ABSTRACT
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According to recent estimates [1], the number of personal computers in the world currently amounts to around 600 millions units and, by 2010, is expected to reach 1 billion. This means that on average, almost one out of six persons on the planet is forecasted to have a personal computer and, most likely, to be able to connect to worldwide networks. Studies on real complex networks [2, p. 10] reveal that in 2003 the number of World Wide Web pages linked by the sole search engine AltaVista equaled 203,549,046, while the number of connections among them was 2,130,000,000. With respect to regional distribution of information technology, according to a recent UN report [3, p. 4], the so-called digital divide is shrinking: the number of personal computers per 100 inhabitants in 1992 in the developed countries was 27 times more than in the developing countries, while in 2002 it was
only 11 times more. Moreover, the number of Internet users per 100 inhabitants in 1992 in the developed countries was 41 times more than in the developing countries, while in 2002 only 8 times more.
