① The Internet affords anonymity to its users, a blessing to privacy and freedom of speech. But that very anonymity is also behind the explosion of cyber-crime that has ____1____ across the Web.
② Can privacy be preserved ____2____ bringing safety and security to a world that seems increasingly ____3____?
③ Last month, Howard Schmidt, the nation’s cyber-czar, offered the federal government a ____4____ to make the Web a safer place – a “voluntary trusted identity” system that would be the high-tech ____5____ of a physical key, a fingerprint and a photo ID card, all rolled ____6____ one. The system might use a smart identity card, or a digital credential ____7____ to a specific computer, and would authenticate users at a range of online services.
④ The idea is to ____8____ a federation of private online identity systems. Users could ____9____ which system to join, and only registered users whose identities have been authenticated could navigate those systems. The approach contrasts with one that would require an Internet driver’s license ____10____ by the government.
⑤ Google and Microsoft are among companies that already have these “single sign-on” systems that make it possible for users to ____11____ just once but use many different services.
⑥ ____12____, the approach would create a “walled garden” in cyberspace, with safe “neighborhoods” and bright “streetlights” to establish a sense of a ____13____ community.
⑦ Mr. Schmidt described it as a “voluntary ecosystem” in which “individuals and organizations can complete online transactions with ____14____, trusting the identities of each other and the identities of the infrastructure ____15____ which the transaction runs.”
⑧ Still, the administration’s plan has ____16____ privacy rights activists. Some applaud the approach; others are concerned. It seems clear that such a scheme is an initiative push toward what would ____17____ be a compulsory Internet “driver’s license” mentality.
⑨ The plan has also been greeted with ____18____ by some computer security experts, who worry that the “voluntary ecosystem” envisioned by Mr. Schmidt would still leave much of the Internet ____19____. They argue that all Internet users should be ____20____ to register and identify themselves, in the same way that drivers must be licensed to drive on public roads.