Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report discusses bank regulators' evaluation of electronic signature systems. Financial institutions use signature systems to verify or authenticate the identity of customers conducting financial and nonfinancial transactions over the Internet and other open electronic networks. Officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve told GAO that they are developing an examination strategy for Identrus LLC, which is an entity that provides services to financial institutions to authenticate electronic signatures. OCCofficials have not determined what role they will play in assessing Identrus' operations, but they believe that financial institutions should take an active role in assessing the risks associated with electronic signatures."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) created the Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) to conduct physical inspections of HUD's public and multifamily housing properties to determine whether the properties are safe, decent, and in good repair. Although REAC uses sampling to select units and buildings for inspection, it did not, at the time of GAO's review, routinely calculate the sampling error associated with the physical condition score assigned to each property. Under REAC's sampling procedure, buildings and units do not always have the same chance of being included in the inspection sample. REAC officials told GAO that they were introducing new sampling procedures that would nearly equalize the chance that each property's dwelling units would be selected. The actions that HUD is proposing should address that. GAO's concerns about HUD's sampling procedures."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Forest Service manages about 192 million acres of land that make up the National Forest System. The agency has proposed to make ecological sustainability its top priority in an attempt to sustain a flow of products, services, and values from the national forests and grasslands. One of the most debated issues is the role of roads, especially in areas that are now roadless. This report summarizes GAO's findings on how the potential roadless rule will affect the Forest Service's ability to meet its goals of restoring and maintaining ecological sustainability. GAO found that building roads in national forests can have both positive and negative effects. Road construction can alter a forest's ecosystem by facilitating timber harvesting and disturbing wildlife. However, roads can be used to repair environmental damage done by other activities. Forest Service officials at the 10 National forests that GAO reviewed provided general observations on the proposed rule. In GAO's view, the proposed rule would have little effect on forest management efforts because there was no plan to build roads in roadless areas unless it was determined that doing so would restore the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has tried unsuccessfully to modernize its information systems. To prevent a repeat of past mistakes, Congress legislated explicit controls over IRS spending on systems modernization. Congress did so by creating Senate and House appropriations subcommittees, which specified four conditions. IRS has satisfied some, but not all, of the conditions set out by its appropriations subcommittees; however, it has moved aggressively and made important progress in advancing many projects and addressing modernization management weaknesses. Until these weaknesses are fully addressed, key controls will be missing, thereby increasing the risk that projects will not perform as intended or cost more and take longer to complete."