"VOIP is a technology that allows telephone calls to be made using a broadband internet connection instead of a regular (analog) phone line." maybe the wgig could adopt this nice and clean definition of voip?

there must be some strategical value in this definition, given the fact that it comes from a footnote in a u.s. army classified document - and not a minor one: it is the official report of the investigation committee on the involuntary(?) murder of our national hero, mr. nicola calipari, by u.s. soldiers in baghdad, while bringing back to the airport the just liberated italian hostage, ms. giuliana sgrena. the report was released yesterday to the press and public, but of course plenty of its content, including this definition, was classified and covered up with black filled rectangles... until a few hours later it was "hacked".

however, no crime was committed: the fact is that whoever at the u.s. military prepared the pdf file for distribution from the multinational force website (you know, it's "multinational" because it's supported by the u.s., tony blair and silvio berlusconi) used the "highlighting" feature of acrobat to cover up the classified sections, while turning the highlighting colour from yellow to black in the options. of course, if you open the pdf file in acrobat and turn the colour back to yellow, you get a new version in which all classified information is perfectly readable, and also nicely highlighted (here is the original text version by indymedia, though the other one is nicer).

and so, all major italian newspapers are now publishing the classified text and making fun of all the interesting instructions on how to bomb u.s. soldiers in iraq and information on anti-guerrilla techniques used by the u.s. army. (no trace of this accident on online u.s. newspapers, though.)

at the same time, many here think that this kind of "mistakes" never happen by chance... and that this was the way used by the u.s. army to get to the public some information that would be embarassing to our government, such as the facts that would prove the innocence of the u.s. soldiers and the errors of the italian agents, and even the secret name of the italian intelligence agent who drove the car (which, to make the thing more disturbing, happens to be a perfect homonymous of one of my best friends).

you know, as in every other past accident in which u.s. soldiers "accidentally" killed italian civilians, the u.s. will always acquit its military personnel; and berlusconi cannot look like agreeing to that, when at his lowest popularity ever, and in front of a country where at least 80% of the population has always been against italian participation in the iraqi war - so he already protested the report, even before it came out; and this is thought to be a retaliation.

in any case, if this was actually a mistake, then another fundamental rule of the internet would have been proven true again: no matter how many technology or policy efforts you make, no user can ever be protected from his/her own lack of education.