The U.S. government recently concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.
The FBI is going to new lengths to be sure it can eavesdrop on high-tech communications, secretly building "Magic Lantern" software to monitor computer use. Separately, the agency is urging phone companies to change their networks for more reliable wiretaps in the digital age.
The U.S. Commerce Department has put together a team of eclectic, low-profile researchers -- among them, a college physics professor, a nuclear engineer and a veteran of the federal government's Y2K preparations -- in a project mischeviously called "Project Matrix". The team is trying to map the government's electronic underbelly to identify the systems and services whose failure or disruption by a hacker or foreign enemy could cripple the U.S. military or economy or threaten public health, and to determine how those systems are linked with, or "cascade" upon, others.