New at Reason

Michael Weiss looks at the recent "cyber invasion" of Estonia, and cautions the West to be ready for more of the same.

Comments

Brian Sorgatz | August 17, 2007, 3:03pm | #

Miss the Nazis? Welcome to the Nashis.

Alex | August 17, 2007, 4:27pm | #

>It's important to see the Bronze Solider for what it really was: imperialist propaganda, not a solemn consecration of war dead.
>Cast as a solemn, head-lowered "Ivan" of World War II, the statue was actually the centerpiece of an oddly placed urban sepulcher for the remains of nameless Red Army soldiers who died in the "liberation" of Estonia from Nazi occupation.

Author is just an ignorant [self moderated]!!! All who died liberating Tallinn were perfectly known. One of them was a young jewish girl who worked as medic in Soviet Army : http://www.infoisrael.net/cgi-local/text.pl?source=7/a/190720071 Author should have learned more about the subject before writing this crap. Estonia is notorios by their SS division reunion, these were voluntary elite forces who took part in Holocaust. They were involved in rounding up and shooting jews not only in Estonia, but also in Russia, Belorussia and Poland. This was documented by the international history commission (http://www.historycommission.ee/) in late 90-ies, after gaining independence from the USSR.
Justifying the Estonian authorities, who attends SS meetings and greets them as "freedom fighters" is sick.

>These lumpen elements are mainly members of the nationalist Nashi ("Ours") movement, which is headquartered in Moscow and suborned by the Putin regime.

Dead wrong again. There are only few Nashi members in Estonia and none of them participated in riots and lootings. It was a peaceful demonstration in the beginning, but the police has provoked riots by brutally beating up everyone who simply did not speak Estonian.

>The "cyberwar," which was precipitated by the controversial relocation of a World War II monument in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, drew international headlines

It wasn't a cyberwar, "stop sniffing glue" mr. Weiss! http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/weekinreview/24schwartz.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=df417fd97fc3e73e&ex=1185508800

Cynical Bastard | August 17, 2007, 5:12pm | #

Alex - KGB, comrade, nyet?

http://www.reason.com/news/show/119434.html

(Yes, I am the Cynical Bastard of gazeta.ru)

James | August 17, 2007, 7:01pm | #

"...when a person from country A harms country B, and country A does not prevent that person from continuing to do harm, then country B has the right to take action against country A..."

This is the most interesting part of the story. Perhaps nations can harden their critical systems against compromise, but what if the attacks are so sophisticated and sustained as to effectively, if not actually, shut down services, to whom do we turn for justice?

Unfortunately, it doesn't sound too far-fetched to imagine a scenario where, say, North Korea's network segment becomes unusable and they blame the South Koreans (who may have nothing to do with it), whereupon N.Korea launches a traditional or nuclear attack on their neighbor in retribution.

Without a schema in place, all hell could break loose. Anarchy, anyone?

LarryA | August 18, 2007, 10:36am | #

The West should start laying the groundwork to deal with coordinated, state-sponsored cyber attacks before they happen again, and on a larger scale.

Not to worry. I'm sure the TSA has their metal detectors at the ready.

Flaneur | August 21, 2007, 5:39am | #

It was Herzen, not Tolstoy, who wrote of Russia as "Genghis Khan with the telegraph".

Two thoughts for Alex. (1) Around two-fifths of the policemen involved in controlling the Bronze Soldier demo-morphing-into-riot were ethnic Russians and (2) the great majority of ethnic Russians in Tallinn DO speak Estonian, so those who did not were imported from elsewhere.