Russia's actual physical invasion of Georgia has garnered much of the headline space devoted to the two countries, but the conflict is playing out online as well. Attacks against the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's website first occurred in late July, but gathered relatively little attention. Security investigators from the United States Computer Response Readiness Team (US-CERT) monitored the attacks, and stated that they did not appear to be a test run for a major assault.

Whether those attacks and the current situation are directly linked or not, the same group may be ultimately responsible for both. The blog RBNExploit claims to be functioning as an unofficial news branch of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has released a server routing map it claims demonstrates evidence of Russian malfeasance.

From the blog: "the latest server routing map... shows the Russian based servers AS12389 ROSTELECOM, AS8342 RTCOMM, and AS8359 COMSTAR, controlling all traffic to Georgia’s key servers. For example here AS28751 CAUCASUS NET AS Caucasus Network Tbilisi, Georgia & AS20771 DeltaNet Autonomous System DeltaNet ltd 0179 Tbilisi Georgia.

"Even the Turkish (often RBN controlled) server AS9121 TTNet is now being blocked via COMSTAR, we understand via colleagues in Istanbul, the Turkish authorities are trying to regain control of these servers and provide direct routing to Georgia."



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The group claims that Georgian official websites cannot be trusted, and that the country's websites are now under external control. If true, it's that much more difficult for other nations and peacekeeping forces to gain a proper understanding of what is happening inside Georgia. Both sides agree that the separatist capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, has been smashed, but Georgia blames Russia's "disproportionate use of force," while the Russians blame Georgia for shelling the city.

The current disaster is the result of more than a decade of brinkmanship between Russia and the former Soviet republic. Georgia was forcefully annexed by the USSR in 1921 and spent decades as a Soviet Socialist Republic (Joseph Stalin was Georgian). As happened in Estonia, a group of Georgians actually fought with the Nazis in World War II, in the hopes of freeing themselves from Soviet rule. This sort of "traitorous" activity did not sit particularly well with the Soviets; the later dissident movements of the 1960s and one particular peaceful demonstration in 1989 were all brutally repressed.

Georgia declared itself independent from the USSR on April 9, 1991, but problems with separatist groups in South Ossetia and Abkhazia have dogged the country since independence. Georgia's new president attempted to forcibly take control of Tskhinvali, and while Russia did not intervene at that point (being rather occupied with its own problems), it would soon take an interest in the two separatist movements.

By then, Gamsakhurdia would be out of power. A coup in December 1991, overturned his government, and the country disintegrated into civil war for the next three years. After former USSR Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze was elected president, Georgia entered into peacekeeping agreements with Russia over South Ossetia in 1992. The situation with South Ossetia was never resolved, and later separatist conflicts turned violent. I'm not touching very much on Georgia's other separatist movement in Abkhazia, but Russia's decision to support that region's claim to self-governance did little to stabilize the situation in South Ossetia.

Georgia's problem with South Ossetia (and that region's desire to secede) hasn't changed much since 1992, but the circumstances surrounding the conflict have been entirely reshaped. Russia is now an active participant in the conflict, and has proposed unifying North Ossetia (currently a part of Russia) with South Ossetia as one solution to the problem. Georgia, meanwhile, wants to join NATO—a goal Russia vehemently opposes.

So far, the information coming out of Georgia has been garbled. CNN reports uncertainty regarding how many Russian jets have been shot down, and some confusion regarding both military and civilian casulties. If Russia (or the RBN acting on behalf of Russia) is behing the systemic lockdown of Georgian Internet access, it may mark the first time a government has simultaneously deployed military and cybermilitary assets in an attack on another country. In terms of keeping the rest of the world guessing at what, exactly, may be going on, the strategy seems to have worked.