IRS Feels Some Fangs in the Internet Jungle : Misadventures abound for both government and business
Politicians, activists, governments, businesses, schools and ordinary citizens have rushed headlong into the Internet. But amid the excitement over the World Wide Web’s possibilities, it’s easy to forget the dangers. The Internal Revenue Service is a case to ponder on the eve of the filing deadline.
The IRS has gotten pretty excited over the prospect of paperless tax filing. Indeed, in 1994 about 16 million Americans prepared their taxes electronically, using private companies that forward the filings to the IRS for a fee. Unsurprisingly, there were immediate problems, such as widespread fraud in claims of earned-income tax credits. But the IRS pressed on, sure it had solved that glitch. Next up was “telefile,” which is the processing of simple tax forms via the telephone. How much more difficult could it be to have Cyberfile, designed to allow Americans to file their tax returns directly to the IRS via their home computers? Well, maybe a lot more difficult.
When the General Accounting Office looked into the matter, it found a disaster waiting to happen. It says a lot, for example, that the Cyberfile system is housed in a dusty basement of another federal agency, replete with fire hazards.
Cyberfile is also “vulnerable to physical attack,” the GAO report said. (It seems someone found that they could pick the door locks with their fingers.) The GAO added that the system was open to technical attack, such as “malicious software” that “could be brought in to introduce [computer] viruses.”
The GAO concluded the system would not be able to protect the confidentiality of tax returns. Moreover, the IRS did not have backup computers in case information was lost. There were more problems, but this gives you the drift.
The good news is that the IRS has canceled Cyberfile for the present and has gone back to the keyboard, so to speak. Good idea, especially since the tax agency has some of the federal government’s most outdated computers. And its modernization program is so flawed that a congressional appropriations panel chairman has threatened to withhold funding.
But the agency has lots of company in its unreadiness for cyberspace.
Consider, for example, Camarillo High School in Ventura County. There, Valerie Zeko teaches a class in computer word processing. But sometimes, her students divert their attention to the Internet. On the Net, they might log onto the site of the Portland Anarchists Club and explore its recipes for explosives made from bleach. Or “they go right to Playboy magazine” or to Web sites that offer information on how to make a bong for smoking marijuana, Zeko complained to a reporter.
Some businesses as well hurtled into the computer age in hopes of establishing a marketing foothold on the Net. And not a few have found that access is a two-way street. A survey this year by the Computer Security Institute uncovered $66 million in losses to 30 companies whose computers had been cracked by hackers. A separate survey of 300 large companies found that all but six had suffered from computer virus infection in the last two years.
To protect themselves from intrusions via the Internet, businesses have increasingly turned to “firewall” protection that blocks unwarranted access. The firewalls must be continually updated, and can cost upward of $25,000.
The Web is a fascinating place, but look and listen. Remember, it’s a jungle in there.
