The idea that led to John Hoffman's breakthrough came from an unlikely place: a government bureaucrat. Hoffman had been thinking of ways to incorporate high-quality satellite data-the kind that intelligence agencies use-into his fledgling aerial photography business. The problem was that the sort of data the United States has is mostly on places like Siberian oil fields. Not much commercial potential there. But the government official's remark turned the whole thing around. "He said to me," Hoffman recalls, "You know son, what you ought to do is to go up to the blankety-blank Russians, because by God they've been taking pictures of us for 20 years.'"

Select from the choices above to read the entire article.