[DB]

I have a hard time believing software written in the 1980's can do anything very useful spy wise today.

First, the software and its capabilities are known. Any data bases it might have had access to have likely been changed so it can't access them anymore.

Second, without access to secret data it would seem pretty useless.

[Jim Robinson]

I think the software in question was supposedly written on a VAX computer. I wrote software on VAX. It's ancient history. I believe the entire PROMIS story is a huge overblown hoax. There may have been some software licensing problems at sometime between this software company and the government, but NO VAX software is capable of doing anything like the tinfoil-hatters are claiming.