Bits fly fast and freely

IRAQI SATELLITE TV is back transmitting (at least for now), after having its plug pulled on Tuesday by a US strike. CBS News and other sources initially reported the missile used an "e-bomb" to fry out transmission equipment in order The Iraqi war ministry may want to ask for their money back on GPS-jammers installed around Baghdad. At a Defense Department briefing hosted by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, tape was played showing a GPS-guided bomb dropped from a F-117 slamming into the sixth and last operational jamming site. Destruction of the sites shows that there was some concern about potential interference.

While the Patriot missile system has been upgraded to apparently successfully engage missiles, it has shown a hair-trigger tendency to lock onto coalition fighter aircraft. On Sunday, a Patriot missile shot down a British RAF Tornado GR4 near the Kuwaiti border, killing both crew. Tuesday, a Patriot battery outside the city of Najaf apparently locked on an F-16 and was preparing to fire. The F-16 fired first, launching a radar-killing HARM missile and destroying the radar. Pentagon officials are examining both incidents carefully.

Outside Iraq
Al-Jazeera launched its English-language web site on Monday, but both it and the Arabic-language counterpart have only been intermittently available over the past two days, according to Keynote Systems. A Keynote spokesperson couldn't say if the problems were due to a failure of adequate hosting resources, an international cyberattack, or increased popularity due to all those folks wanting to see the violations of the Geneva Convention by Iraqi TV.

According to several sources, defacement attacks against around the globe are up dramatically, with dot.mil and dot.gov sites - U.S. military and government sites - being favorite targets. Most of these attacks seem to be of the spray-paint nuisance type and are quickly fixed by site owners. µ