Reports on the cyber assault against Estonia this spring once again raised the specter of pending doom in cyberspace--the "electronic Pearl Harbor" that always seems to be just over the horizon. One headline even upped the doomsday language to "cyber nuclear winter."

Is all this hype, as many experts have argued, or should we worry about cyberterrorism? So far, no attack in cyberspace has come close to bringing about the devastation, grief and political consequences of Pearl Harbor or Sept. 11, let alone nuclear war. Certainly not the cyber protest against Estonia, which left no one dead or even physically injured.

Yet the assault deserves our attention, as it took online activism to a new, worrisome level.