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

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.
It can be learned from Para. 4 that ______.
选项 A、Straitford’s prediction about Ukraine has proved true
B、Straitford guarantees the truthfulness of its information
C、Straitford’s business is characterized by unpredictability
D、Straitford is able to provide fairly reliable information
答案D
解析 从文章第4段的内容可知，Straitford公司总裁George Friedman把网络世界看成是一种信息收集和发布的互动工具，是超级间谍的天堂；上周，他的公司就忙着从世界各地收集信息，以便预测乌克兰可能发生的危机；“一旦情报传播开，我们将立刻得到500条来自乌克兰的最新的网上消息，然后从中进行筛选。”曾是政治学教授的Friedman说。当然，这种公开渠道的间谍活动也担有风险，因为很难区分情报的真假，而这正是Straitford公司生存发展的立足点。据此可知，Straitford能够兴旺的原因就是它能够辨别并提供真实的信息。D项与文章的意思相符，因此D项为正确答案。
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