One might call it the Gulliver effect. Lemuel in Brobdingnag is tiny and represents no threat, so he can see the vast creatures about him in all their grotesquerie, and with impunity. The same intimacy in regard to the high and mighty can be achieved by fiction.

Both events underscore the impact of what's come to be called the "Gulliver Effect" — when a large target, like electronic financial transfers, are attacked from many different directions at once.

IT used to be said of the United States that when it, as a great power, stretched its arms and yawned drowsily, other nations experienced earthquakes. Now the US is learning what it means to be on the other side of the ''Gulliver'' effect as its neighbor Mexico flings out its own arms - though more in desperate search of help than amiable lethargy.