community, which already at this stage could be extracted from the draft texts. In the group's view, these recommendations, although not reflecting its whole work program, or fully covering the subject matter, should already at this juncture be published. They should be given wide distribution through the channels of the World Federation of Scientists, in light of the urgency of action on the international level to combat the dangers of cyber crime, preferably before the end of 2002. Recipients should include the President of the UN General Assembly (UNGA); the Chairmen of the First, Second, and Sixth Committees of the UNGA; the Secretary-General of the UN; and the heads of other relevant UN agencies. The Panel decided to proceed to a second phase of its work, which will consist in the completion of its comprehensive interdisciplinary report and the elaboration of additional recommendations. Revised and additional drafts of the report will be considered at a meeting to be held at Erice in the early spring of 2003. The report containing the full set of recommendations, should then be published in book form and addressed to a wide international audience, including the member organizations of the United Nations system, prior to the next annual session of the International Erice Seminars.