Malicious software infecting the computers of electric utilities could cause turbines at power plants to spin out of control, potentially destroying them.

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"They (computers) run our electric power grid, out telecommunications network, they run our railroads, our banking system, and all of them are vulnerable, at some level, to some degree to information warfare, or cyber-terrorism, " Clark said.

CNN: Governments ready to fight cyber-crime in new millennium

Already a school in Manchester, England has a dozen personal computers connected to the Internet by its electric power line.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

He even wondered if it might be possible to make computers for the poor in countries without an electric power grid.

ECONOMIST: Internet connectivity

But he imagined it all being done using microfilms and electric sensors and mechanics because he didn't have computers and he didn't have the internet then, and then Ted Nelson invented the idea of hypertext.

BBC: NEWS | Technology | Net guru peers into web's future