Since the dawn of the information age, computer security commandos have battled the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: child pornographers, drug lords, mafiosi, and terrorists. A noble struggle, to be sure, but mostly vaporwar.

Computer cops have long predicted that a massive cyberdisaster would transform their field from an underfunded annex into a law enforcement cornerstone. On 9/11, disaster struck, and whileal Qaeda doesn't appear to have mastered high tech, a year later the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board has unveiled a comprehensive plan: "The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace." It's not a precise scheme for defeating cyberwar, cyberterror, and cybercrime, but the 58-page document does give a firm sense of the immense bureaucratic scale and vast budget required.

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