Georgia's communication system

In the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a new breed of hackers is conducting digital espionage.

They are among a growing number of investigators monitoring how traffic is routed through various countries, where Web sites are blocked and why it's happening. Now they are turning their scrutiny to a new weapon of warfare: cyber attacks.

Tracking wars isn't what many of the researchers set out to do. Many began intending to help people in countries that censor online content. But as the Internet has evolved, so has their mission.