00:00Did you know a country of 1.3 million people was once knocked offline over a statue?
00:04In April 2007, Estonia moved the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet war memorial, out of central Tallinn.
00:11Angry protests followed.
00:13Then the internet started to break.
00:14Estonia was one of the most connected countries on earth.
00:17People banked online, filed taxes online, and even voted online.
00:22On April 27th, huge floods of fake traffic hit Estonian websites.
00:26It's called a DDoS attack.
00:28Imagine a million people calling one shop at once, so real customers can't get through.
00:33Government ministries went dark.
00:35News sites failed.
00:36Banks struggled to stay open.
00:38The attacks came in waves for weeks, and the worst day was May 9th.
00:42Defenders worked day and night.
00:44Some sites blocked foreign visitors just to survive.
00:47Meanwhile, NATO allies faced a hard question.
00:50Could a cyberattack count as an armed attack and trigger collective defense?
00:53Nobody had an answer.
00:55Estonia pointed toward Russia.
00:56Russia denied involvement.
00:58No state was ever legally proven responsible, and only one person in Estonia was convicted.
01:04But Estonia didn't retreat from technology.
01:06It doubled down on making its systems stronger.
01:09NATO's Cyber Defense Center opened in Tallinn, and its experts wrote the Tallinn Manual, a guide
01:14to how international law applies to cyber conflict.
01:17The same connection that made Estonia fragile made it a model for the world.
01:20in the U.S., and the U.S.
01:20They left the doubt in the U.S.
01:21It was a massive hell and no one person in the U.S.
