Anyone wondering about the web’s biggest dangers should check out Carolyn Duffy Marsan’s new article in Network World.

Remember those cyberattacks on Estonia this spring that wiped out government websites and almost brought the country’s banking system to a standstill? That wasn’t even full-fledged cyberwarfare. It was accomplished through ordinary though well-coordinated denial-of-service attacks. (Feeling safe?)

For the U.S., the article points up two lessons. First, as the article notes, U.S. businesses “are better positioned to defend themselves against similar DoS attacks because the United States is so much larger than Estonia and has a more robust network infrastructure.”

True enough. Regardless of the type of attack, network redundancy is crucial to keeping the data flowing. Anything that interferes with network deployment – net neutrality, for example, with its mandated expenses and endless court challenges – will necessarily make our network infrastructure less resistant to attack.

Second, this article illustrates yet again the need for packet management on the network. To be blunt, when DOS, spear phishing or polymorphic virus attacks are unleashed, a bit is definitely not a bit on the network – no matter how frequently or earnestly the net neutrality proponents make that argument.