Govt. moves to address Juki Net security problems

Joi Ito wrote recently of the report he submitted to the governor of Nagano prefecture backing up the prefecture's findings that the government's Juki Net resident registration system was poorly protected against intrusion; it looks like this may have produced its first palpable results. The Nikkei's IT section reports that in fiscal 2004 the government has allocated Y12.2 bn to boosting the security of local government LANs, a 90% increase on the sum available in FY2003. The panel investigating Juki Net security (of which I believe Joi Ito is a member) has in the meantime also ordered local governments make regular checks on the data, to prevent the possibility of falsified data making its way into the national database in the event of an intrusion at the local level.

This at least seems to show that the government is starting to recognise the security issues, and that PM Koizumi's policy of bringing private-sector experts into government is working. It's still unforgivable, however, that the central government didn't verify the security of local governments' systems and the awareness of their personnel before launching Juki Net.

Nikkei article (Japanese)