Waiting for the Movie

Regarding Russian (though possibly grassroots rather than state-sponsored) virtual attacks on Estonian web infrastructure, Robert Farley remarks that "lots of work has been done on "cyber war", the promise and vulnerability of networked military organizations" but:

Less attention has been paid to the economic prospects of cyber warfare, and to the ability of states to exert power and coercion through a new set of tools. When Russia tries to coerce its neigbors through threatening to destroy their economic and governmental activity, it becomes a problem for NATO and consequently the United States.

Of course, like many things all this could be anticipated by close readers of William Gibson's sprawl trilogy which clearly has just such a clash (between the US and Russia, even) as part of its backstory. I'm fairly confident that if this Neuromancer movie ever happens it's going to suck, though.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/05/waiting-for-the-movie/42411/