Lawyers, investment bankers, consultants, executives and directors suddenly hammered the investor relations section of the targeted firm’s Web site. “This seems to be a very common scenario,” explained Lance Cottrell, founder, president and chief scientist for San Diego-based Anonymizer Inc., at the Usenix Large Installation System Administration conference. Though his 11-year-old company is best known for consumer privacy, enterprise interest has surged regarding cloaking online activity used to gather intelligence and prevent information leakage. “You’re really advertising to people what you’re doing and what your interests are,” Cottrell said during a presentation on Internet counter-intelligence. One retail tire store found itself in a frustrating situation due to this technique, Cottrell recalled. The company advertised that it would match any competitor’s price, but when a customer would come in and cite someone else’s online deal, the tire shop couldn’t look it up on the Web because its IP address had been blocked.