A recently declassified study said the CIA was five years behind the rest of the world when it came to using technology to do its job.

It found that workers in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence made little use of the internet, used primitive, inflexible databases to catalogue information and had none of the software tools common in the business world.

Prepared by a former CIA staffer, the report provides a fascinating glimpse into the working lives of CIA analysts.

Contrary to the Hollywood view of intelligence work, the report notes that most workers use little "gee whiz" software.

Instead, the typical work desk has two phones and two desktop computers.

One machine connects to classified systems and the other is used for net browsing and sending unclassified e-mail. One phone is secure and the other is not.

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