It was part of an initiative by the National Computer Security Center to encourage operating system vendors to submit their products for evaluation. The program worked in that most of the systems it targeted were evaluated by 1992, the goal date. I served on a National Research Council committee that last year published a report called Trust in Cyberspace. They run the same operating systems on the same platforms that we use in our offices and homes. With deregulation, providers need to focus their financial resources on the things that they think will make them successful in the marketplace and will look good on their balance sheets.
Security is really way down on that list.
Also, by creating more tiers of providers, deregulation provides more opportunities for miscommunication across administrative boundaries. Unfortunately, we've let the lawyers get involved, which as a technologist, always scares me. By asking too much from the system. Some people are saying we need to put in place systems that are so secure that two companies who've never heard of one another can consummate 100 million dollar deals over the Internet. That might be useful some day, but there are many more things that we could be doing to increase productivity and make lives better for most of us.