Oxford University's geopolitical website, Oxford Analytica, recently reported waves of info-war activity. In return, the Indonesians tried to crash an Irish Internet service provider hosting the East Timorese country domain code. During the Balkan conflict, America was infiltrating Yugoslav missile sites to manipulate their radar returns while Serbian hackers crashed Nato's website with multiple hits. The Tamil Tigers have been pranging Sri Lankan embassy sites since 1995. The US navy has set aside 10 billion dollars over the next six years to combat info-strikes.
Companies are worried, too, even in Britain.
Novell recently surveyed 150 IT managers and directors who use the internet as a business tool. B y way of balance, too many of their American counterparts are too clever by half at built-in hacking. Microsoft's registration pro-cess was found to be collecting an identifier from computers and software. Intel incorporated GUIDs into their Pentium III chips. And RealNetworks face megabuck lawsuits after covertly enabling their downloadable RealJukebox software to record individuals' musical preferences.