Estonia is a small country nestled between Russia, Latvia and the Baltic sea, with a population of 1.3 Million. The country has had centuries of foreign rule by the Danish, Swedish, German, and Russians. It briefly gained Independence after the First World War, but was swallowed up by the USSR in 1940. It finally regained its freedom when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Relations between Russia and Estonia have never been cordial. Recently the Estonians moved a memorial, a statue of a Red Army soldier, that was erected in memory of the Russians who died during World War Two. This action provoked riots by the ethnic Russians, who make up 25% of Estonian’s population. The Russian Government has also complained about the removal, and has retaliated by delaying the delivery of oil. Ostensibly due to maintenance on the railway.
Estonians are very well connected – to the Internet that is. Estonians bank on-line, communicate with government offices on-line, even vote on-line. Since April this became increasingly difficult as many companies, and government offices, are under attack from mysterious hackers. The denial of service (DDoS) attacks make it near impossible to carry out any business on-line. Estonia is blaming the Russian Government, and nameless Russian hackers for the attacks.
You can imagine the situation here in New Zealand, where we also perform much of our business on-line. Despite the hurdles put in place by Telecom, it is easy to function nationally, and internationally, on-line.
The Internet owes its existence to a US Defence Department project started in 1969. The whole idea being to develop a communications network that would withstand a nuclear war. It wouldn’t matter where the bombs fell, the network was distributed, and the remaining sites would still be able to communicate.
It is ironic that the Internet is now being used as a weapon itself. More and more countries are becoming dependent on digital technologies. VOIP, email, web pages, on-line banking, we all, either, use these, or at some stage, will use them. Even the media is moving on-line. Traditional newspaper sales are dropping as more people read the news on-line. Radio and TV are going digital, it is possible now to listen to radio stations, and watch TV, on-line.
What if our reliance on the Internet became our weakness? During warfare the first things that get bombed are power stations, water works, and any centre of communications. How much easier if you don’t have to send planes, or have your infantry invade the country? In the future will warriors simply sit behind a computer, and program viruses and trojans, which they will send off with a press of the enter key, and bring a nation to halt?
In 1909 the English writer E.M. Forster wrote a short story called “The Machine Stops”. In this story people on earth have become dependant on a global machine that provides all they need and require. the population live underground, each person in their own “cell”. They no longer travel, and they communicate to each other via the machine. Unfortunately the machine develops problems, and stops, but life goes on because some people have rejected that way of life, and choose to live on the surface, dependant on nature.
Science Fiction often carries visions of the future that are frighteningly close to real events. Lets hope that fiction remains just that, and despite the obvious benefits of a global connected “machine” we still remain able to live a life without dependency on its existence.
- Estonia – CIA Factbook
- Estonia – Wikipedia
- Estonia moving the monument – Newsfeeder
- Russia to cut Estonia fuel transit amid statue row – Boston Globe
- Estonian Premier Says Internet Attacks Not Acceptable – Bloomberg
- Estonia hit by ‘Moscow cyber war’ – BBC
- The cyber pirates hitting Estonia – BBC
- What the attacks on Estonia have taught us about online combat. – Slate
- Cyberwar Ain’t What It Used to Be – Global Nerdy
- Estonia ‘Cyberwar’ Wasn’t – Wired
- E. M. Forster – Wikipedia
- The Machine Stops – E. M Forster
