Denial of Service

The DOS attacks directed towards some of Georgia's key servers, slightly in advance of the recent bloodshed, signals the way things might increasingly go in future.

Bill Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit organization that tracks Internet traffic[...]said 'cyberattacks are so inexpensive and easy to mount, with few fingerprints, they will almost certainly remain a feature of modern warfare'.

Given the reliance I already have on internet banking, IM and VoIP for communications etc. etc. - let alone the separate issue of mobile networks - it could all get very difficult. Those numbers on my bank balance on the screen - they're not real money...they're just pixels. If they suddenly just go to a row of zeros and I call (assuming that I can get through on the jammed network) and the voice on the other end says that s/he sees a row of zeros too then that's that. Oversimplification maybe...scary nonetheless.