linnar viik, often referred to as estonia's internet guru, grew up in tallinn. the tallinn viik lives in today is one of the most wired and wireless places on earth. >> nobody asks any longer is that a useful piece of plastic. >> reporter: viik made the national i.d. card possible popular by making it a tool of the people, not something to be used against them. >> with the help of this card or digital identity which i'm holding, i can login to a government portal and know and learn what government knows about me. >> i.d. card is like key to accessing the data. >> reporter: this man is deputy director at the estonian informatic center where his job is to put the country's services online in a way that works. >> yes, it's e-government but the government does work for the people, not that people have to surf and find the pieces and there's like thousands of e-services but they just get lost. >> reporter: 20,000 people use this e-access to their government every day. and despite a massive cyber attack that shut down government websites for weeks in 2007, most people