[compiledAtBirth]

To think of the culprit of a potential action in terms of nationalism is weak logic, no offense to you or the author, of course, because the digital world transcends any national boundary more readily than virtually any other technology, thanks to its low energy overhead and high data throughput.

This internationalism amplifies the net's vulnerability, and when coupled with (as per the article posted a couple of days ago on the grid's susceptibility to overload and the resulting brown/black outs) the net's dependency on a huge infrastructure meshes quite neatly with those who don't give a shit who suffers as long as it's someone that might be responsible for their woes, so someone desperate enough to eradicate the bulk of digital information would likely be concerned with larger issues like debt, weapons manufacture, or something similarly transnational.

[mark-r]

Certainly the internet transcends national boundaries. But ask yourself the question, whose economy is most vulnerable to a disruption to the internet? How much of B2B commerce today relies on the internet? At a time of war, doing damage to the enemy's economy and way of life from thousands of miles away with no risk to people or equipment is a pretty powerful capability.

China in particular has been building their own parallel internet universe. If Google goes down, most of us are going to feel it - but not China.