Who watches the “Hack Watch”-ers? A good few people it seems, going by the nigh on 400,000 hits to the popular Hack Watch News by John McCormac. This technology-oriented review site has been bookmarked by internet and media enthusiasts countrywide, making it one of the most read on-line columns in Ireland.

Love him or hate him (he seems to have picked up a fair few friends and enemies on the TechCentral WWWBoard since he reviewed RTE’s new technology show, TechTV), McCormac’s journalistic style is hard hitting, but still very detailed, and therein lies the appeal. Who else would dredge up memories of RTE’s late eighties take on Tomorrow’s World, “Zero”!

Articles range in interest from former Radio Nova boss Chris Carey’s escape from prison in the UK (I’m an ex-pirate chap myself, so this holds a particular interest for me), to the effect of the forthcoming cable modem service from Cablelink on ISPs like Telecom Internet.

If you’re suspected of being a smug internet service provider, watch out, as there is no place to hide when Hack Watch is on the your case… One of the more recent articles focuses on why TInet’s Muse site failed to reach the finals of the Irish web Oscars, the Golden Spider Awards. In fact, a TInet sponsored site, Irish Games Network’s quake.ie, has indeed qualified as finalist for “Best Community or Special Interest Site”, perhaps Hack Watch will make mention of this soon (and maybe there will be one or two people at the TInet table after all!).

Some have accused McCormac of being overly paranoid (a real-life Mulder of sorts), others would simply see his articles as being truthful and lacking the sugar coating so often found on review sites today.