Nordic system for data and information exchange. Report from meetings with the authorities, and proposal for further work

The EKO-4.2 project involves investigating approaches to setting up a new reliable system based on computer internet technology for exchange of information between the Nordic countries. According to the project plans this information exchange is to be based on bulletin board systems in the different countries. It was required that the system should not set any restriction of type of data or information to be exchanged, nor should it involve any standardization of data, and above all, it was not intended as an alert system. A bulletin board system is passive in the sense that no information is actually sent, instead it is the receiver who is responsible for approaching the information and transferring it to own system. This feature makes the system unsuitable for alert purposes. Since a potential system will have to be implemented by the authorities in the respective countries, the first part of the project was to survey their interest and emphasis. This was done in meetings in the different countries. The conclusion from those meetings was an overall interest in establishing a system as described, and several requirements concerning security and reliability of the system were proposed. The implication of the requirements by the authorities is discussed and a practical solution of an information exchange system based on the World Wide Web (WWW), the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and the Internet is outlined. The continuation of the project must be based on operable servers in the different countries, whose configuration and connection with the local network are the responsibility of the institution owning the server. The selected system will depend on hardware and on the overall security policy of the institution involved. It is proposed that further work concentrates on a general testing of the system, standardizing of server user interfaces and testing of encryption software for transfer of passwords. (au)