More damaging still are reports of tactless comments by Chris Gent, Vodafone's boss, over the Christmas break.

ECONOMIST: Vodafone and Mannesmann

More damaging still to the Tory cause was the squashing of any hope that last summer's ballot of party members, in which they voted overwhelmingly to stay out of the euro for at least two parliaments, would silence the pro-euro Tories in Parliament.

ECONOMIST: Not quite across the Rubicon

Far more common--but still damaging--are the high-volume crime spikes, spam e-mail distribution and "phishing, " a pernicious technique for stealing credit-card information. (For more on online scams, check out "Where The Scammers Are".) The carnage is hard to pin down in dollar terms, but Marcus Ranum, chief security officer of Tenable Security, says it's "billions upon billions"--far more than all "major" hacking incidents combined.

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