International politics and relations were once the sole domain of conuntries’ leaders and diplomats. It was unsual and rare for an ordinary citizen to have any influence in the affairs of a country or how a country was perceived by the rest of the world. Computers are changing the rules that govern how countries deal with each other.

The Wikileaks scandal, regardless of the matter of legality, showed how easily diplomatic correspondence could be obtained and made public. While there was little damaging information from the correspondence, the diplomatic community will undoubtedly be more cautious about internal communications in the future. The long term effect on international relations, particularly with the United States, remains to be seen.

The day to day events that lead to the overthrow of Egypt’s President Mubarak were reported to the world first hand by Egyptian citizens through the Internet, Facebook and Twitter. The Internet also played a role in communications among th groups pushing for governmental change in Egypt. In addition to a political revolution, this was a communications revolution because it demonstrated the power of the computer in effecting change.

As Lybia attempts to ovethrow the government of strongman Moammar Gadhafi, the Internet is providing daily coverage of the struggle. Much of the first hand information is coming through Facebook and Twitter.

The darker and less publicized role of computers in government politics is the growing presence of cyber attacks on American civilian and government computers by other countries, notably China. In 2007 China mounted attack on Department of Defense computers.  In 2008, China and other European hackers staged a coordinated attack on 2,500 American corporate and government computers.  Most reecntly, Chinese hackers broke into the Canadian Finance and Trade Board in February 2011. Cyber war plays a growing role in the state of diplomatic relations between countries and makes rela.