For the second time in 2 years, Estonia just handed my country a soft beatdown. My nation, America, is very concerned, both politically and militarily, about cyber-attacks, in which computers are subverted against their owner's intentions, and it turns out that Estonia has the world's greatest defences against such a thing. To top this off, the Estonian people use computers far more than Americans do, and so could easily develop offensive capabilities as well. I have a feeling that the American military will be paying Estonians for this, and paying them handsomely, at a time when they're almost paid off with their national debt, and ours is the largest in the world.
Discovery news is reporting about how Estonia achieved dominance in the field. Apparently, Estonia first got very into IT in all varieties when it regained independence from the Soviet Union's collapse. Estonians appreciated the automation, convinience, and control that IT promised, and quickly pushed it to its limits. A team of Estonians invented Skype, an innovative VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) program, and have the world's best online banking, digital signature, and cell phone integration systems in the world.
Meanwhile, the American military is increasingly dependent on IT, and much of it are simple, poorly secured, out of the box Windows systems. The military is increasingly aware that the security is less than ideal, but is unsure of how to improve this. The local IT industry is growing increasingly schizophrenic, with more and more workers literally unable to do their jobs, and still winding up hired because the hiring criteria had more to do with their charisma than ability.
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