Pentagon pulls the plug on leaky net

AMERICA'S NATIONAL security establishment has woken up to the fact that vast quantities of sensitive information on its staff, facilities and plans are available on the Internet.

In a parallel to the wartime campaign of "Careless talk costs lives," the Pentagon has clamped down on government Web sites that make life easy for Washington's adversaries.

The key discovery, according to USA Today, was that floor plans of the residence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were posted on a Web site.

The revelation came after the US missile strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan, when the US refused to release details of the ships or aircraft involved in the operations. But anyone with access to the Internet could have quickly worked out which vessels were in place and discovered valuable information about their movements, equipment and personnel.

The Internet holds vast amounts of information that is security related, much of it distributed by the military.

Though much of the information is unclassified, it makes life for an amateur spy absurdly easy. Even the radio frequencies of secret transmissions from sites such as the highly classified Roswell Air Force Base ("Area 51" to UFO fans) are readily available.