Wild Bill Donovan would have loved the Internet. The American spymaster who built the Office of Strategic Services in the World

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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.
Donovan’s story is mentioned in the text to ______.

选项 A、introduce the topic of online spying
B、show how he fought for the U.S.
C、give an episode of the information war
D、honor his unique services to the CIA

答案A

解析 本题可参照文章的第1段。从中可知,Donovan一定会喜欢互联网,这位在第二次世界大战中建立了战略情报局且后来又为中央情报局的建立奠定基础的美国间谍头子对收集情报非常痴迷;Donovan认为,在这种间谍活动——刺探情报作为一种“职业”——的“绝妙游戏”中,应该利用可以利用的一切手段。据此可知,文中提到Donovan的故事是为了介绍在网上从事间谍活动这一话题。A项与文章的意思相符,因此A项为正确答案。
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