The New York Times has reported that political conflict in Estonia, over the removal of a WW II era memorial statue, led first to street riots and then to war in cyberspace. The protests were triggered by the removal from a public park of the bronze statue of a Soviet Soldier, which had become the rallying point for Estonia’s large ethnic Russian minority.

The month-long digital attack “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.” The Estonian defense minister called it a national security situation and compared it to having “your ports shut to the sea.”

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Digital Fears Emerge After Data Siege in Estonia - New York Times

Then read William Gibson’s seminal novel “Neuromancer”, which coined the term “cyberspace”.