Beleaguered Network Solutions Inc (NSI), the company whose foul- up a week ago caused much of the internet’s address book to be lost for up to six hours yesterday attempted to deflect some of the flak that has been surrounding it since the snafu. But in doing so it missed a crucial point. The Herndon, Virginia company said that as a result of the problem, some 6.5% of the world’s hosts could have been directly affected during normal business hours. Normal, in this case, means North America and as the internet actually spans worldwide, widespread havoc was created in Europe, as well as the US. The company said that for the majority of internet users there was little to no perceived interruption of services. We have no statistics, but we certainly noticed big problems getting to most websites from New York, and experienced considerably worse in our London and other European offices. The foul-up was caused by an employee’s negligence, for which NSI has now apologized, but at the same time it has no doubt antagonized users already unhappy at its level of service and its monopoly position.