2. 职称英语
  3. Wild Bill Donovan would have loved the Internet. The American spymaster who

Wild Bill Donovan would have loved the Internet. The American spymaster who

游客2025-04-02  29
问题     Wild Bill Donovan would have loved the Internet. The American spymaster who built the Office of Strategic Services in the World War II and later laid the roots for the CIA was fascinated with information. Donovan believed in using whatever tools came to hand in the "great game" of espionage—spying as a "profession". These days the Net, which has already remade pastimes as buying books and sending mail, is reshaping Donovan’s vocation as well.
    The last revolution isn’t simply a matter of gentlemen reading other gentlemen’s e-mail. That kind of electronic spying has been going on for decades. In the past three or four years, the World Wide Web has given birth to a whole industry of point-and-click spying. The spooks call it "open source intelligence", and as the Net grows, it is becoming increasingly influential. In 1995 the CIA held a contest to see who could compile the most data about Burundi. The winner, by a large margin, was a tiny Virginia company called Open-Source Solutions, whose clear advantage was its mastery of the electronic world.
    Among the firms making the biggest splash in the new world is Straitford, Inc., a private intelligence-analysis firm based in Austin, Texas. Straitford makes money by selling the results of spying (covering nations from Chile to Russia) to corporations like energy-services firm McDermott International. Many of its predictions are available online at "www.straitford.com."
    Straitford president George Friedman says he sees the online world as a kind of mutually reinforcing tool for both information collection and distribution, a spymaster’s dream. Last week his firm was busy vacuuming up data bits from the far corners of the world and predicting a crisis in Ukraine. "As soon as that report runs, we’ll suddenly get 500 new internet sign-ups from Ukraine," says Friedman, a former political science professor. "And we’ll hear back from some of them." Open-source spying does have its risks, of course, since it can be difficult to tell good information from bad. That’s where Straitford earns its keep.
    Friedman relies on a lean staff with twenty in Austin. Several of his staff members have military intelligence backgrounds. He sees the firm’s outsider status as the key to its success. Straitford’s briefs don’t sound like the usual Washington back-and-forthing, whereby agencies avoid dramatic declarations on the chance they might be wrong. Straitford, says Friedman, takes pride in its independent voice. [br] The emergence of the Net has ______.
选项 A、received support from fans like Donovan
B、remolded the intelligence services
C、restored many common pastimes
D、revived spying as a profession
答案 B
解析 本题可参照文章的第1段。从中可知，美国的间谍头子Donovan对收集情报非常痴迷。他认为，在职业间谍活动这一伟大事业中，可以利用任何可以利用的工具；互联网已经彻底改变了人们的一些日常消遣活动，比如买书、发送邮件，如今它也正在重新塑造着Donovan的事业。据此可知，网络改变了其智能服务。B项与文章意思相符，因此B项为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/4022861.html
相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)