By Perry Glasser T he challenges of transacting business on a network have historic foundations. But thanks to ubiquitous, split-second access, the scope and pace of commerce will never be the same. Sensitive information is stolen, corrupted and released, and at sunrise the financial markets collapse. Fortunes are lost, businesses ruined. The hacker, however, makes a killing, selling stocks before the panic and repurchasing the same securities moments before the truth emerges.
Angry investors demand that guilty heads roll.
And this being Napoleonic Europe, they nearly get their way. The hacker was Nathan Meyer Rothschild, head of the London branch of the international banking business that still bears the family name. During the terror-filled hours when the London market believed Bonaparte had taken the day, Rothschild clambered through the window of opportunity his disinformation had pried opened. The technology has changed since the Duke of Wellington's victory, but the concerns of business remain the same. If money is the blood of commerce, most businesspeople know that information is the heart.