In the late 19th century and early 20th century, various Western countries were competing for influence, trade, and territory in East Asia while Japan strove to transform itself into a modern power. Great power status at the time depended in part on access to colonies which could provide raw materials. Securing colonies in turn depended on naval power, which required bases for the increasingly large battleships of the era, and a chain of coal stations for warships to restock the fuel for their boilers.

Japans victories in the Russo–Japanese War , as time transpired, would dramatically transform the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a sober reassessment of Japan's recent entry onto the world stage; and setting the stage for other events which would eventually culminate in WWI and II.

At the time of course almost no one noticed the sweeping changes in military doctrine, strategy, and technology.

"War Fears Turn Digital After Data Siege in Estonia

By MARK LANDLER and JOHN MARKOFF
Published: May 29, 2007

TALLINN, Estonia, May 24 — When Estonian authorities began removing a bronze statue of a World War II-era Soviet soldier from a park in this bustling Baltic seaport last month, they expected violent street protests by Estonians of Russian descent.

They also knew from experience that “if there are fights on the street, there are going to be fights on the Internet,” said Hillar Aarelaid, the director of Estonia’s Computer Emergency Response Team. After all, for people here the Internet is almost as vital as running water; it is used routinely to vote, file their taxes, and, with their cellphones, to shop or pay for parking.

What followed was what some here describe as the first war in cyberspace, a monthlong campaign that has forced Estonian authorities to defend their pint-size Baltic nation from a data flood that they say was set off by orders from Russia or ethnic Russian sources in retaliation for the removal of the statue.

The Estonians assert that an Internet address involved in the attacks belonged to an official who works in the administration of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.

The Russian government has denied any involvement in the attacks, which came close to shutting down the country’s digital infrastructure, clogging the Web sites of the president, the prime minister, Parliament and other government agencies, staggering Estonia’s biggest bank and overwhelming the sites of several daily newspapers.

“It turned out to be a national security situation,” Estonia’s defense minister, Jaak Aaviksoo, said in an interview. “It can effectively be compared to when your ports are shut to the sea.”

Computer security experts from NATO, the European Union, the United States and Israel have since converged on Tallinn to offer help and to learn what they can about cyberwar in the digital age.

“This may well turn out to be a watershed in terms of widespread awareness of the vulnerability of modern society,” said Linton Wells II, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration at the Pentagon. “It has gotten the attention of a lot of people.”..."

This may be one of those moments where for just a split second you can observe technology actually shifting or changing the balance of world power.

It is a very interesting time for computer security people.

Rob

We are glad you are on the job Rob and on the leading edge instead of the bleeding edge.

Chuckle - I'm just a geek who got lucky...

But this kind of stuff is part of what we (my company) does; computer security systems, forensics, data recovery, etc for corporations and governments...

The worse things get, as awareness of vulnerability grows, the better we make out...

Sorry if its so far off topic here - but this kind of stuff fascinates me: probably why I got into this field in the first place.

R

Yeah, always find your posts interesting ITJock.