If you thought Bermuda was the hot cyber-island of the offshore world, then you're deluded. Other offshore centres have made much more coordinated efforts in the same direction when Bermuda first laid out its war plans with its e-commerce act.

The latest to put forth their ambitions on the table is the Isle of Man, which has been quietly developing an e-commerce infrastructure.

The Isle of Man government in June issued a new policy document on promoting electronic commerce in the jurisdiction.

The document commits government to continue funding the installation cost of high-speed Internet connections for businesses and residents through an arrangement with Manx Telecom.

Government has also leased a fibre-optic cable, which was developed as part of the electricity inter-connector project, to ensure residents have access to a high-speed connection.

Yes folks, the Isle of Man is so hot to get on board, for the past year government has been paying to get people connected and has its own cable link to the UK, treating, in essence, the Internet as a public resource (see www.ecommerce.gov.im).

"This asset has the potential to facilitate increased future broadband access to the UK and international backbones at competitive rates," the document states. "Government is currently evaluating the best ways to utilise these fibre-optic cables as a national asset."

Will it work?

I know economists shudder over subsidies, but how do you break down the digital divide otherwise?

And what do you do if the private sector is unable to provide the goods?

Manx Telecom, the monopoly provider owned by British Telecom, estimates that 43 percent of the 32,000 households on the Isle of Man currently have an Internet connection.

An unmetered ISDN connection costs ?120.50 for three months in the jurisdiction.

Government is currently in discussion with the company about liberalisation of the telecommunications sector.

The company's licence expires in 2006.

Government wants to have a new system in place by December 31, 2002.

Manx Telecom by the way tested its first 3G commercial network on the Isle of Man in July this year.

British Telecom hopes to use the Isle of Man network to test third-generation services that will launch on the UK and in Europe in late 2002.

Other proposals including turning the administration of the Isle of Man's country domain, '.im', over to the Financial Services Commission and evaluating the possible regulation of e-money institutions in the Isle of Man.

Now that's food for thought when you look at the pathetic effort Bermuda's Government has made in the e-commerce, and e-government direction despite an apparent head start.

I've been getting masses of messages lately, with an attachment, stating: 'Hi! How are you? I send you this file in order to have your advice. See you later. Thanks'.

Of course I trash the message immediately. It's SirCam, out to get my hard drive.

E-mail is getting to be a hassle these days, so the rules are - update your virus software once or twice a week and, DO NOT OPEN ANY ATTACHMENT ... unless you are either expecting it, or you know who is sending the message.

I know I've raged on about this theme before, but I think the last two months have been high intensity in terms of the messages I've been receiving.

A wave of viruses, like SirCam and Code Red, has been coming through the wires.

And yes, SirCam is still out there folks.

Three days ago I had a call from a French real estate agent, whose system was stuck, with Norton AntiVirus attempting to delete a virus.

I asked her to read me the information she was getting from Norton.

It was 'SirCam'.

Unfortunately, I was unable to help her over the phone even though I had all the information about deleting the worm up on my screen from the Symantec site (www.sarc.com).

She didn't know how to disconnect the connections to the other computers in her office, so she had to shut down the business for the day until the computer technician could come by.

You must disconnect the infected computers from the network, as SirCam is particularly persistent in remaining in the system.

As of yesterday (Tuesday) everyone's Norton AntiVirus should be telling him or her that they're protected against 51,263 viruses.

It's a ridiculous number.

What will the number be in one or two years' time?

If you're using McAfee, the only number I could get from the company's site was the inexact figure of 57,000 viruses.

McAfee has a free e-mail alert newsletter, which will send you the latest warnings as soon as they are received.

The McAfee site states that over the past 30 days, about 31 percent of computers worldwide were infected by some virus or the other.

Apart from the virus messages, I am also getting a lot of messages claiming that I'm a subscriber to some service or the other.

The bottom of the message apologises if the message has been sent in error and offers me the choice to unsubscribe.

When I received the very first one, I automatically hit the 'unsubscribe' link.

Big mistake.

Now I get even more messages in my mailbox as the spamsters know the mailbox is 'live'.

Most of the messages offer porn, but some offer other items.

So every day it's 'delete'...'delete', despite the pretty girls.

I hope to be free in about a year.

l Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. You can contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com or (33) 467901474.