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THE LAND OF I KNOW
NOT WHAT AND I KNOW
NOT WHERE

Tallinn, Estonia

Four days before the official voting day of its general election in the spring of 2007, the tiny Baltic country of Estonia, with a population of just 1.25 million, offered its citizens a world first: the opportunity to cast their ballots in a parliamentary election without getting up from their PC. If the experiment worked, the ultimate aim would be to instigate a full 'virtual election' four years later in 2011.

Much was at stake if Estonia were to make this significant leap towards a digital future - not only did the systems have to work, but they had to be secure from outside attack as well. A year earlier Estonia had officially inaugurated its Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), whose main job was to react to any breaches (whether accidental or malicious) in the Internet domain that bears the country's suffix: .ee. That involves constantly monitoring the flow of Internet traffic in, around and out of the country for any abnormal patterns.

The man responsible for the entire country's computer security is the quietly spoken Hillar Aarelaid, sporting the look of someone who has only recently got out of bed, and that unwillingly. He may appear distracted, but Aarelaid has a single-mindedness that saw him rise through the ranks of Estonia's police force, where he started as a simple traffic cop in the sticks. 'But I loved computers, so first I got a transfer here to Tallinn and eventually I was appointed Chief Information Officer for law enforcement throughout the country.' Just as well - he definitely looks like a geek. He definitely does not look like a cop (except, at a pinch, an undercover narcotics officer from the 1980s), so perhaps it

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