Industry-Government Partnership Telecommunications

8. Foster the industry-government partnership for improving services and
security in public telecommunications.[12]

Since government relies heavily on public telecommunications systems
(e.g., about 90 percent of DOD's telecommunications are provided by
public carriers), improved security, integrity, and assurance of
services is crucial.  Electronic government will rely even more heavily
on public carrier telecommunications for services.  Fostering this
relationship includes the following:

---The voluntary and cooperative development of a unified concept of
operational security for new technological developments such as
universal personal telecommunications. The universal personal
telecommunications concept provides personal telecommunications services
regardless of location, terminal or network access point. For example,
individuals are assigned a unique personal network number so that
services may reach them anytime and anywhere in the network. Within this
context, the standards community needs to address the issues of national
security, emergency preparedness, priority, access, fraud, and
information privacy. The National Communica-tions System should work
through the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee,
with technical assistance from NSA and NIST, to foster government and
industry liaison for developing security for Universal Personal
Telecommunications capabilities and ensure National Security/ Emergency
Preparedness.

---The development and issuance of appropriate technical information
bulletins for shared industry use that address security assessments of
wireless access to commercial systems.  The National Communications
System and the Federal Communications Commission, working with public
telecommunications services providers, should ensure information
bulletins address all telecommunications threats.

---Working with industry to cooperatively improve security, integrity,
and availability of the public switched network (PSN) provided by the
telecommunications industry. The National Communications System and
industry, through the National Security Telecommunications Advisory
Committee and its supporting groups, should foster conducting
vulnerability assessments, sharing lessons learned, identifying
improvements in legislation to protect PSNs, reporting on vulnerability
incidents, and research on telecommunications security areas.

Endnotes

12. The Office of the Manager, National Communications System,
Technology and Standards Analysis Report, "Concept of Operations for
NS/EP Applications of Universal Personal Telecommunications," May 1993.