Text III

I. READ THE ARTICLE AND SAY WHY IT IS CALLED IN THIS WAY:

THE NEXT THREAT: WEAPONS

OF MASS DISTRUCTION

(by George F. Will)

Terrorist attacks have usually been against single tar­gets - individuals, crowds, buildings. But today's net-worked world of complexity and interconnectedness has vast new vulnerabilities with a radius larger than that of any imagi­nable bomb blast. Terrorists using computers might be able to disrupt information and communication systems and, by doing so, attack banking and financial systems, energy (elec­tricity, oil, gas) and the systems for the physical distribu­tion of economic output.

Hijacked aircraft and powered anthrax — such terro­rist tools are crude and scarce compared with compu­ters, which are everywhere and inexpensive. Wielded with sufficient cunning, they can spread the demoralizing help­lessness that is terrorism's most important intended by­product. Computers as weapons, even more than inter­continental ballistic missiles, render irrelevant physical geography — the two broad oceans and two peaceful neighbors — that once was the basis of America's sense of safety.

In a software-driven world, an enemy need not invade the territory, or the air over the territory, of a country in order to control or damage that country's resources.

The attack tools are on sale everywhere: computers, modems, software, telephones. The attacks can shut down services or deliver harmful instructions to systems. And a cyber-attack may not be promptly discovered. Computer intrusions do not announce their presence the way a bomb does.

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Already «subnational» groups - terrorists, organized crime - are taking advantage of legal and widely available strong software that makes their communications invul­nerable to surveillance. If all the personal computers in the world were put to work on a single message, it would still take an estimated 12 million times the age of the universe to break a single message.

Now suppose a state or group or state-supported group used similar cyber-marvels to attack, say, US banking and financial systems, or the production and distribution of electric power.

II. ANSWER THE QUESTIONS:

1. What new sort of terrorism appeared in the world?

2. Is it too dangerous? ,

3. What are its grave consequences?

4. What are the attack tools for new terrorists?

5. Is it easy or difficult to discover a cyber-attack?

III. READ THE FOLLOWING ITEMS AND SAY WHAT PROBLEMS ARISE AT THE BACKGROUND OF THE IN­ FORMATION PRESENTED IN THEM:

THE MICROSOFT MONOPOLY

Is Bill Gates's Windows the best thing that ever hap­pened to its millions of users? Without even knowing American antitrust laws, one can tell that 90 percent of all users make up Gates's captive customer base. It's the same, with Microsoft Office. All other US business giants - cars, telecommunications, banking, finance and mass media -have competition. Even the Mafia has to compete. Many giants go global in order to remain competitive. Microsoft alone has no competition - those who were likely to pop up got clobbered and buried. This is a monopoly in its most sinister form. While others fight the courts for survival, Gates fights to perpetuate this monopoly.

(from «NEWSWEEK» 2000}

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NOTES:

Clobber - атаковать

Sinister - зловещий

EUROPE'S POLS TAKE TO THE NET With British elections coming next week, Web surfers have plenty of opportunity to sample the spectacle. They can get hard news from www.voxpolitics.com, or stage Space Invaders-style battles between the forces of Labour's Tony Blair and Conservative candidate William Hague at www.friendly-giants.com. The parties are tripping over themselves to attract a Web audience: Labour recently mailed its Web-site address to first-time voters, and both parties have multiplatform news portals.

Internet-mania won't end when the British election is over. Many European governments are spending millions of euros to put all their transactions on the Web. The United Kingdom hired Microsoft to build a super-portal that will connect hundreds of government institutions, local and national, to one another by 2005. E-voting trials are under­way in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany. Italian and Dutch taxpayers already file online.

But the Euro governments may be overreaching. The complexity of forging seamless data links between myriad local and national departments is enormous - many of the world's top corporations haven't yet managed it. And there are antitrust issues. Right now, only a few thousand people file online via government sites, but what happens when that goes to millions?

Governments may end up farming out many Web ser­vices to third parties. The biggest rewards may come to governments that use the Web to increase internal effi­ciency.

IV. ANSWER: HOW DO GOVERNMENTS USE WEB SITES?

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Political science

Part II