A small group of Internet security specialists gathered in Singapore to start up a global system to make e-mail and e-commerce more secure, end the rapid growth of passwords and raise the bar significantly for Internet fraud, spies and troublemakers.
The Singapore event included an elaborate technical ceremony to create and then securely store numerical keys that will be kept in three hardened data centers there, in Zurich and in San Jose, Calif. The keys and data centers are working parts of a technology known as Secure DNS, or DNSSEC. DNS refers to the Domain Name System, which is a directory that connects names to numerical Internet addresses. Preliminary work on the security system had been going on for more than a year, but this was the first time the system went into operation, even though it is not quite complete.
The three centers are fortresses made up of five layers of physical, electronic and cryptographic security, making it virtually impossible to damage the system. Four layers are active now. The fifth, a physical barrier, is being built inside the data center.
The technology is viewed by many computer security specialists as a ray of hope amid the recent cascade of data thefts, attacks, disruptions and scandals, including break-ins at Citibank, Sony, Lockheed Martin, RSA Security and elsewhere. It allows users to communicate via the Internet with high confidence that the identity of the person or organization they are communicating with is not being tricked or forged.
Internet engineers like Dan Kaminsky, an independent network security researcher who is one of the engineers involved in the project, want to counteract three major deficiencies in today’s Internet. There is no mechanism for ensuring trust, the quality of software is uneven, and it is difficult to track down bad actors.
One reason for these flaws is that from the 1960s through the 1980s the engineers who designed the network’s underlying technology were concerned about reliable, rather than secure, communications. That is starting to change with the introduction of Secure DNS by governments and other organizations.
The event in Singapore capped a process that began more than a year ago and is expected to be complete after 300 so-called top-level domains have been digitally signed. Before the Singapore event, 70 countries had adopted the technology, and 14 more were added as part of the event. While large countries are generally doing the technical work to include their own domains in the system, the association of Internet security specialists is helping smaller countries and organizations with the process.
It is suggested in Paragraph 4 that（）
A. the Net security system has protected lots of companies from data thefts
B. scientists sees the Net Security System as a promising technology
C. companies like Sony are undergoing an Internet security crisis
D. communication via the Internet makes people more confident
参考答案：B
解析：
[试题类型] 推理引申题。
[解题思路] 根据题干关键词Paragraph 4可将本题定位至文章第四段。该段首句指出，在花旗银行、索尼等公司遭到数据盗窃、攻击、破坏和制造丑闻等非法入侵的情况下，很多网络安全专家把这一技术视为一线希望(a ray of hope)。由此可知，网络安全专家们看好“网络安全系统”这一技术，选项[B]是对原文第四段第一句话的同义改写，故为答案。
[干扰排除] 原文第四段提到，近期数据盗窃十分猖獗(cascade of data thefts)，在此背景下，网络科学家们将“网络安全系统”这一技术视为一线希望(a ray of hope)，但不能由此推断出该系统保护许多公司免受数据盗窃，故排除选项[A]。也不能由此推断出许多公司目前正经历网络安全危机，故排除选项[C]。第四段最后一句提到“该技术可以保证用户通过互联网进行通信时，与自己交流的人或组织的身份不是假冒或伪造的”，文中的confidence意指“确信与自己在线交流的人身份真实”，而不是“在线交流使人有信心”，故排除选项[D]。