TABLE OF CONTENTS The small but growing number of cases that are presented and discussed in this chapter cannot, by the nature of the incidents, be considered definitive. After all, it rarely benefits any corporation to have the public, shareholders, citizens, and competitors become cognizant of the nature and extent of losses associated with breaches of security that are characteristic of successful Netspionage. Also, corporations that have already crossed the ethical line and used these techniques do not want to advertise their success. After all, there are others upon whom they may wish to wreak havoc. For all these reasons, successful Netspionage attacks are expected to largely remain in the shadows. However, there is every reason to believe that the reported cases and elements that have already surfaced in various media reports through other medium represent the "tip of the iceberg." When a case does become public, it deserves careful scrutiny and should be viewed as a "straw in the wind," an indicator that demonstrates how this concept is developing.
The public records are supplemented by several incidents of which the authors have personal knowledge based on extensive contacts. These have been deliberately sanitized to avoid disclosing the affected corporations. However, each incident presented is real and provides additional examples of the potential for Netspionage.
Our assessment, considering the sample of cases below, is that they forecast a dark and dangerous future for corporations that assume that everyone will engage in roughly similar norms of competition. Although clever terms...
