James Bond online

But some old habits die hard.The has a fairly extensive Web site, as does the more secretive . An aside about the NSA site, however -- the site uses permanent cookies, even through I believe that is still not allowed. Perhaps the intel agencies are allowed to use them.

Yes, they just named the new James Bond... but Her Majesty's Secret Service, or MI6 -- the organization James Bond made famous -- now has its first ever spot online, the NYT reports this morning. Check them out at www.mi6.gov.uk.

So intense was the interest in this move by an intelligence service - once so secret that it denied its own existence - that the site recorded 3.5 million hits in its first few hours, slowing access to a crawl, said Nev Johnson, a British Foreign Office press officer who speaks on behalf of the Secret Intelligence Service.

"It's been pretty astronomical," he said.

Girding for the fight against global terrorism, the agency developed the site primarily to recruit agents, operatives and analysts from a much broader academic and social background than in the past and to let would-be spies know how to join.




Indeed, while its advertising is Web-based (www.mi6.gov.uk or www.sis.gov.uk), anyone wishing to either join or offer a snippet of intelligence is urged to do so by regular mail.


CIANational Security Agency