PHNOM PENH -- In an information-technology world, the vast majority of Cambodians remain deprived. While the amount of information in the country has been growing significantly, compared with the dark past, as with everything else here information is being hoarded by the rich and powerful.

Ean Thorng knows. She returned to Cambodia in 1991 from a refugee camp in Thailand. Starting in 1994, she traveled from her home in the northwest province of Battambang to Phnom Penh; she was trying to get information about her husband, a government soldier who was killed in the civil war, and to collect the benefits due to her. For transport, food and help from her husband's friends, she spent the equivalent of $350, a small fortune in Cambodia.

Her quest ended outside the Ministry of National Defense.