Bringing the internet to Iraq.

Only interesting since I was stationed at LSA Anaconda and I can attest to ‘drug deal’ like transactions (Not for internet service) that WERE completely legit, but seemed shady since money was exchanged in bricks of dough in bags and suitcases.

A nonfiction tale of two California cypherpunks who went to Baghdad to seek their fortune and bring the Internet to Iraq. A much abridged version ran in Wired a while back. From the original: “Ryan Lackey wears body armor to business meetings. He flies armed helicopters to client sites. He has a cash flow problem: he is paid in hundred-dollar bills, sometimes shrink-wrapped bricks of them, and flowing this money into a bank is difficult. He even calls some of his company’s transactions ‘drug deals’ — but what Lackey sells is Internet access. From his trailer on Logistics Staging Area Anaconda, a colossal US Army base fifty miles north of Baghdad, Lackey runs Blue Iraq, surely the most surreal ISP on the planet. He is 26 years old.”

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/04/23/2117240.shtml