Stardate 20011011.1022 (On Screen): They want to create "Govnet", a parallel network to the Internet for purposes of letting government agencies communicate to each other. The theory is that it would have no connections to the Internet, thus being secure. But the problem is that security on a network is like leaks on a submarine: it only takes one to sink the boat. Your going to have millions of computers on this new network, and if
any one of them becomes compromised so that outsiders can get into it, then they've got access to the whole thing. All it takes is one fool putting an 802.11b base station on his PC, or having a dual-connection to the Internet, or making any of fifty other simple mistakes, and the bad guys are in. While Govnet may serve a purpose in providing more reliable bandwidth, in every other way it is no better than using a
VPN over the existing internet, which would be vastly cheaper.
(discuss)
