MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister warned Monday that information technologies could be no less of a danger to national security than more traditional weapons.
"There can be wars without weaponry and military hardware, without the use of military force as we know it today, [but] ones based completely on information and online technologies," Sergei Lavrov told a conference on the role of IT in the globalization era. "Such forms of confrontation may be more destructive and effective than conventional armed conflicts."
Lavrov said new approaches to upholding national sovereignty were needed in the high-tech world of the third millennium.
"Borders have become technologically penetrable and the threat arises of cross-border use of modern information technologies and devices with a view to exterritorial infiltration and interference in other nations' internal affairs."
But the foreign minister also highlighted the potential benefits of new computer technology. He said IT opened up new opportunities for international cooperation, prompting countries to unite around innovative projects that might be too expensive and technologically demanding for any one country to carry through. Lavrov added that such projects could help find common solutions to challenges facing the modern world.
