Moderator: Security of government networks and information systems -- what are the threats? How safe are they today from intrusion and damage? What mechanisms need to be put in place to assure system and data security? Can strong security and ease of use live side by side?

Alex Roberts: Nobody doubts that if the entire telephone network in New York State went down it would be a massive attack on our national or state infrastructure. If our information networks, whether they're the Internet or our information systems, went down, it would really impact our day-to-day lives. Today we've made decisions such as merging our e-mail networks in our agencies. They may be the same networks that our criminal justice or health or social services information is on. If somebody happens to get a virus or an e-mail that takes the whole network down, it doesn't just take down e-mail, it takes down the information system that is the bottom line of our services. That's why we all need to care -- and why policy makers need to care -- about security.

John Sennett: They're not very safe. Networks are safe if no one is attacking them. But apparently there is an endless supply of hackers of varying degrees of evil who seem to take a special delight in, and are willing to spend hours, trying to penetrate systems. Young people come home from school, put down the backpack, go upstairs to the den, and get on the computer and just hack and hack. And in the FBI we're worrying about Col. Khadafi hiring a team of hackers and we'll probably see that some day.

Julie Leeper: Our information security officer monitors hackers' discussion groups. She's watching what the hackers are talking about. We need to understand their mindset. The key is absolute diligence, constant care, and watching. We can never stop looking at the logs. It's a tedious job and that's what the security officers need to do. We don't put a security officer system in place and move on to the next project, it's constant.