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" In a modern digitalized world, it is possible to paralyze a country without attacking its defense forces: The country can be ruined by simply bringing its SCADA systems to a halt. To impoverish a country, one can erase its banking records. The most sophisticated military technology can be rendered irrelevant. In cyberspace, no country is an island. "

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Country

Technology

" Liberal democracies do not and often cannot respond in kind to cyberattacks on their own way of governance. "

" I was surprised by some of my French colleagues who immediately assumed that because I spoke English with an American accent, that, therefore, you must be a supporter of whoever is the current president of the United States. There seems to be this widespread feeling that, 'Oh, American accent - therefore, you like cowboy boots.' "

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Feeling

You

" The domestic policy of any president, U.S. or otherwise, is his or her own concern, as long as democratic norms are followed. "

" My American undergraduate education probably gave me a better idea of the fundamentals of what European civilization is about, better than the undergraduate education you get at most European universities. "

" Until defense of democracy in the digital era is taken up by governments collectively, both in NATO and outside the alliance, liberal democracies will remain vulnerable to the cyberthreats of the 21st century. "

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Digital

Will

" I was the child of refugees. "

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Refugees

Child

" In Germany, a country that for obvious reasons is far more attuned than most to the dangers of demagogy, populism, and nationalism, lawmakers have already proposed taking legal measures against fake news. When populist, nationalist fake news threatens the liberal democratic center, other Europeans may follow suit. "

" The fake news is - I mean, as a tool of warfare - has been there for decades and decades and decades. It was never very well done until, really, the Ukraine, though I would say that the Russians used to complain about fake things to say the State Department. "

" If getting young people computer-literate through putting school systems online is a no-brainer, at least in retrospect, getting older people and those in rural areas online can be a tougher nut to crack. "

" I'm an American by accent, and I grew up in the States, living there between the age of three and 24. "

" When our diplomats go abroad, they are surprised that they can't do the things that they can do here. "

" Can the wider West establish a global 'cyber NATO?' It would be difficult, but so, too, was the founding of NATO itself, which was called into being only after successive communist coups in Eastern Europe. "

" Because of cyberattacks and fake news, we can already imagine the problem all democratic societies will face in future elections: how to limit lies when they threaten democracy? "

" Nothing costs more than the loss of freedom. "

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Nothing

Loss

" When Estonia reestablished its sovereignty after a half century of successive thuggish, totalitarian, foreign occupations by the Soviets, the Nazis, and then again the Soviets, we knew we wanted to create a democratic country characterized by rule of law and respect for human rights. "

" When hackers have access to powerful computers that use brute force hacking, they can crack almost any password; even one user with insecure access being successfully hacked can result in a major breach. "

" The E-government cabinet, E-health services, online voting, online pre-filled tax returns, e-mobile parking, are all examples of Estonian innovation, but far more importantly, they are examples of the transformative power of intensive and extensive use of Information Technology in the public sector. "

" George Bush and I share a love of steel brush cutters. It turns out we use the same professional brush cutter. He asked me what I did. I said I cut brush. He says, 'Oh, what do you use?' I said steel. He goes, 'Oh, me too.' "

" I knew who Bruce Springsteen was before he had his first record. "

Toomas Hendrik Ilves

Who

Had

" We Estonians will do what is necessary to join the European Union. "

" The first time cyber was even a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference, which is - I mean, we've got hundreds of specialists there - was 2011. That's how long it took. "

" There is no Baltic identity with a common culture, language group, religious tradition. "

" Digital warfare, in the Clausewitz definition as 'the continuation of policy by other means,' reached Western public consciousness via my own country, Estonia, in 2007 when our governmental, banking, and news media servers were hit with 'distributed denial-of-service attacks,' which is when hackers overload servers until they shut down. "

" Russia has had very aggressive military exercises. They've practiced mock nuclear attacks on Warsaw. Russian bombers practiced attacking strategic military targets in Sweden. The military aggression gets everybody nervous. "

" It is hard to work with the nagging doubt that perhaps some foreign intelligence agency is reading all your correspondence, especially when you know they have done so in the past. "

" Cybersecurity needs to be taken seriously by everyone. "

" I remember starting to read about the Soviet Union when I was eight years old; I think I was reading my father's 'New York Times.' "

" Fake news is cheap to produce. Genuine journalism is expensive. "

" Democracy is messy, clearly, but it has one key factor, which is an orderly transfer of power. "