The Cold War for Information Technology is a captivating new book that uncovers a little-known but vital battle to gain control over IT development that took place in the final two decades of the 20th century. As you might expect, intelligence agencies from the United States, the Soviet Union, India, and China all played major roles.
However, remarkably, an IT company from Tito’s unaligned Yugoslavia called Iskra Delta wound up right in the middle of this epic struggle to control IT. For despite its small size, Iskra Delta obtained permission from the U.S. to work through the U.S. embargo that at the time prohibited exporting information technology to the East. Being at a kind of digital crossroads for the East and West gave the company a massive influence that belied its small size. By 1986 the tiny Yugoslav IT company had built one of the largest computer networks in the world for the Chinese police.
But Iskra Delta’s innovativeness would ultimately draw it into the center of the international struggle to control the emerging IT world with presidents of the Soviet Union, China and India personally paying a visit. Suddenly the company was in the crosshairs of international intelligence agencies like the CIA and the KGB.
