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114 Cyberspace Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Cyberspace has emerged as a vast virtual world that shapes various aspects of our lives. From communication and information sharing to commerce and entertainment, the internet has revolutionized the way we interact with the world. If you're tasked with writing an essay on cyberspace, here are 114 topic ideas and examples that can help you get started:

• The impact of social media on personal relationships.
• Online privacy and the right to be forgotten.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting political activism.
• Cyberbullying: Causes, effects, and preventive measures.
• The dark web: Exploring the hidden corners of cyberspace.
• The impact of online shopping on traditional retail stores.
• Cybersecurity threats and the importance of protecting personal information.
• The influence of cyberspace on global politics and diplomacy.
• The rise of remote work and its implications for the job market.
• Online dating: Pros, cons, and societal impact.
• The role of cyberspace in facilitating global connections and cultural exchange.
• The ethics of artificial intelligence in cyberspace.
• The impact of online education on traditional classroom settings.
• The rise of influencer culture and its impact on society.
• Online gaming communities: A look into virtual worlds and their effects.
• The future of cryptocurrencies and their impact on financial systems.
• The role of cyberspace in shaping modern activism movements.
• Online censorship and its implications for freedom of speech.
• The impact of cyberspace on mental health and well-being.
• The rise of fake news and its consequences on public trust.
• The influence of algorithms in shaping our online experiences.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting democratic participation.
• Online surveillance: Balancing security and privacy.
• The impact of cyberspace on traditional journalism and media outlets.
• The rise of online streaming platforms and their impact on the entertainment industry.
• The effects of social media on body image and self-esteem.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting global environmental awareness.
• The impact of online activism on real-world change.
• The rise of e-commerce and its impact on small businesses.
• The influence of cyberspace on political campaigning and elections.
• Online addiction: Understanding the dangers and seeking solutions.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting global cultural diversity.
• The impact of online advertising on consumer behavior.
• The rise of online learning platforms and their impact on traditional education systems.
• The influence of cyberspace on the music industry: Opportunities and challenges.
• Online dating scams: Identifying red flags and staying safe.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting gender equality.
• The impact of cyberspace on the tourism industry.
• The influence of online reviews on consumer decision-making.
• Online activism and the power of collective action.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting sustainable development goals.
• The impact of cyberspace on political polarization and echo chambers.
• The rise of virtual reality and its potential applications in cyberspace.
• Online surveillance and the erosion of civil liberties.
• Cyberspace and the future of work: Automation and job displacement.
• The influence of cyberspace on the music consumption habits of younger generations.
• The impact of online gaming on social interactions and relationships.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting access to education in underserved communities.
• The ethics of data collection and usage in cyberspace.
• The influence of cyberspace on the fashion industry: Fast fashion and sustainability.
• The impact of online activism on corporate social responsibility.
• The rise of online marketplaces and their impact on traditional retail models.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting global health initiatives.
• The impact of cyberspace on political disinformation campaigns.
• Online gambling: Risks, regulations, and societal impact.
• The influence of cyberspace on political mobilization and protest movements.
• The future of work in cyberspace: Gig economy and remote employment.
• The impact of online misinformation on public health crises.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting access to financial services for underprivileged communities.
• The influence of cyberspace on the art world: NFTs and digital creations.
• The impact of online hate speech on social cohesion.
• The rise of online food delivery platforms and their impact on traditional restaurants.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting LGBTQ+ rights and inclusivity.
• The impact of cyberspace on political campaign financing.
• Online radicalization: Understanding the process and countering extremism.
• The influence of cyberspace on the film industry: Streaming platforms and independent productions.
• The future of transportation in cyberspace: Autonomous vehicles and smart cities.
• The impact of online misinformation on democratic processes.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting access to clean energy solutions.
• The influence of cyberspace on the publishing industry: E-books and self-publishing.
• The impact of online disinformation on public trust in science.
• The rise of online fitness platforms and their impact on traditional gyms.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting disability rights and inclusivity.
• The impact of cyberspace on political polarization and social divisions.
• Online addiction treatment: Approaches and effectiveness.
• The influence of cyberspace on the sports industry: E-sports and virtual fan experiences.
• The future of healthcare in cyberspace: Telemedicine and digital health solutions.
• The impact of online disinformation on climate change discourse.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting access to clean water and sanitation.
• The influence of cyberspace on the photography industry: Digital manipulation and authenticity.
• The impact of online disinformation on public trust in institutions.
• The rise of online tutoring platforms and their impact on traditional education systems.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting indigenous rights and cultural preservation.
• The impact of cyberspace on political polarization and democratic dialogue.
• Online therapy: Benefits, limitations, and ethical considerations.
• The influence of cyberspace on the restaurant industry: Food delivery apps and virtual kitchens.
• The future of agriculture in cyberspace: Precision farming and sustainable practices.
• The impact of online disinformation on public trust in the media.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting access to quality healthcare in remote areas.
• The influence of cyberspace on the fashion industry: Virtual try-ons and sustainable fashion.
• The impact of online disinformation on public trust in scientific research.
• The rise of online fitness communities and their impact on traditional gym memberships.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting intercultural understanding and peacebuilding.
• The impact of cyberspace on political polarization and social cohesion.
• Online counseling: Accessibility, effectiveness, and ethical considerations.
• The influence of cyberspace on the travel industry: Virtual reality tourism experiences.
• The future of energy in cyberspace: Renewable sources and smart grids.
• The impact of online disinformation on public trust in democratic institutions.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting access to quality education for marginalized groups.
• The influence of cyberspace on the beauty industry: Virtual makeovers and body positivity.
• The impact of online disinformation on public trust in healthcare institutions.
• The rise of online art marketplaces and their impact on traditional galleries.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting interfaith dialogue and religious tolerance.
• The impact of cyberspace on political polarization and public discourse.
• Online therapy for children and adolescents: Benefits, challenges, and ethical considerations.
• The influence of cyberspace on the automotive industry: Connected cars and autonomous vehicles.
• The future of retail in cyberspace: Virtual shopping experiences and personalized recommendations.
• The impact of online disinformation on public trust in environmental organizations.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting access to quality housing and urban planning.
• The influence of cyberspace on the food industry: Online recipe platforms and food trends.
• The impact of online disinformation on public trust in scientific experts.
• The rise of online support groups and their impact on traditional therapy approaches.
• The role of cyberspace in promoting peacebuilding and conflict resolution.
• The impact of cyberspace on political polarization and democratic governance.

These essay topics cover a wide range of issues and provide a starting point for exploring the various dimensions of cyberspace. Remember to choose a topic that aligns with your interests and research it thoroughly to produce a well-informed and compelling essay.

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Cyber Security - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

Cybersecurity, a critical concern in our digitally connected world, encompasses practices, technologies, and policies to protect networks, devices, programs, and data from attack or unauthorized access. Essays could delve into the myriad types of cyber threats like malware, phishing, and ransomware, exploring their evolution and impact on individuals and organizations. They might also discuss the measures individuals and enterprises can adopt to mitigate cyber risks, the challenges of staying ahead of cyber adversaries, and the role of governmental and international regulation in promoting cybersecurity. Discussions could extend to the implications of cybersecurity on national security, privacy, and the digital economy, and how the burgeoning field of cybersecurity is evolving to meet the complex challenges of the modern digital landscape. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to Cyber Security you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Cyber Security and how to Prevent Cyber Crime

Cybercrimes are interrupting normal computer functions and has brought many known companies and personal entities to their knees. Over the last decade, crime has entered into the world of information. Crime is developing gradually since the days when merchandise was transported by stagecoach, theft or extortion has changed to keep up, even to our modern-day equivalent-credit and debit cards. Stealing credit card number has become well known danger. In the present, internet has become a playing field for computer attackers. […]

Cyber Security Threats in Healthcare

Cyberattacks have been targeting the healthcare industry, among the biggest industries in the US, in the 2018 period. The implication is that it has come time to improve the protection of institutional and patient information with a more tailored approach to this threat. In comparison with other industries, many health organizations have engaged in inadequate investment in cybersecurity while spending approximately as much money as other industries. It is quite worrying when phishing cyberattacks, as well as breaches of patient […]

Impact of Technology on Privacy

The 21st Century is characterized by the heavy impact technology has on us as a society while it continues to develop new devices and modernize technology. Millions of individuals around the world are now connected digitally, in other words, people globally rely heavily on smartphones tablets, and/ or computers that store or save a majority of their personal information. Critical and extremely personal data is available and collected in these smart technology such as credit card details, fingerprint layout, and […]

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Cyber Security Threats on the State Level

This paper examines two notable events of cyber warfare and security in our current age (the Stuxnet attack on centrifuges, and the Petya ransomware affecting citizens and governmental agencies), as well as examines how these attacks shape foreign and domestic policies and procedures. By examining the extent of the damage of these two attacks, I will argue that cyber warfare events will not just affect governmental systems, but would ultimately cause destruction to the layman's infrastructure, further crippling any state […]

Essay of Cyber Security Education

The experts and professionals of matters related to cyber security should assign the participant puzzles whereby they should divide themselves into various teams as indicated in the framework of NICE, and each group should specialize in a specific area. There is a wide range of ideas on the cyber security where the riddles may come from the fields like Wireshark, protection of website application, analysis of digital systems, and social engineering. There should be a task force created to conduct […]

Constant the Rise of Technologies and Cyber Threats

There is a wide range of cyber threats that happen every day, it is important that we follow all of the necessary precaution's in order to ensure the safety of our private information including but not limited to passwords, network credentials, banking or credit card information. Malicious attacks occur more frequently than one would expect, their purpose is to damage a device. Most of us are unaware of the weaknesses we have within our smartphone's security settings. With that being […]

Cyber Security for the Average American

According to statistics, the average American spends 10 hours per day using technology. Whether it be a cellphone, tablet or laptop, that's more than 40 hours a week online. We think that we're safe, but part of living in this 21st century is understanding that our so-called private information can easily accessed by the wrong person and made public. I am sure you have heard, at some point, news pertaining to identity theft or data breaches, with the effects being […]

Cyber Security for our Generation

Some of the biggest threats to our national security often go unnoticed. These threats are generally not publicized, and no emphasis is placed on them. They represent some of the most significant challenges our generation faces. It's shocking is that these threats are often covered up or are attempted to be. For instance, one of the key issues that arose in 2018 was the Facebook data scandal. This scandal was not a cyber-attack per se, yet it highlighted that most […]

How Pervasive is the Internet in your Life?

Q.1 How pervasive is the internet in your life? How much do you think society has come to depend on the Internet? Answer: When it comes to how pervasive the internet is in current life, my answer is that the internet has almost influenced each event of our daily life every day. Of course, we can't deny that there may be some people, around our side, who never heard about the internet, for example, those elder people who has less […]

The E-Commerce and Cyber Security

The wish is the online e-commerce company that will provide the opportunity for all shoppers to find their favourite wordrobe online in all of the world. Their wardrobe could be included dresses, skirts, jeans and etc.... This company was founded in 2010 and also have the App for their over 100 million users on the iOS and android platform. The E-Commerce servers for this company is located in four cites internationally, two are in the USA, the headquarter in Alexandria […]

Advanced Cyber Security and its Methodologies

Digital Civilization has turned into a critical wellspring of data sharing and proficient exercises like business, saving money exchanges, shopping, and administrations and With the expansion in utilization of the internet, cybercriminal exercises are additionally expanding exponentially. The fundamental reasons is that with the commencement of internet, the web applications were likewise getting prevalence for information putting away and information sharing, regardless of the client. With the progression of time, web applications were getting more intricate with quick increment in […]

Defining Cybersecurity Law

INTRODUCTION In "Defining Cybersecurity Law," Jeff Kosseff, the author, appears to be more concerned with improving cybersecurity law than defining it. In this paper, I will provide a brief summary and critique of the four substantive sections of this article. I will conclude with a mention of the aspects of cybersecurity law the author missed. My main issues with this article are the author's (1) preoccupation with the prevention of cybersecurity breaches instead of balancing security against values, (2) definition […]

Why do you Want to Study Cyber Security

In today's hyper-connected era, we're more online than offline. Our digital identities intertwine with the real, making the boundary blurry. But as we gleefully navigate this digital frontier, shadows lurk in the form of cyber threats, reminding us that our brave new world isn't without its pitfalls. So, why venture into the challenging world of cybersecurity? Why choose a path that constantly grapples with these shadows? Spoiler alert: It's more than just a career choice. Real-world Superheroes In comic books […]

Health Care Cyber Security

Healthcare is an industry sector that has become unstable and crucial in this expanding digital landscape. This necessitates an organization's data security program to be properly structured, as there is no room for error, which could easily translate into a life-and-death situation. This article presents both fundamental technical and business issues that often elude the healthcare data security program. On the technical side, extensive proliferation of data and systems into the cloud, a continuous increase in connected medical devices, and […]

Substations: Smart Grid & Cyber Security Threats

Transferring from old energy network to a new technology such as smart grids. It changes the energy industry worldwide to better quality, manageability and performance. It gives us the ability to operate it by communications, monitor and control it. However, using communications in smart grid increase connectivity causing our security to be exposed and make it more challenge to protected. It can be a target for hackers, and cyber terrorism. Thus, it got governments, consumer and industry attention to increase […]

Cybersecurity: Protecting the Fragile Web of Global Connectivity

I believe everything that is created by man can also be destroyed by it. Humans have proved to be the most intelligent species in this world. We have created the technology that appears to be smarter than the human brain but if it overpowers the human intelligence it can be destroyed as well. Internet works in the same manner. It has created dependencies that have led to millions of people relying on this technology in getting every task done no […]

Cybersecurity Issues in Societal Perspective

E-governance and Cybersecurity Documents issued by a country's government provide a personal identity to an individual. Driver's licenses, social security numbers, tax identification numbers, and various other entitlement documents are used on a regular basis by people to demonstrate their identity and authorization for various opportunities. Because these documents form the basis for all subsequent documents, their integrity is of high importance to stakeholders. Therefore, these crucial documents are targets for criminals and further cyberattacks (Conklin, A., & White, G. […]

The Real Issue Behind Cyber-Security

The steady trend towards digitalization has been occurring for a long time, and as of lately, a new type of crime market has risen alongside digitalization. In recent years, companies all over the world have been affected by some form of cybersecurity issue whether that be attacks to infrastructure or momentary paralyzation of the company itself through the exploitation of security measures. Over the years the number of attacks all around the world has increased exponentially with many more cyber-attacks […]

Cybersecurity Today

Networks (internet) are not secure enough due to the lack of efficient cybersecurity. As a result, ransomware attacks are increasing, affecting most businesses and individuals today. Enacting measures to detect cyberattacks and ransomware attacks can be helpful in preventing unforeseen repercussions from the attacker in the corporate network. Cybersecurity needs to implement new policies and recommendations so that ransomware attacks can be reduced. This report will first discuss some ransomware attacks that have happened before. Next, the report will discuss […]

Cybersecurity as a Form of Digital Protection

Cybersecurity is an ever-growing form of digital protection, created and used for the sole purpose of protecting confidential information against hard drive malfunctions, power outages, and adversaries. In healthcare, it is crucial for hospitals and health providers to keep up with the security of digital health data through cybersecurity in order to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and avoid potentially devastating consequences. Insider threats, access control breaches, and network breaches are some of the main […]

Virtual Reality: Game Transfer Phenomena

Imagine if you were you were floating through space, watching a horror film,s or perhaps playing a video game, and it seemed like you were actually there. With the invention of virtual reality (VR), people are able to explore the illusion of this reality. Virtual reality is computer-generated technology used to create a manufactured environment. There is a range of systems that are used for this purpose such as special headsets and fiber optic gloves. The term virtual reality means […]

Cybersecurity Paper

With cybersecurity attacks on the rise, the ability of an organization to ensure uninterrupted operations is an imperative. No longer can an organization solely rely upon software applications to identify and mitigate cyber risks. It takes a skilled team led by an experienced manager to holistically address an organization's technology risks. The National Infrastructure Advisory Council's (NIAC's) definition of infrastructure resilience is "the ability to reduce the magnitude and/or duration of disruptive events. The effectiveness of a resilient infrastructure or […]

Cybercrimes: an Unprecedented Threat to the Society

What is a Cybercrime? Cybercrime, or computer-oriented crime, is the crime that involves computer and its network. The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target. Cybercrimes can be defined as: "Offences that are committed against individuals or groups of individuals with a criminal motive to intentionally harm the reputation of the victim or cause physical or mental harm, or loss, to the victim directly or indirectly, using modern telecommunication networks […]

Cybersecurity for a Successful Acquisition Report

The act of conducting a policy gap analysis is crucial in determining any missing overlap or technical deficiencies when planning to join the IT architecture and network topologies of two or more companies. During the acquisition process, the policies of either party will be examined in order to confirm current software updates and patches, proper configuration of tools, and employee protocol during the transition. Once the initial merger is complete, it'll be important to compare the outcome with each company's […]

Reasons of Cyber Attacks

1. Substandard User ID and Password Every individual need to have their own password secure and stronger. For an instance strong password can be obtained by latest maintaining minimum of having15-character length with an least one special character, number, capital and small alphabet. Most importantly choosing password like own name, date of birth, phone number may become hacker to simply figure out easy to break through your personal account security. In the same way User ID should not be shared […]

Laws of Cybercrimes

Abstract This paper examines the cyber security and its challenges in current temperamental circumstance of security in present world. These day's innovation of technology persistently developing more quickly than expected. As a public that runs on latest innovation technologies, we are likewise therefore reliant on it. Where similarly as innovation of technology brings ever more noteworthy advantages, it likewise brings ever more prominent threats. We should look some significant concerns confronting that incorporate threats, information theft, identity theft, cyber war, […]

Developing and Testing Photorealistic Avatar with Body Motions and Facial Expressions for Communication in Social Virtual Reality Applications

Developing and Testing Photorealistic Avatar with Body Motions and Facial Expressions for Communication in Social Virtual Reality Applications Abstract Providing effective communication in social virtual reality (VR) applications requires a high level of avatar representation realism and body movement to convey users’ thoughts and behaviours. In this research, we investigate the influence of avatar representation and behaviour on communication in an immersive virtual environment (IVE) by comparing video-based versus model-based avatar representations. Additionally, we introduce a novel VR communication system […]

Advantages of Cybersecurity in a Digital World

Ever stopped to think about how much of your life plays out in the digital realm? Our lives are undeniably intertwined with technology, from morning alarms on our smartphones to evening Netflix binges. Yet, while we eagerly embrace the latest app or gadget, there's an unsung hero behind the scenes, ensuring our digital escapades are safe and sound: cybersecurity. It's easy to dismiss it as mere technical jargon or something only businesses need to worry about. But, truth be told, […]

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How To Write an Essay About Cyber Security

Understanding cyber security.

Before writing an essay about cyber security, it is essential to understand what it encompasses. Cyber security refers to the practice of protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital attacks. These cyber attacks are usually aimed at accessing, changing, or destroying sensitive information; extorting money from users; or interrupting normal business processes. Begin your essay by defining cyber security and discussing its importance in the contemporary digital world. Explore the different types of cyber threats, such as malware, phishing, ransomware, and denial-of-service attacks. It’s also crucial to understand the impact of these threats on individuals, businesses, and governments.

Developing a Thesis Statement

A strong essay on cyber security should be anchored by a clear, focused thesis statement. This statement should present a specific viewpoint or argument about cyber security. For instance, you might discuss the evolving nature of cyber threats, the challenges of cyber security in a particular sector (like finance or healthcare), or analyze the effectiveness of current cyber security measures. Your thesis will guide the direction of your essay and provide a structured approach to your analysis.

Gathering Supporting Evidence

To support your thesis, gather evidence from credible sources. This might include recent studies on cyber security, statistics about cyber attacks, examples of significant security breaches, or expert opinions. Use this evidence to support your thesis and build a persuasive argument. Remember to consider different perspectives, including technological, ethical, and legal viewpoints.

Analyzing Cyber Security Strategies and Challenges

Dedicate a section of your essay to analyzing cyber security strategies and the challenges faced in implementing them. Discuss various approaches to cyber security, such as technological solutions, policy measures, and user education. Explore the challenges in keeping up with constantly evolving cyber threats and the balance between security and privacy. For example, consider how advancements in areas like artificial intelligence and machine learning are influencing cyber security practices.

Concluding the Essay

Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points of your discussion and restating your thesis in light of the evidence provided. Your conclusion should tie together your analysis and emphasize the significance of cyber security in the digital age. You might also want to reflect on future trends in cyber security or suggest areas where further research or policy development is needed.

Reviewing and Refining Your Essay

After completing your essay, review and edit it for clarity and coherence. Ensure that your arguments are well-structured and supported by evidence. Check for grammatical accuracy and ensure that your essay flows logically from one point to the next. Consider seeking feedback from peers or experts in the field to refine your essay further. A well-written essay on cyber security will not only demonstrate your understanding of the topic but also your ability to engage with complex technological and societal issues.

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1 The Origins of Cyberspace

David J. Pym is Professor in Department of Computer Science and Department of Philosophy, UCL, and Institute of Philosophy, University of London.

• Published: 08 December 2021
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‘Cyberspace’ is a romantic term, introduced in the elegant science-fiction writing of William Gibson, but the concepts that make up the environment called ‘cyberspace’ are the stuff of real science, with origins that can be traced to ancient Greece. Much has been written about the origins of cyberspace, including a comprehensive sourcebook by Hook and Norman. This chapter tries to take a rather conceptual view of what constitutes cyberspace, tracing the origins of the ideas from fourth-century BCE Greece to the modern Internet-supported interaction space—throughout the discussion, the chapter will seek to elucidate the concept of ‘space’ and how it helps us to think about the cyber-world. On the way, the chapter considers the literary origin of the word, and the mathematical and logical theory that is required to build models of cyberspace.

Defining Cyberspace

According to The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) 1 :

cyberspace |ˈsʌɪbəspeɪs| noun [mass noun] the notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs. I stayed in cyberspace for just a few minutes.

According to The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction ( Prucher 2007 ):

the entirety of the data stored in, and the communication that takes place within a computer network, conceived of as having the properties of a physical realm; …

My purpose here is to unpack and explain these definitions, which are wholly consistent with each other. In contrast to the approach of Hook and Norman (2002) , who achieve an enormously impressive coverage of relevant material, my guiding principle is to explore the sense in which cyberspace is a ‘space’, a concept that is well understood in mathematics and physics, and the understanding of which in those fields is alluded to in the term ‘cyberspace’.

The modern world is more-or-less wholly dependent for its operation on networks of communicating computers. These computers come in all shapes and sizes. They may be small devices embedded in everyday objects such as watches and household appliances, or cars, or personal laptops and workstations, or vast datacentres supporting the infrastructure of cloud computing. What is central to their function is communication—that is, the transmission of data—over local networks, wider corporate or government networks, or the Internet itself. 2

In more detail, the Internet consists of a global network of networks that connect computers around the world and use a collection of communications protocols, including TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the basic language that the connected computers use to communicate with one another), and others such as OSPF (Open Shortest Path First), BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), and RIP (Routing Information Protocol), which together describe how data should be decomposed into packets (the basic units of data handled by the protocol), addressed, transmitted, routed, and received. Data (which can be treated as a singular, plural, or mass noun) consists of blocks (‘bits’ and ‘bytes’) of binary numbers. Data itself has no inherent meaning, but data is used to represent features of physical or abstract worlds; that is, information . 3 , 4

When thinking of the Internet, it is often tempting to conflate it with the World Wide Web (WWW). While this is quite understandable in many ways—and the distinction is often blurred in common discourse—it is a conceptual mistake. The WWW—with its language of Universal Resource Locators, or URLs—organizes data representations of information in a highly structured way and is just one of many applications that are supported by the Internet. 5

The distinction between data and information—which is directly analogous, though not identical, to the distinctions between syntax and semantics that are made in logic and linguistics—is very important in our context. While it is data that the Internet processes, and which is used in the WWW to represent information in structured ways, it is information to which human beings relate.

Indeed, the WWW is often described as being an ‘information space’, but what is the concept of a space that is being invoked here? In fact, the concept of space is quite delicate. It is in mathematics—in particular, in geometry and topology—that it has been richly developed. The idea starts with the familiar three-dimensional environment, in which everyday objects have relative position and direction, and its more-or-less intuitive generalization to the four-dimensional environment, often called ‘space-time’ in which such objects also have relative position in time.

Although a formal mathematical definition is not needed for our purposes, the mathematical concept has quite strongly influenced the informal concept that I shall need.

According to the OED 1 :

space |speɪs| noun [mass noun] … Mathematics: a mathematical concept generally regarded as a set of points having some specified structure. One of the most important examples of the mathematical concept is that of topological space .

Topological spaces are a way of describing geometrical properties and spatial relationships that are unaffected by the continuous change of shape or size of figures. An important example of a topological space is metric space in which there is assigned a distance—with, essentially, the familiar intuitive meaning of physical distance—between each pair of points.

These ideas of proximity translate not only to the network architecture of the Internet, but also to the data-representation of information in the WWW (though the situation is quite complicated and here I am simplifying matters greatly).

For our present purpose, the concept of space that is useful, and which builds on the mathematical ideas mentioned earlier, derives from a key concept in computer science—namely, distributed systems ( Collinson, Monahan, and Pym 2012 ).

distributed system |dəˈstrɪbjudəd ˌsɪstəm| noun a number of independent computers linked by a network.

Examples of distributed systems include the following:

The Internet itself—a vast collection of interconnected networks of computers. Individual computers connected to the Internet interact by passing messages, which they do by employing a common means of communication (which will be described later on in this chapter).

Intranets—localized parts of the Internet that are managed by identified organizations that, typically, enforce local management and security policies to control access and use. Intranets are connected to the wider Internet by special-purpose computers called ‘routers’, which also employ the common means of communication.

Cloud computing infrastructure—vast data centres, consisting of hundreds of thousands of servers, provide storage and computer services for vast quantities of data that are fed from the intranets of large numbers of clients who are logically and physically widely distributed. A key problem here, and in distributed systems more generally, is to maintain the consistency of the different copies while simultaneously maintaining the robustness of the service: see, for example, the CAP (Consistency, Availability, Partition-tolerance) theorem in the theory of distributed systems, also known as ‘Brewer’s theorem’ ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem ), which establishes that only two of the CAP properties can be maintained simultaneously. Handling this problem is important in maintaining the experience of cyberspace.

Mobile and ubiquitous computing (and the Internet of Things)—laptops, phones, cameras, and wearable devices such as watches and spectacles, as well as cars, domestic appliances, smart meters, and electricity substations. Indeed, almost everything on which modern society depends is integrated into distributed systems. They reside on local networks that communicate with other local networks and devices, either directly (‘peer-to-peer’) or via network-based servers, all employing the common means of communication.

The global banking system—the intranets belonging to each of the world’s banks must not only provide services locally (logically locally, even if not physically locally) to the banks’ own customers but must also communicate with one other in order to support the transactions upon which the world’s commerce depends.

Online games with multiple players—each player’s local, or home, computer runs a client copy of the game, which communicates with the central game server, which communicates with other players’ local games, and coordinates the overall interaction between all the players.

From a mathematical perspective, the basis of computer science and to which I shall return later, the key concepts of distributed systems are the following ( Anderson and Pym 2016 ; Barwise and Seligman 1997 ; Caulfield and Pym 2015 ; Collinson, Monahan, and Pym (2012) ; Coulouris et al. 2011 ):

  Locations : a collection of linked places, be they physical or virtual, that constitutes the basic architecture of a system. Individual computers, file stores, and so on exist at locations within a distributed system, but locations are also the places within computers where the CPU (Central Processing Unit) and other components reside.

  Resources : the entities that a system uses—consumes, creates, moves—in the course of its operations. Examples of resources include the memory locations where data is stored, the processor cycles available to perform computations, and human operators required to manage and maintain systems.

  Processes : the collection of activities, which are mostly concurrent, that constitutes a system’s operations, and so delivers its services. Examples of services include a bank’s customer-facing website, streaming films, and the multitude of system-level services provided by a computer’s operating system in order to perform computations, manage the keyboard and screen, manage a computer’s memory and storage, send and receive email, etc.

Additionally, a specific system, described using these components, resides within an environment , and resource transfers between the system and its environment characterize the service that the system provides.

So, here the relevant ‘space’ consists in the distribution of resources around the locations of the system and the presence of processes that manipulate those resources. This definition might seem a bit restrictive but, in the distributed systems metaphor, the presence and activities of a human being (using a computer, posting to Facebook, downloading a file, and so on) simply amounts to the presence of a process.

The term ‘cyberspace’ is derived from ‘cybernetics’ and ‘space’, and the meaning of the term depends essentially, though quite implicitly, on the distributed systems metaphor. The term ‘cybernetics’ was introduced in the late 1940s by Norbert Wiener ( 1948 , 1950 ).

cybernetics |sʌɪbəˈnɛtɪks| plural noun [treated as sing.] the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things.

ORIGIN 1940s: from Greek kubernētēs ‘steersman’ , from kubernan ‘to steer’ .

There are several aspects of this definition that are important for the idea of cyberspace. That it refers to ‘automatic control systems’ may perhaps seem rather restrictive, but I think that should be seen as a consequence of the perspective of the age of the definition: in the 1940s, although the idea of automated control of machines was well understood, the scope of the information technological revolution that was to come had not been anticipated. It mentions also communications. As I have described, the concept of communication, and a common means of supporting it, is a key aspect of distributed systems.

So, now I have all the components, I need to return to the OED definition of cyberspace given earlier. Let us try to understand this rather concise definition using the concepts we’ve considered so far. First, what are ‘computer networks’? The appropriate metaphor here—which I have already discussed at some length is that of distributed systems. Computers, be they servers, workstations, laptops, phones, controllers embedded in cars, aeroplanes, or refrigerators—or even entire data centres—are resources that reside at locations.

Second, what does ‘communication over’ mean? Computers residing at locations communicate with other such devices residing at other locations using wired and wireless connections. These connections transfer data between located devices using the TCP/IP protocol.

Last, what is meant by the ‘notional environment’? It seems that this is where the presence of human interpreters becomes essential. The distributed systems metaphor completely accounts for the infrastructure and its processing of data, so the ‘notional environment’ can only be something that is experienced by the users of the infrastructure.

Users provide the interpretations of data and its movement around the infrastructure that constitute the ‘information environment’. Now, in principle, every data item is a discrete entity and the collection of all such items in the (albeit vast, massively interconnected) infrastructure of the Internet is finite and so can be counted.

From the perspective of the users, however, things look very different. This is for two reasons. First, end-users (as opposed to users who are systems professionals) primarily perceive information, not data. A picture received on a phone may be a finite collection of pixels, but it represents an image of the physical world of substances and qualities. Second, the exchange of information mediates communication between humans, in a shared social space that is created by the technology and its users, and that communication is almost never wholly captured by the data that is exchanged.

Only with this last component is the definition of cyberspace—and its characterization as a mass noun—really meaningful.

The origin of the word ‘cyberspace’ does not lie in hard science. Rather, it was coined in science fiction, by William Gibson, first in a short story, ‘Burning Chrome’, in 1982 and reused a little later in his celebrated novel, Neuromancer , in 1984. Not only does Gibson introduce the term but he also offers a definition:

A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts … A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data.

It can be seen that Gibson’s definition, albeit expressed in a novelist’s style, anticipates more-or-less all our analysis: a highly complex distributed system, the representation of data, and the presence of human minds. Indeed, it seems to capture very directly the experiences of humans who engage in ‘immersive’ or ‘virtual reality’ games with other players who may be physically located in many distributed locations, but who together inhabit a shared environment of data that they collectively, and consistently, interpret as the ‘world’ of their game.

Cyberspace is also an important component of conflict in the modern world ( Rid 2013 ; Singer and Friedman 2014 ) and, consequently, the world’s military and defence agencies have considered the significance of what is increasingly known as the ‘cyber battle space’ for their strategies and operations. Indeed, some of them have even attempted to formulate their own definitions—for example, the US Department of Defense in 2008 ( Schachtman 2008 ):

a global domain within the information environment consisting of the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers.

Here, it is important to understand that the use the term ‘domain’ refers not to what is usual in computer science, where it describes a collection of addresses within the Internet, such as everything with a ‘.com’ or ‘.uk’ suffix, but rather it refers to a domain of warfare, the other four being land, sea, air, and space. Again, it is clear that a distinguishing feature of the cyber domain is its combination of the virtual/digital and the physical.

In summary, then, what have I described about cyberspace so far?

First, that it is a concept that builds on the physical and logical infrastructure provided by the Internet.

Second, that, while the Internet processes data, it is information—that is, interpreted data—that is the medium of cyberspace.

Third, that the interpretation of data, and the processing of information, are performed by humans, who are themselves essential components of cyberspace. Together, the human participants inhabit the shared social space that is an essential component of cyberspace.

Fourth, that there is an essential interplay between—indeed, a merging of—the physical and the virtual.

So far, I have concentrated on unpacking the concepts that constitute cyberspace and their associated language. These concepts have, however, a substantial backstory through human history, and it is long and rich.

Before embarking on the story, I should note that it is not possible in a short chapter such as this one to represent fully and acknowledge all of what is a vast literature. Accordingly, the sources I reference are intended only to be suggestive of the literature, and I apologize unreservedly to anyone who feels unjustly treated. I note also that I am not a professional historian and I make no claim to historical completeness in this article.

Cyberspace in the Ancient and Early Modern World: Beacons and Semaphores

Travelling between widely separated cities, by walking, riding horses, and sailing in ships takes a long time. Messages sent by these means are therefore slow to arrive. For example, during the negotiation of the Treaty of Westphalia in Münster and Osnabrück in 1648, it took two weeks for a letter to reach Stockholm. 6 Consequently, governments and others throughout history have sought ways of communicating more rapidly.

Perhaps the simplest form of rapid long-distance communication is the beacon , a fire lighted on a hill to give warning of, say, an approaching enemy. A sequence of beacons on a chain of hills can give rapid warning over long distances—it takes just a few minutes to light a fire, and the signal then travels at the speed of light—but, of course, the language of communication is rather restricted.

In the fourth century BCE, the Greek military strategist Aineias Taktikos described a partial solution, the ‘Greek hydraulic telegraph’—as explained at, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_telegraph , where more detail and further references can be found. 7 Fire torches were used, by the sender, to initiate and synchronize, with the receiver, a connection between operators at observation points on hills with clear lines of sight between them. Each hill had an identical container, with a valve or spigot at the bottom, filled with water and with a vertical rod floating in the water. The rods were marked with codes at points along their length. The set-up is depicted in Figure 1.1 .

The Greek hydraulic semaphore

Once the connection was synchronized, each operator would open the valve until the water had emptied to the point marking the required code, at which point the operators would close their valves and simultaneously lower their torches. The length of time the sender’s torch remained raised determined a specific, predetermined message. In principle, such a system could be used to send messages in full written language, but, in practice, it would seem likely that the need for efficiency would dictate a small, fixed set of possible messages.

Does the technology of beacons and semaphores, as developed from the Greek world, support something that corresponds to the concept of cyberspace? First, there is an underlying physical infrastructure, chains of torch beacons and data-processing water containers, which form a network of communication routes. This network supports logical connections between the individuals wishing to communicate with other individuals at other locations. Second, while the system of beacons and containers transmit data from location to location, it is the humans who send the messages (not the operators of the infrastructure) and who interpret the data, giving it meaning as information. Last, there is indeed an essential interplay between the physical and virtual. I think I must conclude that the fourth century BCE had a form of cyberspace.

A major advance in the development of cyberspace occurred in late seventeenth-century France. ‘Le système Chappe’, developed by Claude Chappe (see, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Chappe and also Standage’s delightful book, The Victorian Internet (1998) , was a nationwide semaphore network used for (relatively complex) government and military communications. At its greatest extent, it connected Paris to Amsterdam and Calais to the north, to Mainz, Strasbourg, and Venice to the east, to Marseille, Perpignan, and Bayonne to the south, and to Nantes, Brest, and Cherbourg to the west.

Chappe’s system was a network of towers (see Figures 1.2 , 1.3 ), each of which supported two arms that rotated into different positions. The positions included codes for letters and numbers as well as for control signals used to verify the correctness of the reproduction of the messages as they passed from one tower to the next.

A replica of one of Chappe’s semaphore towers in Nalbach, Germany

Somewhat later, in 1838, an English civil engineer called Francis Whishaw also proposed a hydraulic telegraph. Whishaw’s hydraulic telegraph 8 was based on the levels of water observed in vessels connected by water-filled pipes: a change in level at one end, representing the sent message, is reflected at the receiving end of the pipe with no perceptible time delay. This proposal represents a possible improvement in both speed and reliability, but essentially the same sense of a cyber space as the Greek version.

Spread of the Chappe Telegraph, 1793–1854

Amusingly, the term ‘semaphore’ persists in the modern world of information technology in the theory and practice of concurrency, in which two computer programs execute at the same time while attempting to use shared resources. In this context, a semaphore refers to a variable, or other abstract data type, that is used to control access to a resource between concurrently executing processes.

Some Key Concepts

Before considering cyberspace in the modern world, in the sections that follow, it is important to mention three of its other key precursors, all of which have contributed to its technological and social infrastructures:

  The commercially available printing press : Printing presses have existed in China and Korea for around 1,800 years, but it is perhaps Gutenberg’s introduction of a commercially available, and well-promoted, service that marks the entry of printing into a ‘space’ of communication. Copies of single handwritten manuscripts, representing resources of knowledge and typeset using ‘standard’ characters, could be mass produced and circulated widely. Thus, knowledge could be shared around many distinct locations, commented on, modified, and further shared.

  Postal services : Although commercial printing presses provided a means of mass-producing information resources, so that they might be consumed by many different individuals residing at many different locations, the realization of this sharing requires a process for circulating copies of manuscripts. Postal services provided the first reliable such processes and, in so doing, adumbrate some concepts that are important in modern cyber space. These include the following (with no particular historical period or timeline implied):

  Addresses : the sender of a package writes a code on the package that specifies the destination and recipient of the package; the service provider interprets the code in order to execute the process of delivering the package: for this to work, addresses must be written in an agreed, or at least recognizable, format;

  Routing protocols : packages might be collected from widely distributed starting points, such as letter boxes, then taken to a local collecting point and combined into large groups of packages that are moved to a distant collecting point (possibly involving many such steps), from where individual packages are delivered to their final destinations; to make this work, the provider of the postal services must implement processes that collect, sort, and distribute packages; and

  A supporting infrastructure : the service provider must provide the equipment (postage stamps, letter boxes, bags, vehicles, buildings, etc.) and personnel to collect, sort, and distribute the packages; the provider may also make use of other services, such as stage coaches, trains, and aeroplanes, and must agree terms of service with them.

A postal service, viewed as a service to its users, also has two key features:

  Mass availability : the service is available to all who are able to purchase the tokens, such as stamps, required to access the service;

  Service guarantees : state actors, such as monarchs or governments, might provide guarantees, with supporting policies, that packages will be delivered to their intended destinations and recipients, and that they will be undamaged in transit.

  Telephone systems : Such systems also provide examples of the importance of the concepts of addresses, routing protocols, and supporting infrastructure. It also demonstrates mass availability and, at least implicitly, service guarantees.

Agar’s The Government Machine (2016) provides an excellent general contextual discussion for this perspective, exploring the mechanization of government work in the United Kingdom from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century.

The Beginnings of Cyberspace in the Modern World: Semaphores and Telegraphs

A key technology of the Victorian period, the telegraph system developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse, provides another example of the importance of the concepts of addresses, routing protocols, and supporting infrastructure. It also demonstrates mass availability and, at least implicitly, service guarantees.

telegraph, n. — a system of or instrument for sending messages or information to a distant place; v. — to signal (from French télégraph )

I have explained that the idea of an optical telegraph dates from the ancient world. Perhaps the most well-known early precursor to the Internet, however, and certainly the one with the strongest resemblance, is the telegraph system developed in the nineteenth century. The history of this ‘Victorian Internet’ has been elegantly and captivatingly described in Standage’s (1998) book, which, as we shall see, helps us to understand its significance for the origins of the concept of cyberspace.

Figure 1.4 illustrates the major global telegraph connections around the world in 1891. Compare with the modern map of telecommunications cables given in Figure 1.5 :

Telegraph Connections (Telegraphen Verbindungen), 1891, Stielers Hand-Atlas , Plate No. 5, ‘Weltkarte in Mercators projection’

First, there is an underlying network infrastructure;

Second, there are several key resources, placed around the locations of the network infrastructure, upon which the operation of the telegraph depends—namely:

the network cables used to connect different points around the world;

the electrical devices that generate and receive the electrical signals that are used to encode messages for transmission across the network;

the human operators of the devices who translate between natural language and the encoded messages;

the paper used to write down messages to be encoded and messages that have been decoded.

Third, the communication of messages between points on the telegraph network occurs as a collection of concurrent processes that utilize the resources present at locations around the network.

Undersea telecommunications cables

The telegraph system of the nineteenth century thus came very close to delivering a cyberspace. Many of the features of cyberspace that I have identified were present in the telegraph system—network infrastructure, key resources, and concurrent processes—but one aspect that was missing, at least in a sufficiently explicit form, was that of the shared social space created by the technology and its users. Although messages could be sent and received very efficiently, there was no way to post information that could be read and contributed to by other participants in the space; and there was no way to implement something like Facebook using the telegraph system.

The Infrastructure of Modern Cyberspace

The technology supporting worldwide data communications did not significantly advance from the telegraph (wired and wireless) until the early stages of the development of what would become the Internet. Indeed, as can be seen in Figure 1.5 , the pattern of connectivity even now reflects that of the wired telegraph network (Figure 1.4 ).

The ARPANET—which stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET ), after the United States’ Advanced Research Projects Agency ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA ) that funded its development—was the seed that would eventually grow into the Internet. It was proposed in 1968 and established in 1969, with the first link being between UCLA and Stanford University. Famously, the first message sent between the two sites was ‘LO’—the first two characters of ‘LOGIN’; the connection failed before the command could be completed. 9

The ARPANET was an early ‘packet-switching’ network—in which transmitted data is grouped into blocks, called ‘packets’, that are of a suitable size (depending on things like the network’s ‘bandwidth’) for transmission across a network—that implemented the TCP/IP protocol, upon which the modern Internet depends. Packet switching ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_switching ) stands in contrast to ‘circuit switching’ ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_switching ), as used in early telephone networks, in which dedicated circuits are established between two points (e.g. two telephone service subscribers) that wish to communicate. Circuit switching, which does not require the overhead of decomposing messages into packets and recomposing after transmission, could be used in the Internet. However, it makes much less efficient use of the available network capacity (or ‘bandwidth’).

Recalling our discussion of semaphore and telegraph systems, it can be seen that although they also required a notion of packet in order to send and receive messages—words are coded as delineated sequences of coded letters, Morse code ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code ) —they all really worked by establishing circuits between the communicating locations, as with early telephone networks. Packet switching is perhaps the key conceptual advance of the Internet over the telegraph networks.

The TCP/IP protocol is one example, a very important example, of a specification of a network communications protocol—recall from our discussion of distributed systems the essential need for ‘common means of communication’—that is tailored to the underlying physical technology that supports its operation. Such technology is not unique, however, and the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model provides a standardized reference—it describes the essential features of the infrastructure of the Internet. Figure 1.6 illustrates how the components of these protocols are built up, from the physical layer, providing underpinning infrastructure, through logical organizational layers, to the application layer, providing services to users. The TCP/IP model can be seen as an implementation of the OSI model—for example, the general ‘Network’ layer described in the OSI model is implemented by the Internet in the TCP/IP model.

Figure 1.6 depicts how, in a somewhat simplified and quite widely described form, the Internet can be seen as implementing cyberspace. To see this, first recall our summary of cyberspace at the end of the first section. Note that, for the purposes of this discussion, I am taking cyberspace to be represented by the medium of the WWW and its use by humans. 10

The TCP/IP model and the OSI reference model (many similar diagrams may be found in the literature)

Does this implementation of cyberspace deliver what we expect? Recall what we learned about cyberspace in the first section:

First, that it is a concept that builds on the physical and logical infrastructure provided by the Internet;

Second, that, while the Internet processes data, it is information—that is, interpreted data—that is the medium of cyberspace;

Third, that the interpretation of data, and the processing of information, are performed by humans, who are themselves essential components of cyberspace;

The first point is clearly supported by this picture: the communication between a web browser and web server, both of which have physical location as well as logical location, is implemented by a sequence of flows of data over a physical network, but that physical network supports interpretations of that data relative to a logical architecture, which organizes the information into useful systems (of knowledge, understanding, and so on). The second and third points reside in the users’ interpretations as information of the data that flows between the web browser and the web server. Finally, the fourth point summarizes the overall relationships between the components of the diagram in Figure 1.7 : data and information have both physical and logical locations; data is processed at physical locations, around the loop between browser and server, but interpreted at logical locations by the human users—in, we might say, Bewusstseinslagen. 11

Within cyberspace itself, as implemented by the Internet, the structural organization provided by the distributed systems model is not always the most helpful. Rather, it is sometimes more useful to infer information about cyberspace in terms of what the statistical structure of the data and its flows tell us about patterns of use. In this context, topological modelling approaches such as that suggested in Ohmori and Kunii (2007) may also be helpful.

How the Internet implements cyberspace (many similar diagrams may be found in the literature)

Internet users in 2015 as a percentage of a country’s population

Examples of this kind of analysis include answering questions about the density of Internet use in different countries around the world (see, for example, Figure 1.8 ), which social networking sites are more popular in which countries, from where most phishing attacks originate, and with what levels of intensity, and so on. Figure 1.8 illustrates Internet users in 2015 as a percentage of a country’s population.

How did a world of communication based on semaphores and Morse code sent over telegraph cables become a world dependent on Internet-supported cyberspace? The answer really is the story of the development of modern computer science (though see Isaacson 2014 for a useful perspective): I cannot hope to do justice to that in this chapter. Rather, I hope to provide a conceptual framework for understanding and reasoning about cyberspace that is applicable to all these stages in the history of cyberspace.

Modelling and Reasoning about Cyberspace

This section is primarily intended for those readers with a more mathematical, or at least philosophical, background and, in particular, for those with an interest in logic. Nevertheless, I hope that all readers who are willing to encounter a little formalism will be able to appreciate the value of the perspective I describe.

As I have described, distributed systems provide a model of computation in which information-processing devices are located on networks and communicate with one another, and with their environments, and coordinate their actions by passing messages between one another and between themselves and their environments. The resulting interaction of these components of systems and their environments delivers the systems’ services to their clients.

Mathematically, distributed systems can be described using the following concepts, as described in Section 1:

  Locations : Mathematically, locations are described using topological structures that give a useful account of the (physical or virtual/logical) notion of ‘place’ and ‘connections between places’. The leading example is perhaps directed graphs, but mathematically other structures can also be used ( Collinson, Monahan, and Pym 2012 ). The concept of location, and its intended mathematical characterization in this context, provides the topological component that is a core part of the concept of space discussed earlier.

  Resources : Mathematically, resources are modelled by abstract algebraic structures called ‘partial monoids’. These gadgets are sets that come with an operation, which has a unit or neutral element, for combining some, but not all, of their elements (used in Collinson, Monahan, and Pym (2012) and Ishtiaq and O’Hearn [2001] ). Perhaps the most important example of such a monoid is given by the set of natural numbers (with 0) less than or equal to a specified maximum, max . Combination is addition, with unit 0. The combination of two numbers m and n is defined just in the case that m + n is less than max . Another important example is given by the ‘stack’ and ‘heap’ in computer memory (RAM) ( Ishtiaq and O’Hearn 2001 ).

  Processes : Mathematically, processes are described using structures called ‘transition systems’ and an important class of examples of transition systems are described by ‘process algebras’ ( Anderson and Pym 2016 ; Collinson, Monahan, and Pym (2012) ; McKinsey and Tarski 1944 ).

The key idea is that the state of a system is described by a triple L , R , E consisting in the configuration of the system’s locations, L , the distribution of its resources, R , around its locations, and a description, E , of the processes that are currently executing. When an action occurs during that execution, the resources are manipulated, perhaps being consumed, created, or moved to new locations.

Again, as described in Section 1, systems exist within environments with which they interact (i.e. they are part of an ecosystem). This interaction is typically described in terms of the incidence of events in and out of the model.

  Environment : Mathematically, the incidence of actions from the environment upon a model and, conversely, the incidence of actions from a model upon the environment can be represented simply using probability distributions. Perhaps the paradigmatic example of this is the arrival of entities, be they people or packets of data, in a queue, where the arrivals at the queue are described using the negative exponential distribution ( Ross 2014 ), which has just one parameter, the ‘arrival rate’.

With this machinery in place, I have, mathematically speaking, all I need to describe the logical and physical architecture of the Internet—that is, the infrastructure of cyberspace:

  Locations in the Internet are given by a range of examples that are relevant for my discussion:

The physical network graph: Figures 1.3 , 1.4 , and 1.5 give examples of network graphs; the global scale network connects regional and national networks, which, in turn, connect organizational and domestic networks.

The virtual network graph: organizations may be distributed across the world and yet appear to be a single network location—for example, a multinational corporation may have physical presence in many countries, but its networks may all be part of the same family of IP addresses, so that they appear as part of the same network location even though they are in many different physical locations. 12

The locations of the human users of the Internet, participants in cyberspace, and the devices with which they interact and upon which the services they use depend.

  Resources in the Internet are things like computers, some providing computation, some providing network management, and some providing storage; peripheral devices, such as printers and scanners; security devices such as IDSs and IPSs; 13 and people, such as programmers, system administrators, and end users (the participants in cyberspace).

  Processes in the Internet are the things that happen. For one example, an individual computer’s operating system is a program that executes continuously in order to provide all the computer’s services to its users: screen, keyboard, network connection, application execution, and so on; for another, the services provided by the network of servers and routers that support the operations of an Internet service provider; and, for another, the human resources, financial, and other business processes followed by the users of information and management systems.

And, finally:

Environment in this context provides a way for the modeller to focus on a particular part of the Internet, or indeed of cyberspace, while retaining an appropriate representation of the rest of the network on that specific part. While the part of interest is modelled in detail, using the concepts of location, resource, and process as described earlier, the interaction of that part with the rest of the network is modelled simply in terms of the incidence of events across the boundary of the part modelled in detail.

Although I have described a framework for describing the underlying conceptual and technical infrastructure of cyberspace, I have not yet provided a way to describe cyberspace itself: even if we consider that humans and their interaction with the architecture, and, indeed, other humans, can be described using located resources and processes, we still lack a natural way to talk about the interpretation of data and how humans reason about it. For that, we are going to take our final step: to logic .

Logic is the science of reasoning. It is studied within computer science, mathematics, and philosophy. It means the same thing in all these areas, although they each tend to emphasize different aspects of its study. They interact with one another very fruitfully. In computer science, in particular, it is important to become accustomed to the idea that there is no single, all-encompassing system of logic that is well adapted to all the different kinds of reasoning that are needed. 14 , 15 The discussion in Pym (2019) of the use of logic as a modelling technology may be useful for some readers.

Mathematical models of distributed systems of this kind are closely associated with ideas from logic. Logic is the science of reasoning and one of its key ideas is that of truth .

In logic, truth is a very precisely defined concept. It relies on a few key ideas: syntax, semantics, and interpretation. Syntactic entities are interpreted as semantic entities, just as data is interpreted as information. Truth is a property of a logical formula (which is a syntactic entity) relative to a model . A model is a mathematical structure that describes relationships between semantic entities.

In modal logic ( Blackburn, de Rijke, and Venema (2001) , which is perhaps the key tool in the logician’s kit for reasoning about action, the ideas of necessity and possibility , so-called ‘modalities’, can be expressed. The key to understanding these ideas comes from some beautiful work initiated by Saul Kripke (1963) , the application of which in systems modelling is discussed in, for example, Anderson and Pym (2016) ; Caulfield and Pym (2015) ; Collinson, Monahan, and Pym (2012) ; Simon (1996) .

The main idea is that truth is defined relative to a world . The concept of a world is philosophically quite delicate, but for our present purpose we can think of it as a state of knowledge or the state of a system. A collection of such ‘possible worlds’ that might be taken as a place to give meaning to formal logical expressions can be seen as a space in the sense that we have already discussed. In fact, this kind of semantics can be formulated explicitly in terms of topological spaces, which are perhaps the prototypical mathematical example of the concept of a space ( Tarski 1969 ; McKinsey and Tarski 1944 ).

What is most important for my story here is that the set of all worlds, W , must come with a partial ordering 16 on its set of elements, so that we define truth relative to models M of the form ( W , ≤).

Given a world w in the set W ,

denotes that the logical formula ϕ is ‘true in the state w ’. For example, if w is a state in which there are precisely three apples and two oranges, then the formula More ( Apples , Oranges ), which is intended to mean that there are more apples than there are oranges, is true at w . But, if w is any state in which there are at least as many oranges as apples, then the formula is not true there.

Suppose now that our states are ordered as follows: w ≤ v just in the case that v has more apples than w .

In general, w ⊨ M □ ϕ denotes that the formula ϕ is necessarily true at the state w in the model M. This is defined as follows: w ⊨ M □ ϕ just in the case that, for every state v such that w ≤ v , it is the case that v ⊨ M ϕ. So, in our little example of apples and oranges, the formula □ More ( Apples , Oranges ) is true if w is a state in which there are precisely three apples and two oranges because any state that is beyond w must have more apples than oranges. Note that we may choose to consider many possible models. Different models will, in general, have different sets of possible worlds.

denotes that the formula ϕ is possibly true at the state w in the model M. This is defined as follows:

w ⊨ M ⬨ ϕ just in the case that, for some state v such that w ≤ v , it is the case that

So, now supposing that states are ordered so that w ≤ v just in the case that either v has more apples than w or v has more oranges than w , then there is state beyond w at which

More (Oranges, Apples) is true, so that ⬨ More ( Oranges , Apples ) is true at w .

What has logic got to do with cyberspace? Just about everything, actually, if one believes that logic provides a good, or at least useful, account of human reasoning. Moreover, computers are inherently machines that implement logic. Assuming that at least, then logic provides the essential link between people and the systems that support cyberspace, as described in Figure 1.9 .

The diagram indicates the relationship between reasoning about systems (including about other humans within the system) and logical reasoning about mathematical models of the system. The ideal situation is when this diagram ‘commutes’—that is, for a given system, the logical formalization of human reasoning about its properties corresponds exactly to logical reasoning about a formal model of the system. Such a situation is very rare indeed, and really only works out in the context of very specific reasoning tools (see, for example, discussions in Apt, de Boer, and Olderog 2010 ; Ishtiaq and O’Hearn 2001 ; Caulfield and Pym 2015 ; Pym, Spring, and O’Hearn 2018 ; and Simon 1996 ).

Reasoning about systems and reasoning about system models

I have already given an example of a model in the context of distributed systems. It is built out of descriptions of the system’s locations, resources, and processes. Triples of locations, resources, and processes are the states of the model of a system. The ordering of the states is then given by the evolution of the model as actions occur ( Anderson and Pym 2016 ; Collinson, Monahan, and Pym 2012 ; and Milner 1989 ).

Actions are the basic building blocks of processes, 17 one of the core components in our model of the infrastructure of cyberspace. When actions occur, the state of a system changes. For one example, a computer program may perform a ‘write’ action to put value, a number representing a resource , to a memory, location . For another example, a human user of a computer may give the ‘print’ command, so causing data to be copied from the computer’s memory to the printer, followed by the consumption on ink and paper and resources, and the creation of a document.

Thus we have L , R , E ≤ M , S , F just in the case that L , R , E can evolve to become M, S, F by some action. The notion of logical truth supported by such a mode, written as L , R , E ⊨ M ϕ , is read as ‘the process E , executing with respect to resources R , at location L , has property ϕ .’

Then we can define versions of the necessity and possibility modalities that are parametrized by actions. The counterpart to the necessity modality is [a] ϕ , which is read as ‘the formula ϕ is necessarily true after the action a ’. Similarly, the counterpart to the possibility modality is 〈 a 〉 ϕ , which is read as ‘the formula ϕ is possibly true after the action a ’. More formally, we define them as follows:

  L , R , E ⊨ M [ a ] ϕ holds just in the case that, for every evolution of L , R , E to M , S , F by the action a , we have that M , S , F ⊨ M ϕ holds;

  L , R , E ⊨ M 〈 a 〉 ϕ holds just in the case that, for some evolution of L , R , E to M , S , F by the action a , we have that M , S , F ⊨ M ϕ holds.

These definitions explain how logical reasoning about (the data held by) systems interacts with the actions performed by the system. In particular, they begin to explain, in terms of information processing, how humans interact with the system and other humans.

In order to see an example of all this, think about the picture of the implementation of cyberspace given in Figure 1.6 . Suppose a user, sitting at a computer in their home, is using a web browser to access an online store (let us call it ‘BigRiver’). The user is looking at the webpage for Oxford University Press’s Handbook of Cybersecurity and clicks on the ‘Buy now’ button. If the user’s bank account has sufficient funds and if the BigRiver website has given the correct information about the availability of the book, then, provided everything works as it should, the book will be sent to the user. We can describe this situation logically as follows:

home_computer, bank_account, BigRiver_website ⊨ Cyberspace (buy_now) book_sent

That is, located at their home computer, with the resources available in their bank account, while running the BigRiver website process, the user may click on the ‘Buy now’ link and it is possible, if all goes well, that the book will be sent to their specified address.

Note that this logical assertion describes a state of affairs in the part of the diagram described as ‘Cyberspace’. We could use similar logical assertions to describe the (many) states of affairs that must obtain in other parts of the diagram in order for the assertion about Cyberspace to be realized.

At this point, the reader might be forgiven for thinking that the logical language that explains all this is rather impoverished. I would agree, although I would note that, in fact, the framework I have suggested, as developed, for example, in Anderson and Pym 2016 ; Apt, de Boer, and Olderog 2010 ; Caulfield and Pym 2015 ; Collinson, Monahan, and Pym 2012 ; and Milner 1989 , can express a great deal, albeit somewhat tediously. A challenge for the community of logicians, if logic is to demonstrate what I believe is its full potential as a modelling technology, is to develop concise and powerful representations of logical reasoning.

In fact, the world of (modal) logics for reasoning about actions (performed by agents) is much richer than I have so far suggested and includes epistemic logic s, for reasoning about agents’ knowledge of systems, doxastic logics , for reasoning about agents’ beliefs, and temporal logics , which incorporate a representation of time (system events, such as the sending and receiving of messages, which occur at relative points in time). All these systems of logic build on the basic ideas sketched earlier. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy ( https://plato.stanford.edu ) provides a great deal of information about these systems of logic, and there is a vast literature in computer science that is concerned with their use in reasoning about systems.

Perhaps the most important of these many possibilities for our story are the epistemic and doxastic logics. Roughly speaking, in these logics, modalities are parametrized not by actions but rather by agents, who of course can perform actions. Agents may be humans or system processes, and epistemic and doxastic logics (again, see the Stanford Encyclopaedia) allow us to reason about their knowledge and beliefs. Exploring the use of these logics, and their relationships with tools from behavioural economics (e.g. Baltag and Renne 2016 ), game theory (e.g. Binmore 2007 ), and psychology (e.g. Kirchler and Hoelzel 2017 ), to reason about the behaviour of agents in cyberspace would be another chapter in exploring the origins of cyberspace.

Of course, individuals and organizations do not always behave ‘logically’ when they interact with one another and with the systems that support cyberspace. They behave in ways that others may consider to be irrational. This observation does not really undermine the perspective presented here. It has very little to do with logic in the sense that I have described, which is about the mechanism by which conclusions are drawn from chosen assumptions. Some assumptions may lead to what may be described as ‘irrational’ behaviour, even though the logical mechanisms may be perfectly sound.

I have sought to explain the origins of ‘cyberspace’ historically, linguistically, and conceptually. I have explained how the idea of cyberspace derives from a complex combination of physical and logical structure, which supports complex interactions between and among humans and information-processing machines, and I have given a conceptual and mathematical framework for modelling the conceptual and technical infrastructure of cyberspace.

I have also explained how logic can provide tools, based on our approach to modelling the infrastructure of cyberspace, for capturing how humans and other agents reason about cyberspace, and so, to some extent at least, how they experience cyberspace. Experience, of course, involves more than logical reasoning alone. Exploring that dimension would be yet another chapter in exploring the origins of cyberspace.

I have explained how the essential features of cyberspace have been part of the human experience, ‘a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators’ as Gibson (1982) put it, for a very long time and, as the science fiction writers continue to predict, we can expect that there is much more to come. I have not discussed questions of security in cyber space—that is the topic of the rest of this handbook. Again, Standage’s 1998 book (Chapter 7, ‘Codes, Hackers and Cheats’) provides a delightful starting point.

Acknowledgements

I am warmly grateful to Tristan Caulfield and Jonathan Spring for their thorough and thoughtful advice on drafts of this article.

  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cyberspace

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

It is not my purpose here to explore the definition of ‘information’. The literature on the subject is substantial. For our purposes, the usual understanding of a generally well-educated reader—see, for example, the definition provided in the OED—will suffice. For a philosophically sophisticated discussion that is beyond the scope of this article, see, for example, L. Floridi. 2011. The Philosophy of Information . Oxford University Press. See also C. Zins. Conceptual approaches for defining data, information, and knowledge. ‘ Journal of the American Society for Information Society and Technology ’, 58 (4). https://doi.org/10.asi.20508

TCP/IP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite

OSPF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Shortest_Path_First

BGP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Gateway_Protocol

RIP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing_Information_Protocol

The distinction between the WWW and the underlying Internet is an essential one, but there would be no WWW in its current form without the underlying communications architecture. Some of the key concepts of the WWW—for example, the concept of hypertext and the underlying ideas of distributed systems ( Coulouris et al. 2011 ; Simon 1996 )—have, as described in Berners-Lee’s research proposal (1989, 1900) and book (2000), prior histories in computer science. The linking of hypertext to the Internet through ‘http’ (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and URLs and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) are Berners-Lee’s definitive contributions.

The Treaty was a huge diplomatic effort: 176 negotiating teams representing 194 agents; the French brought a 150-strong entourage, including pastry chefs, priest confessors and dancing instructors. The negotiators had constantly to check with their capital: a letter took 2 weeks to reach Stockholm, 4 weeks to reach Madrid: R. Boyes, ‘Treaty that created ‘the soil of despair’, The Times , 24 October 1998. I am grateful to Paul Cornish for this reference.

‘Telegraph’ means ‘distance writing’ in Greek.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_telegraph

The SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) missile defence system, which was developed by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and which operated in the United States from the late 1950s to the 1980s, is also a seed ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Automatic_Ground_Environment ).

For our present purposes, I refrain from considering AI alternatives to humans as interpreters of data to yield information.

  German : a state of consciousness or a feeling devoid of sensory components (Merriam Webster).

An IP address is a numerical label (a sequence of numbers representing a 32-bit or 128-bit number) assigned to each device connected to a network that uses the Internet protocol (IP) for its communications. An organization may, for example, own all of the IP addresses that begin with a given sequence of numbers.

Intrusion Detection Systems and Intrusion Prevention Systems: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusion_detection_system ).

That is not to say that many things expressible in one kind of logic cannot be expressed in another; rather, that it may not be convenient to do so.

In addition to the classical propositional and predicate logic that is routinely to taught to undergraduates in computer science, mathematics, and philosophy, we can add, among other things, modal, temporal, and epistemic systems, and their higher-order, intuitionistic, and substructural variants. The many volumes of the Handbook of Philosophical Logic and the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy ( https://plato.stanford.edu ) provide starting points for exploring these topics.

A partially ordered set formalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering of the elements of a set. A ‘partial order’ on the set relates pairs of elements of the set in such a way that the relationship been the elements of the pair is reflexive (every element is related to itself), anti-symmetric (no two elements precede each other in the ordering), and transitive (if the higher of one pair is below the lower of another pair, then the lower of the former pair is below than the higher of the latter pair). Not all pairs of elements of the set need be related by the order; such pairs are ‘incomparable’ in such an order.

Technical note: for an elegant explanation of the structure of processes, including concurrency, non-determinism, and recursion, see Robin Milner’s Communication and Concurrency .

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Berners-Lee, T.   2000 . Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web. New York: Harper Business.

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Caulfield, T., and D. Pym . 2015 . ‘ Modelling and Simulating Systems Security Policy ’, Proc. SIMUTools 2015 , ACM Digital Library, doi: 10.4108/eai.24-8-2015.2260765.

Collinson, M. , B. Monahan , and D. Pym . 2012 . A Discipline of Mathematical Systems Modelling . London: College Publications.

Coulouris, G. , J. Dollimore , T. Kindberg , et al. 2011 . Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design. Harlow: Pearson.

Garson, J. 2016. ‘Modal Logic’. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , edited by E. Zalta (principal editor). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/

Gibson, W.   1982 . ‘ Burning Chrome ’, Omni 4 (10): July.

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Isaacson, W.   2014 . The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution . London: Simon & Schuster.

Ishtiaq S., and P. O’Hearn . 2001 . ‘ BI as an assertion language for mutable data structures ’, Proceedings of the 28th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages : 14–26. ACM Digital Library.

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Kripke, S.   1963 . ‘ Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic ’, Acta Philosophca Fennica 16: 83–94.

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Milner, R.   1989 . Communication and Concurrency . Hoboken, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Ohmori K., and T.L. Kunii . 2007 . ‘ The Mathematical Structure of Cyberworlds ’, Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Cyberworlds . IEEE Computer Society, doi: 10.1109/CW.2007.19

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Life in Cyberspace

• By Dr Mary Aiken
• Part of the series "Big Ideas"
• 30 October 2018

>> You can download the essay here

“Cyber” refers to anything involving computers or computer networks, such as the Internet. As a cyberpsychologist, I study human interactions with technology, digital media, artificial intelligence, mobile and networked devices.

I also research how the Internet and digital activities, such as gaming and virtual reality, affect human behaviour. I focus on Internet psychology and figuring out how technology has the potential to impact or change human behaviour. The development of information technology has exploded over the past 30 years. We now spend a significant part of our life in a space – cyberspace – that did not exist previously. We all know about the incredible benefits of the “information superhighway”’ of cyberspace, the Internet: affordability, convenience, connectivity, creativity, altruism, educational and cultural exchange, along with the growth of entrepreneurship and commercial opportunities. However, the substantial benefits associated with our colonisation of cyberspace have downsides. Cyberactivity can have real-world consequences, claims for the independence of cyberspace are based on a false dichotomy: physical and virtual are not opposed; rather the virtual complicates the physical, and vice versa. [1]

In other words, what happens in the cyber ecosystem can affect the real world and vice versa. It is essential that we examine this new environment scientifically to maximise its benefits and avoid potential risk and harm.

Cyberspace is a real place

Whenever technology interfaces with a base human tendency, the result is amplification and acceleration.

Let me ask a question, one that has been fiercely debated: is cyberspace an actual place? My answer is unequivocal: yes. You may be accessing it from a familiar environment, like the comfort of your home or office, but as soon as you go online, you travel to a different location in terms of awareness, emotions, responses, and behaviour. Your reactions will vary depending on age, physical and mental development, and personality traits.

People behave differently when they are interacting with technology, compared to interacting face-to-face with the real world: Whenever technology interfaces with a base human tendency, the result is amplification and acceleration. We have all experienced technology-mediated adverse psychological effects, from smartphone addictive-type behaviours to being subjected to social technology “weapons of mass distraction” that hijack our attention. And then harvest, profile, micro-target, monetise and subliminally manipulate us online.

The technology of cyberspace was designed to be rewarding, engaging and seductive for the general population. What we failed as a society to foresee was how it would impact deviant, criminal and vulnerable populations, and how this in turn could affect society. Traditionally, members of extreme or marginalised groups found each other with difficulty. Meetings were limited by the laws of probability and proximity. Now, this probability has changed due to a cyber effect that I describe as online syndication [2] — the mathematics of behaviour in the digital age — that has changed, not just for sex offenders and proponents of hate speech, racism, and misogyny, but also for cybercriminals, extremists, and young people with self-harm disorders. My prediction is that this form of hyper connectivity will lead to more incidences of abuse and criminal behaviour in cyberspace and in the real world.

As a cyber behavioural scientist, my job is to provide insight at the intersection between humans and technology, or as some say - where humans and technology collide. Over time we have developed protective strategies when it comes to physical crime and white-collar crime, but we urgently need to address cyber-facilitated and cyber-enabled crime. Cybersecurity efforts to date have mainly focused on attacks on critical infrastructure. However, the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), and soon a predicted trillion connected devices, means that in the near future we will be facing attacks not just on critical infrastructure, but on all infrastructure. Hacking and cybercriminal activity is now ubiquitous, perpetrators are engaging in complex global offenses targeting both individuals and businesses. While delivering on connectivity, Internet of Things increases the threats – therefore we need to develop cyber situational awareness, and step up security in cyber contexts.

So how do we do this?

I contributed to the recent ARM [3] IoT Security Manifesto [4] initiative and my observations were that security is not always built into devices and systems by default; this is compounded by too many assumptions from users regarding their security which generates a false sense of protection – fake safety. Many cyberattacks work because of a lack of digital hygiene, a lack of security by design and importantly a lack of user awareness. Paradoxically, younger generations of users are more digitally savy, but can be even more complacent about cybersecurity. As academic experts, designers, developers and engineers, we need to care more about the consumer. We need a human-centred approach that is mindful of how humans actually use connected "things", and not how the tech sector presumes or expects them to.

Cybercrime has also a significant economic impact. The 2018 No Slowing Down   [5] report from McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that cybercrime now costs businesses close to $600 billion, or 0.8 percent of global GDP. According to Steve Grobman, Chief Technology Officer for McAfee “the digital world has transformed almost every aspect of our lives, including risk and crime, so that crime is more efficient, less risky, more profitable and has never been easier to execute." So-called Darknet markets, the unscrupulous bad neighbourhoods of the Internet that are not indexed by standard search engines, are facilitating cybercriminal activity, from ransomware attacks, to identity theft and cyber fraud. However, the cost of what goes wrong in cyberspace is not just financial. We are also paying a high price in human terms, with the evolution of trolling, and online bullying, the rise in sleep interruption and deprivation, the surge in anxiety and depression in young people associated with technology use, the widespread commercialisation of human data, and the gamification of electoral processes, evidenced by the manipulation of constituents’ behaviours online. [6]

What can we do about this?

Can experts illuminate this intersection between humans and technology, where humans and technology collide? Can they predict evolutions, identify problems, brainstorm answers, create solutions, and offer advice on cyberspace?

New scientific frontiers

We need accessible funding for “rapid research” initiatives, and we urgently need to broaden scientific investigation.

The scientific study of cyberspace began in the early 1990s. Researchers attempted to analyse and predict human behaviour mediated by technology, but these attempts were only partially successful. Very often findings concerning specific types of behaviours could not be described and explained by traditional psychological theory when applied in technology-mediated environments. Now, as we delve even deeper into cyberspace, difficulties with some fundamentals of psychology are becoming increasingly apparent.

Traditional research funding models may not suffice either and arguably the three-to five-year research cycle is becoming increasingly redundant. It is likely, if not probable, that rapid technological developments will overtake the phenomenon under study before it is completed and findings are published. We need accessible funding for “rapid research” initiatives, and we urgently need to broaden scientific investigation. Governments, policymakers, stakeholders along with academics from a wide range of disciplines who embrace cyberpsychology [7] will undoubtedly contribute to crystallising new ideas and perhaps to understanding and conquering this new scientific frontier.

One of the earliest discoveries in the field of environmental psychology came from Roger Barker’s work in ecological psychology. His field observations in Oskaloosa, Kansas, in the 1940s expanded into the theory that social settings influence behaviour. He developed the concept of the “behaviour setting” to help explain the relationship between the individual and the immediate environment, and how a setting affects its inhabitants. In 1987, the environmental psychologist Harold Proshansky [8] discussed how the field was “value-oriented” due to environmental psychology’s commitment to bettering society through problem identification. This is a valuable observation when it comes to cyber society.

Proshansky, however, only considered environment as a real-world construct. Understandably, his research at the time did not extend into cyberspace. Cyberpsychologists, however, do consider psychological aspects of environments created by computers and online networks. Professor John Suler, the father of cyberpsychology, provided in his groundbreaking work The Psychology of Cyberspace  an evolving framework for understanding how people react to and behave in cyberspace. The experience created by computers and computer networks should in many ways be understood as a psychological “space”. When users power up their computers, launch a program or app, write e-mail, or log on to a social technology platform, they feel either consciously or subconsciously that they are entering a “place” or “space.” In terms of considering cyberspace from a classic environmental psychology perspective, many users who have connected to a remote computer and explored the Internet or navigated the murky depths of the deep web describe the experience in terms of travel or “going someplace”. These and other spatial situational metaphors, such as “worlds”, “domains”, “forums” or “rooms”, are commonly used online and support a construct of environment. The literature on human cognition argues that we use place and space-based metaphors for the Internet because our cognitive makeup dictates that we must – in other words, humans are embodied, situated beings, who reason spatially.

The three layers of Cyberspace

However, we are not alone – the military also reasons spatially. The most significant official recognition of cyberspace occurred in 2016 when NATO acknowledged it as a new frontier in defence [9] – formally recognising that modern battles are waged not only by air, sea and land, but also on computer networks. In fact, a military definition of cyberspace has existed for some time, i.e.:

[...] the global domain within the information environment consisting of the interdependent networks of information technology infrastructures and resident data including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems and embedded processors and controllers.

The Armed Forces of the United States joint publication on Cyberspace Operations  describes three layers of cyberspace [11] : the Physical Network , the layer of cyberspace comprised of the geographic components and physical network components; the Logical Network , the layer which consists of those elements of the network that are related to one another in a way that is abstracted from the physical network and the Cyber-Persona layer – that’s us – humans.

While the military has a multi-layered and strategic understanding of cyberspace, the European Union sees it merely as a form of "infrastructure" – something like a railroad or motorway. The Internet may be many things, but it is not simply infrastructure; it is an entity that can have an almost overwhelming impact on individuals and society. The technological revolution that delivered connectivity, computers and cyberspace has produced seismic changes for our species – we have had to evolve and adapt to keep up with this rapid change. It has been argued that human culture, which society represents, provides a buffer against facing one’s vulnerability and mortality. Humans need other people for basic survival and over time we have developed some core behaviours when interacting with social situations to help us survive in groups. In other words, humans are highly motivated to get along with others simply because it’s adaptive to do so, that is, these actions and/or behaviours aid or ensure basic survival.

The cyber effect

Humans are now desperately trying to adapt in cyberspace. However, as biological beings we struggle to keep pace with technical advancements, a form of Moore’s law of human behaviour. One such example is increasing levels of narcissism and decreasing empathy online, embodied in heightened detachment from the feelings and rights of others online. We see this in extreme harassment and malicious trolling. Anonymity online, the mythical superpower of invisibility, fuels this behaviour, as does a phenomenon known as the online disinhibition effect , which can cause individuals to be brasher, judgment-impaired and less inhibited — almost as if they were inebriated. Desensitisation is another effect, a result of access to endless amounts of violent and extreme content on both mainstream and online media. Human behaviour is often amplified and accelerated online, by what I believe to be an almost predictable mathematical multiplier, a “cyber effect”, arguably the E = mc 2 of this century.

My recent book regarding this phenomenon, The Cyber Effect , was reviewed extensively and well received. [12] One particular review by Bob Woodward, the American investigative journalist of Watergate fame, made me stop and think: Woodward wrote "Just as Rachel Carson launched the modern environmental movement with her Silent Spring, Mary Aiken delivers a deeply disturbing, utterly penetrating and urgently timely investigation into the perils of the largest unregulated social experiment of our time."  [13]

I am deeply indebted to Woodward for this observation. Rachel Carson was a renowned author and a former aquatic biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose 1962 book Silent Spring painstakingly documented adverse effects of the indiscriminate use of pesticides on the environment. Her work provided an unequivocal argument that powerful synthetic insecticides such as DDT were poisoning food chains, killing insects and birds:

These sprays, dusts and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests and homes – non-selective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the 'good' and the 'bad', to still the song of the birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film and to linger on in the soil – all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects.

Carson’s Silent Spring has been described as “one of the most effective denunciations of industrial malpractice ever written”. [15] Although her book met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred big changes in the laws affecting air, land, and water. Her impassioned plea regarding the future of our planet reverberated worldwide. The most evocative and well-known chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow", portrayed an American town where all life, “from fish to birds to apple blossoms to human children”, had been silenced by the insidious effects of DDT. Carson’s work was instrumental in raising popular global ecological awareness and advancing the global environmental movement.

Around the same time, American psychologist and computer scientist Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider published his landmark paper Man-Computer Symbiosis . His vision was that man and technology could work together to accomplish great things. Licklider likened it to the symbiotic relationships found in nature, such as an insect pollinating a fig tree. [16] While the two are dissimilar organisms they are nonetheless heavily interdependent, in other words they need each other to survive.

All Internet users are not equal

All Internet users are not equal: some are more vulnerable than others and few special allowances have been made for children online. However, they deserve particular attention.

While Licklider believed that humans and technology could collaborate in a mutually sustaining manner, Carson was less optimistic. Her central proposal was that, at times, “technological progress is so fundamentally at odds with natural processes that it must be curtailed”. [17] I believe this assertion resonates today. Is contemporary technological progress now at odds with humankind? My real concern is the impact of technology on the developing child, particularly those who are growing up with cyberspace. The Internet was designed as a democratic environment in which all users are treated and regarded equal. However, all Internet users are not equal: Some are more vulnerable than others and few special allowances have been made for children online. However, they deserve particular attention. We are living through the largest unregulated social experiment of all time – a generation of youth have been exposed to the best and worst aspects of this new technological environment.

In May 2018 Europe introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which significantly changed data protection law in Europe, strengthening the rights of individuals and increasing the obligations on organisations in cyber contexts. One of the most important aspects of GDPR is the protection of children. Article 8 of the GDPR addresses the “Digital Age of Consent” – that is, the age at which children have the power to let a social media company gather their personal data and profile them. The GDPR sets this age at 16 years by default, but allowed Member States to reduce this to 13. In Ireland, my fellow campaigners and I believed that there were considerable risks associated with enabling children to use social media services that process their personal data for marketing/targeting /commercial gain. We are convinced that it is critical to protect children from complex algorithmic profiling that they do not understand and which most adults don’t understand either. We must be extra careful with young teenagers, who are at a phase of development during which they are vulnerable to influence and manipulation. For this reason, we campaigned to keep parents involved in the lives of young people online, just as they are engaged in the real world. On the legislative front, we were successful. The Digital Age of Consent in Ireland is now 16. This is important in geographical terms, as many social technology companies have headquarters in my hometown of Dublin.

GDPR is a giant step forward in cyberspace regulation, providing protection and control to individuals’ personal data. It significantly increases the obligations and responsibilities for organisations and businesses in how they collect, use and protect personal data. The new law requires organisations and companies to be fully transparent about their use and safeguarding of such data. Fundamentally, it represents a culture change for enterprises that operate in this space. They will need to adapt and will be accountable for data processing activities. However, GDPR is just one area of protection concerning the data of adults and minors; there are many more problem areas that affect children and young people that must be addressed. These include the ever-increasing scourge of cyberbullying, along with exposure to age-inappropriate content online, such as extreme violence, self-harm material, and adult pornography. As children increasingly navigate and habitate the exciting new world of cyberspace, we need to step up our efforts to address these pressing issues, to ensure that – just as Rachel Carson wrote – we protect children from toxic fallout.

It is time to stop, put down our devices, close our laptops, log off, take a deep breath, and do something that humans are uniquely good at.

We need to think. We need to think a lot.

A holistic overview

Billions of us now use the technologies of cyberspace unthinkingly, in the same way we breathe air and drink water. It is an integral part of our developmental, social, professional, and personal lives.

And we need to talk about cyberspace — we urgently need new ideas. We need to find answers and solutions. I am convinced that we can conceptualise technology solutions for technology-facilitated problematic behaviours. Until now, most academics have been looking at the cyber environment through the myopic lens of their individual disciplines. We must take a holistic, gestalt -like overview to improve our understanding. As the network scientists say, it’s all about sense-making. We need to make sense of what’s happening.

The best approach is transdisciplinary. We need expert input from a wide array of disciplines to illuminate the problems and devise the best solutions. We need to stop expecting individuals to manage cyber issues for themselves or their families. Science, industry, governments, communities, and families need to come together to create a roadmap for cyber society.

However, some will object.

If we think about cyberspace as a continuum, on one side we have idealists, keyboard warriors, early adopters, and philosophers who feel passionately about the freedom of the Internet and the independence of cyberspace, and don’t want that weighed down with regulation and governance. On the other end of the continuum, we have the tech industry with a pragmatic vision of freedom of the Net that is driven by a desire for profit and concerns that governance and restrictions will impact the bottom line. These two very different groups are somehow strategically aligned in cyberspace, and holding firm. The rest of us and our children — the 99.9 percent — live somewhere along the continuum, in the middle, between these vested interests. Billions of us now use the technologies of cyberspace unthinkingly, in the same way we breathe air and drink water. It is an integral part of our developmental, social, professional, and personal lives. We depend on it for our livelihoods and lifestyle, for our utilities, opportunities, networking, even our educations. However, at the same time, we have little or no say about this new frontier, where we are all living and spending so much of our lives. Most of our energy and focus has been to simply keep up with a cyber learning curve that gets steeper every year. As we know from environmental psychology, when you move to a new location, it takes time to adapt and settle in. Before we get too settled, let’s make sure this is what we want and where we want to be.

Cyber effects can tap into our developmental or psychological Achilles’ heel: while making us feel invincible, these effects can diminish us, and distract us from things in life that are much more important, more vital to happiness, and more crucial to our survival. Let’s debate more, and demand more.

Our biggest problems with technology usually come down to design. The cyber frontier is a designed universe: if certain aspects of it do not function, those aspects should be redesigned. I can’t help but wonder how different the Internet would be if women had participated in greater numbers in its design.  Studies show that in business female directors are “less constrained” in their problem-solving skills than male directors. Research findings also support that “Women seem to be predisposed to be more inquisitive and to see more possible solutions,” [18] — I find it intriguing that, 100 years after the suffragette struggle and the hard fight for women’s rights, we have migrated and are populating a cyber space that is almost exclusively designed and developed by men. We need more women to lean in, make decisions and problem solve in this sphere.

The precautionary principle

In pursuing solutions, we can learn from the legacy of Rachel Carson, who raised awareness regarding humanity’s potential to wreak havoc on nature. In an age of technology, we need to focus on our ability to wreak havoc on ourselves, on our potential. We are living in a new environment, cyberspace, but we are not taking care of it and, more importantly, we are not insisting on accountability in this space.

In 2017 a horrific video titled “Easter day slaughter” was posted on Facebook: a man filmed himself killing an apparently random victim. The killer published his crime in real time on Facebook. By the time it was taken down the graphic footage of a live killing had been viewed over 150,000 times – we don’t know how many of the viewers were children. I subsequently wrote an article for TIME [19] denouncing the live streaming of murder:

[…] acts of murder were once reported after the fact, on the news, or were only available in the deepest and darkest parts of the web, so-called ‘snuff’ content. Now it appears killing has become a form of live engagement on social media, generated and distributed by pathological and criminal cyber exhibitionists.

We need new standards and new frameworks for our concerns. The clean-up measures are time-sensitive and need to begin soon.

Who is responsible when extreme content disastrously spills online – especially by means of technologies that are used by children and young people? Who is to blame: the individuals who commit the extreme acts, those who share the images and videos, the anti-social technologies that spread them further, or all of these? As a society, we need to decide who is responsible. Does the fault lie with service providers, software companies, the leadership behind them? Moreover, what is the responsibility of social technology platforms?  What is our collective position regarding “content pollution” of cyberspace?

Here’s an idea. The environmental movement’s “precautionary principle” places the onus on industry to protect the real-world environment. This could also be a principle in cyberspace. Just as oil companies have been forced  — by the media, government, social and environmental activists — to clean up damages, leaks, and pollution related to their products, cyberspace enterprises need to be responsible for spills and effects regarding humanity. We need new standards and new frameworks for our concerns. The clean-up measures are time-sensitive and need to begin soon. Also, let’s use machine intelligence solutions to do the dirty work, not young content moderators from developing countries who are employed as human filters to clean up the worst excesses of the Net, and are traumatised while doing so. At an EU policy summit in Brussels earlier this month I argued that the words "content moderator" would in time be considered as a human rights issue, along with human trafficking and forced child labour. Let’s not forget that a social technology moderator is also somebody’s child.

On the cyber frontier, we need thought leaders who are prepared to nail their colours to the mast and back their informed instincts. Of course, we need evidence-based studies over time, but how long can we wait? Babies are being born, kids are growing up in the cyberworld, and lives are being changed. Society is being reshaped. We urgently need to reconsider how we handle behavioural problems in this new environment that are evolving at the speed of technology. I don’t believe scientific breakthroughs are achieved by sitting on the fence. We need cyber leadership, and we desperately need “academic first responders”.

We are living in a unique period of human history, an intense period of flux, change, and disruption that may never be repeated. This moment in time is not unlike the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, when there were significant shifts in awareness, knowledge, and technology, accompanied by great societal changes. Some changes have been seductive and incremental, have caused psychological norms to creep into new places, while others have been sudden and alarming. We need to start thinking and talking about the profound and pervasive impact of the technological environment of cyberspace on the individual and on society.

What is new is not always good. Technology only brings progress when we are able as a society to mitigate its most harmful effects.

The findings, interpretations and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Investment Bank.

Download  the essay

© European Investment Bank 2018

Photos: © Getty images, © Shutterstock. All rights reserved

[1] Slane, Andrea   (2007) , " Democracy, social space and the Internet", University of Toronto Law Journal , 57: 81 -104

[2] Aiken, Mary P. (2016) , The Cyber Effect, New York, Random House, Spiegel & Grau

[3]  Arm technology is at the heart of a computing and connectivity revolution that is transforming the way people live and businesses operate. Arm advanced, energy-efficient processor designs have enabled the intelligent computing in more than 125 billion chips. Over 70% of the world’s population are using Arm technology, which is securely powering products from the sensor to the smartphone to the supercomputer.

[4]   IoT Security Manifesto

[5]   No Slowing Down

[6]   Aiken, Mary P. (2018),  Manipulating Fast, and Slow, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/manipulating-fast-and-slow

[7]   Cyberpsychology is the study of the impact of technology on human behaviour. The field is rapidly evolving from an emerging to an established field within applied psychology. It is expected to enjoy exponential growth in the coming decades due to continued rapid growth of Internet technologies and the unprecedented, ubiquitous influence of the Internet on humans.

[8]   Proshansky, Harold M. (1987) , “ The field of environmental psychology: securing its future” , in Handbook of Environmental Psychology , eds. Daniel Stokols and Irwin Altman, New York, John Wiley & Sons

[9]   https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-to-recognize-cyberspace-as-new-frontier-in-defense-1465908566

[9]   http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_12.pdf?ver=2018-07-16-134954-150 (JP 3-12: V)

[11]   http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_12.pdf?ver=2018-07-16-134954-150 (JP 3-12: I-3)

[12]   The Cyber Effect selected as one of the best science picks of the week in 2016 by Nature , and chosen as a UK 2016 Times book of the year in the Thought Category.

[13]   http://www.maryaiken.com/cyber-effect/

[14]   Carson, Rachel (1962) , Silent Spring , Boston , Houghton Mifflin

[15]   https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/may/27/rachel-carson-silent-spring-anniversary

[16]   “The fig tree is pollinated only by the insect Blastophaga grossorun. The larva of the insect lives in the ovary of the fig tree, and there it gets its food. The tree and the insect are thus heavily interdependent: the tree cannot reproduce without the insect; the insect cannot eat without the tree; together, they constitute not only a viable but a productive and thriving partnership. This cooperative ‘living together in intimate association, or even close union, of two dissimilar organisms’ is called symbiosis."

[17]   The Story of Silent Spring

[18]   Opening Statement by Professor Barry O’Sullivan MRIA and Adj. Assoc. Professor Mary Aiken to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

[19] http://business.financialpost.com/executive/executive-women/women-on-corporate-boards-better-decision-makers-than-male-directors-study

About the author

Dr Mary Aiken

Mary is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Geary Institute for Public Policy University College Dublin, Ireland. She is an Academic Advisor (Psychology) to Europol's European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3), and a member of the EC3 Academic Advisory Network. Mary is a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center, the leading US institution for in-depth research and dialogue to inform actionable ideas on global issues. She is a lecturer in Criminology and Fellow at the School of Law, Middlesex University and Fellow of the Society for Chartered IT Professionals.

 In 2017 Mary was inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame, in recognition of contribution to the information and cybersecurity sector, she is a strategic advisor at European and International levels in policy debates on the impact of technology on human behaviour, and has published and spoken worldwide on this topic. Her research interests include forensic cyberpsychology, AI, human factors in cyber-security, Internet psychology, organized cybercrime, cyber criminology, behavioural manipulation online and the rights of the child in cyber contexts. Mary is a member of the advisory board of The Hague Justice Portal - a foundation for international peace, justice & security. She is a Strategic Advisor to the European Paladin Capital Group Cyber fund.

Mary’s ground-breaking work inspired the CBS prime time television series CSI:Cyber.  Her recent book 'The Cyber Effect' was selected by the Times as a 2016 ‘book of the year’ in the Thought Category, and 2016 ‘best science pick’ by Nature the international journal of science and technology.

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A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

John Perry Barlow Library

• Decrypting the Puzzle Palace
• A Not Terribly Brief History of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• A Plain Text on Crypto Policy
• A Pretty Bad Problem
• Across the Electronic Frontier
• Barlow in Rockspace
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• The View from the Brooklyn Bridge
• Thinking locally, acting globally
• Through Many Panes of Shattered Glass
• To Be At Liberty
• Verbum Magazine Interview
• Who Holds The Keys?

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland February 8, 1996

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The future of cybersecurity

With TikTok in the hands of 170 million Americans, cybersecurity expert Amy Zegart says it’s time to talk about consequences. Foreign access to all that data on so many Americans is a national security threat, she asserts.

For those as concerned as she, Zegart has good news and bad. The government has gotten better at fighting cyberthreats, but artificial intelligence is making things very complicated, very fast. The US needs to adapt quickly to keep pace, Zegart tells host Russ Altman on this episode of Stanford Engineering’s The Future of Everything podcast.

Listen on your favorite podcast platform:

Related : Amy Zegart , senior fellow at The Hoover Institution, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and Stanford Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intellligence (HAI)

[00:00:00] Amy Zegart: What we really need to pursue much more seriously is developing independent capacity. Developing the talent, developing the compute that, I know at Stanford's been really pushing this idea of a national AI, research resource. That's fancy talk for compute power so that independent researchers can ask hard questions, uh, and do the kind of analysis that, that needs to be done.

[00:00:27] I think we need to be investing much more in that. Compute is a strategic national asset like oil. And the government should be investing orders of magnitude more and making that available.

[00:00:44] Russ Altman: This is Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, and I'm your host, Russ Altman. If you're enjoying the show or if it's helping you in any way, please consider sharing it with friends, family, and colleagues. Personal recommendations are one of the best ways to spread the news about the podcast.

[00:00:59] Today, Amy Zegart from Stanford University will tell us about cybersecurity and AI. How have things changed in the last three or four years since she was last a guest on The Future of Everything? It's the future of cybersecurity. 

[00:01:13] Before we get started, a quick reminder that if you're enjoying this show, please consider sharing it with friends and family. Personal recommendations really do work in growing the podcast audience and improving the podcast.

[00:01:31] Cybersecurity is a huge issue for the United States. Computers are one of the battlefields where the next big conflicts are and will be waged. Specifically, we focus on four countries that are the source of lots of cyber attacks. These include Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. Intelligence is complicated, and it's gotten more complicated in the last few years with the rise of AI.

[00:01:55] Now, disinformation can be generated and spread more quickly and more realistic looking. Amy Zegart is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Affairs, and the Institute for Human Centered AI at Stanford University. She's an expert in cybersecurity. She's written several books and she's an advisor to the nation.

[00:02:17] She's going to tell us that AI has accelerated the work of both the good guys trying to combat cyber warfare and cyber attacks, as well as, unfortunately, the bad guys who are making the attacks. However, things are looking better and there's reason to be optimistic. Amy, you're a return visitor to The Future of Everything.

[00:02:37] It's a great honor for me. You can decide if it's an honor for you or not. Last time we discussed cyber security and you said something very memorable, which is that the cyber security world is moving at light speed and the government is moving at government speed. Now in the interim, since you were last on the show, there's this thing called AI that has just exploded. ChatGPT and many other technologies. Has that changed the situation? Is the government able to respond faster? Are the cyber attacks able to come faster? Both, neither. Where are we these days with respect to the relative strengths of the government and of the cyber attackers? 

[00:03:18] Amy Zegart: Well, Russ, thanks for starting me off with such a softball question. It's really an honor to be back with you too. It's a complicated question. There's good news and bad news. Let me start with the good news. Government has matured. So part of the challenge, as you know, of dealing with cyber is do we have capacity in the government to understand and coordinate and work with the private sector?

[00:03:40] That's gotten a lot better. So we have the creation of the National Cyber Director. That office has matured. There's a state department ambassador at large for cyber. That's a really important component to it. Um, secondly, there are SEC regulations now. 

[00:03:55] Russ Altman: Wow. 

[00:03:55] Amy Zegart: So there's an incentive for corporate boards to pay much more attention to cyber security. And when the incentives are aligned, of course, companies pay more money for cybersecurity, do a lot more investing in cybersecurity. So that, those SEC rules have kicked in. And I think that's important to bear in mind. 

[00:04:12] Russ Altman: Can you, just to take, just to dive down, why would the SEC, why does the SEC even regulate that? I'm a little bit surprised. I think of them as regulating, you know, disclosures about the company and the financials and all that kind of stuff, monopolies, where does cybersecurity come into their kind of purview?

[00:04:28] Amy Zegart: I think there's a sense that it's a question of governance and it's not, the SEC regulations aren't dictating specific cybersecurity actions, but they are incentivizing processes. So corporate directors are held responsible for oversight of cybersecurity. And that's then catalyzed a whole bunch of other things, you know, regular reporting and in private and public companies as well. 

[00:04:53] Russ Altman: And it's not the case that the companies would have been independently motivated not to be attacked, not to have ransomware? I'm just surprised that we needed to tell them this. 

[00:05:02] Amy Zegart: Well, many companies are incentivized. When you think about financial services, for example, they've invested an enormous amount of money in their cyber security, and they know they need to. But many companies think that cyber security is really for the big guys. Cyber security is for the sexy industries. Remember Home Depot? When Home Depot got hacked? 

[00:05:20] Russ Altman: Yes.

[00:05:20] Amy Zegart: Right? Their defense was, we just sell hammers. Why are we a victim of cyber attacks? So, when you think about, 

[00:05:27] Russ Altman: Now the bad guys know about my wheelbarrow. 

[00:05:30] Amy Zegart: Exactly. So when you think about the cyber attack surface, it's everywhere. So you really want to incentivize all companies to spend more money and pay more attention to cybersecurity. I think that's, 

[00:05:41] Russ Altman: Sorry, I interrupted you on that because I was just surprised. Keep going. Yeah. 

[00:05:44] Amy Zegart: So that's the plus side of the ledger. The negative side of the ledger, and you asked about AI, is AI makes everything more complicated and faster. So is AI being used to automate cybersecurity on the defensive side? Yes. Is AI used to automate offensive attacks against cybersecurity defenses? Yes.

[00:06:04] So it sort of washes out. It's good news and bad news on that side. But let me add one other, uh, depressing wrinkle to the story, which is, of course, what are the attackers thinking? What are their capabilities? And what are their intentions? And there, the picture is bad. So I want to read to you the intelligence threat assessment, the annual intelligence threat assessment that was just delivered last month by the Director of National Intelligence to Congress. And this is about China. This is what the intelligence community’s assessment said.

[00:06:38] If Beijing believed that a major conflict with the United States were imminent it would consider aggressive cyber operations against U.S. critical infrastructure, by the way, that means just about everything, and military assets. It goes on to say, designed to induce societal panic.

[00:07:02] What they're saying is, it's not just if a war breaks out, if China believes conflict is imminent, they're already in our systems. And they have an incentive and an interest in attacking. So the bad guys are out there. Just because they haven't attacked us yet, doesn't mean they won't. So when you think about nation states with real cyber capabilities, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, they're out there and they have not been defeated on the cyber landscape.

[00:07:30] Russ Altman: I'm glad you mentioned our favorite four countries because, uh, because I wanted to ask you, are they, are there, I'm suspecting that their interests are not precisely aligned and that they all have a different kind of, uh, piece of the game in mind. So you just kind of described how China might be thinking of it as a defensive slash offensive, basically a weapon for a potential, uh, conflict with the U.S., is that the same kind of thinking that Russia is doing? Or are they just, they seem more random? That's why I ask, because they seem more random in their attacks. 

[00:08:04] Amy Zegart: There are different flavors of their interests, right? So Russia is really focused on the disinformation space. So think about foreign election interference. So the Russians really like that space, uh, fomenting, uh, you know, exacerbating polarization in the United States. By the way, the Chinese are trying to do that too. The Iranians too, but Russia is the A team. That's, they're really good at that. The North Koreans want to steal. Right? So they're trying to steal everything they can in cyberspace. When you think about ransomware, I think primarily North Koreans, Russians too. 

[00:08:35] Russ Altman: Okay.

[00:08:35] Amy Zegart: But they're really in it for the money. The Iranians have sort of a vengeful attitude towards cyber attacks. So you'll see cyber attacks against, um, particular targets like casinos, right? And they're very vengeful, uh, in there, like specifically targeting, uh, you know, assets that are owned by people that say things that they don't like.

[00:08:58] Now that's a broad simplification of the differences between these four countries, but they're all very capable cyber adversaries. Uh, and those capabilities are growing over time. So it's a cat and mouse defense offense game. 

[00:09:13] Russ Altman: And can you update us on the issue of Russia? What have we learned from the Russian Ukrainian conflict? Has Russia, uh, have they been successful in kind of as part of their to include the cyber security or have the Ukrainians successfully fended them off? And are we learning anything by watching this conflict? Are we learning anything that could be useful to us in combating the Russians? 

[00:09:37] Amy Zegart: So yes and yes.

[00:09:38] Russ Altman: Okay, good. 

[00:09:39] Amy Zegart: Yes. Um, I think the narrative of the Russian cyber attacks against Ukraine at the start of the war turns out to be not quite right. You'll remember at the start of the war, the big question was, how come they didn't do more in cyberspace? They actually did do a lot in cyberspace, we now know, right?

[00:09:58] They attacked Viasat, so this is a pretty significant cyber attack. And they tried to do a lot more. Why didn't they succeed is the question, is the more important question. Part of the answer we now know is that United States Cyber Command was helping the Ukrainians weeks before the Russian attack.

[00:10:18] And so this was about moving critical digital assets to safer, uh, configurations. This was about fending off attacks. This was about working side by side with the Ukrainians to try to mitigate the risk of a cyber sort of first strike that would really take them out. And so we know a lot more now that's been revealed publicly about U.S. Cyber Command's role there. 

[00:10:40] The other thing I think that we learned is that cyber attacks in an ongoing conflict are actually really hard to pull off, right? So it's one thing to initiate an attack at the start of a conflict where you're planning to go in. 

[00:10:53] Russ Altman: The surprise. 

[00:10:54] Amy Zegart: But then sustaining that level of activity and adapting to the threat landscape turns out to be much harder.

[00:11:03] Russ Altman: Really interesting. Okay. So, um, all right. So you gave a great answer to my initial question. And the answer is that the cyber guys have gotten faster. The government is a little bit, is more on board and presumably is getting faster. Um, what about a domestic? I know that you've spent a lot of time thinking about, uh, global threats. Um, I think you also think about internal, um, domestic threats. Um, Is that true? 

[00:11:29] Amy Zegart: Not so much. I worry about things coming from outside the United States, not inside the United States. 

[00:11:35] Russ Altman: Okay. So tell me about, um, have they gotten, so misinformation, I want to talk about misinformation. Um, you already alluded to it as especially like messing up elections. Uh, and generally it's an attempt to create chaos. Is that how I should think about it? 

[00:11:52] Amy Zegart: So it depends. So let's just talk a little bit about terminology. So misinformation is information that is wrong, but people are mistakenly sending it around, right? So this is your crazy uncle sending things that he may think may be true, but are actually not true.

[00:12:08] So disinformation is a deliberate effort by somebody to spread something that they know to be false. We have both problems. People spreading things that are patently false, but they don't know they're false and they go viral. And then nefarious actors, domestic and foreign, that are knowingly spreading information that is false. 

[00:12:28] And in that category, right, there are a variety of motives, but from a foreign adversary perspective, it is to fray the bonds of democratic societies that bring us together. Anything that gets you and me to fight with each other about what's true or what's not, or what we believe in and, um, what our values are in conflict benefits these adversaries.

[00:12:50] Russ Altman: Yeah. So, and I've heard that. And so, you know, as you may be aware, Uh, there is a lot of splits in the U.S. right now, politically, and it makes me wonder when you say things like what you just said, um, is some of that manufactured not from deeply held beliefs of the two sides. Uh, but from external sources, and that would actually, in a funny way, be a hopeful thing, because it might imply that we actually have a chance to resolve some of these divides if we could kind of get the noise from the, uh, external pertur, perturbators out, but I don't know if that's too Pollyanna.

[00:13:25] I'm sure it is too Pollyannaish. So how should I think about when I look at the political divides in the U.S.? Do we have a sense for how much is that created from external sources and how much is in some sense? Like real, or is that not even a question that makes sense? 

[00:13:39] Amy Zegart: I think it's a great question. I don't think we know the answer. It's so hard to unravel what are the roots of, uh, the particular information that's being spread. Now there are researchers that are trying to do this, but that they're caught in the political maw as well, right? Seen as either censoring or favoring one side or the other. It's a really hard thing to unwind.

[00:14:00] And of course our adversaries are getting better at it and hiding their tracks. So you think back to, you know, Russia's early efforts to interfere with a presidential election. And, uh, we may have talked about this in the last time I came on. You know, you could easily trace it back after the fact to Facebook groups that were created by Prigozhin in St. Petersburg in an office with trolls that, you know, came to work nine to five and they masqueraded as Americans trying to get followers and getting Americans to be pitted against each other. Not just online, but in real life, right? On the streets of Texas, protesting against each other, all fomented by the Kremlin.

[00:14:40] Now it's a lot harder. And, you know, you think about TikTok, for example, the Chinese don't need the Russian playbook, which is utilize American platforms against ourselves. They have their own platform. Directly into the hands of forty percent of Americans, which is why there's been this whole bruhaha about banning TikTok or forcing a sale of TikTok. It is a legitimate national security concern. 

[00:15:04] Russ Altman: Great. Okay. Now there's something juicy and meaty we can talk about. So there are these big tech companies and uh, TikTok is a great example because I have graduate students who are ready to hit the streets in protest if, uh, if TikTok is shut down, because it evidently has become a huge part of their life. Um, so talk to me about your perception of the real risks of TikTok, uh, versus kind of manufactured political rhetoric that you think is not so beefy. 

[00:15:35] Amy Zegart: So I will say, and I mentioned this to General Nakasone when he was the head of Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, that, um, we were talking about our kids, I said, you know, I have a college daughter, and she runs her team's TikTok page, right?

[00:15:47] Russ Altman: Right, exactly. There you go. 

[00:15:49] Amy Zegart: How do you, and you know, and I had to send a note to the parents saying, hey, if you want to know what your kids are up to on TikTok, uh, you can take a look, but I have to tell you it's a national security threat. 

[00:16:00] Russ Altman: Oh my god. Oh, what a great message that would have been to get.

[00:16:03] Amy Zegart: So it was a bit of an awkward position to be in. So yes, I hear what you're saying, particularly young people, they get their news from TikTok. TikTok is a very big part of their life. So why do we care so much? 

[00:16:15] Russ Altman: They'll ask me, what's email? What's Instagram? Facebook is for my grandmother. It's all about TikTok. And they also say, just be, sorry to interrupt you. They also say, and these are my technical students, my computer science, or they say that we don't know how their algorithm works, but it is light years better than all the other algorithms in terms of putting things in front of me that I find interesting.

[00:16:37] Amy Zegart: Yeah. And by the way, that's one of the reasons China may not want to actually divest TikTok to an American buyer because they don't want that IP, that algorithm to be in foreign hands. 

[00:16:49] Russ Altman: Yes, it seems to be magically good. 

[00:16:50] Amy Zegart: So this dilemma, the U.S. is trying to force a sale. China doesn't want to sell. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens.

[00:16:57] But back to your question about what's the real national security concern about TikTok? There are several. Number one, access to data. So TikTok executives have been saying, no, no, no, no, no. There's a firewall between American data and Chinese access to the data. That is not true. Right? We know empirically that is not true.

[00:17:17] So data on a hundred and seventy million Americans can be accessible by Chinese owners of this company. And we know the national security law in China mandates that companies turn over data when asked. 

[00:17:31] Russ Altman: Is this data generated within the app or is this even other stuff on your phone that can be grabbed? 

[00:17:37] Amy Zegart: That I don't know.

[00:17:39] Russ Altman: Okay, but it's at least what I'm watching on TikTok, what I'm typing into TikTok, maybe where I am, if there's geolocation. I don't know if there's geolocation on TikTok. 

[00:17:48] Amy Zegart: So let me put it to you this way, Russ. Imagine the U.S. government had the ability to reach into the phones of forty percent of citizens in China. And know with the algorithm what gets their attention, what they like and what they don't. How much would we pay to have that kind of access to the populace of a foreign country?

[00:18:10] Russ Altman: And that's what they have. 

[00:18:11] Amy Zegart: That's what they have, right? That's what our kids and your students have. So that's issue number one is access to the data.

[00:18:19] Number two is influence. So it doesn't have to be a heavy handed, the Chinese Communist Party is great kind of TikTok algorithm, right? Where you're, you know, the viewers or my daughter is suddenly watching this. It can be things at the margin, right? You probably saw the story about Osama Bin Laden really had legitimate grievances when he masterminded the nine eleven attack.

[00:18:42] Just horrifying things. But on TikTok, this messaging went viral. Now, I don't know whether this was deliberately put there, right, by, in a deliberate effort by a foreign adversary, but you can see how ideas, if a government wanted to influence opinion on issues, uh, it would be pretty easy to do. 

[00:19:03] Russ Altman: Yeah, and your point is a really good one, that these can be nudges and not bludgeons.

[00:19:07] Amy Zegart: Right. 

[00:19:08] Russ Altman: And actually nudges are probably more insidious and difficult to find and are way less detectable. 

[00:19:15] Amy Zegart: That's a better way of putting it than what I just said. Yes. 

[00:19:17] Russ Altman: This is The Future of Everything. I'm Russ Altman. We'll have more with Amy Zegart next.

[00:19:36] Welcome back to The Future of Everything. I'm Russ Altman, your host, and I'm speaking with Amy Zegart from Stanford University. 

[00:19:42] In the last segment, Amy described to us some of the changes that have happened since we last spoke with her in cybersecurity threat assessment and also response. In this segment, we're going to talk about the role of corporations. They have more compute power, not only more than academics. In many cases, they have more than the government has to use in building AI tools. This has created new challenges for regulation and for collaboration between industry and government and academics. 

[00:20:11] Amy, to start off this segment, I wanted to ask you about the role of corporations. We talked about it a tiny bit when we're talking about the SEC regulations, but there are these big tech companies that are really holding AI and controlling AI. What is the role of the corporation in national security these days? 

[00:20:28] Amy Zegart: Well Russ, the role of the corporation is totally different than it was when we were growing up. So it used to be that innovations were invented in the government and then they became commercialized, right? You think about the internet started that way, or GPS satellites. And now the script has flipped. So now innovations, and we see this with large language models, are being invented outside of the government, and the government has to figure out not only what to do about that in the private sector, but how to bring those capabilities into the government itself.

[00:20:57] That's a new world for them. We're in a world right now where a handful of companies really dwarf the capacity of the government or universities to, uh, to compete and understand these large language models. 

[00:21:12] Russ Altman: And there is no way that me and my friends could have built ChatGPT. We don't have a tenth of the compute power we would need.

[00:21:21] Amy Zegart: And I think Russ, many people don't know that, right? So the orders of magnitude of compute power, right? So how much more compute power does OpenAI have than Stanford, for example? I mean, you know, it's, you know, you probably don't have, 

[00:21:37] Russ Altman: It's ten to a hundred, it's a hundred X. It's a hundred X. 

[00:21:40] Amy Zegart: So I was trying to find a specific number cause I'm writing about this now. And I saw an announcement that Princeton is buying, is very excited, that they're buying three hundred NVIDIA chips by the end of the year. Meta is expected to have three hundred and fifty thousand, right? So, 

[00:21:59] Russ Altman: So it's a thousand X. I was off by an order of magnitude. You're right. 

[00:22:03] Amy Zegart: And so what that means is that these companies are not just at the forefront of innovating, they're grading their own homework, right? Because how do you know what's safe? How do you know what potential risks there are? What kinds of questions do you need to ask? They're deciding those things largely by themselves, and that's never a good setup. I would say that, but I also want to emphasize that we don't want to impede innovation.

[00:22:26] So the question is, how do you strike the right balance between mitigating harms from these AI models. And how do you make sure that we're allowing the private sector leaders in this space, and they are all American at this moment, to continue innovating in ways that help, you know, there's so many positive benefits to these models as well. So we don't want to impede that either. 

[00:22:47] Russ Altman: So what is the approach? I mean, is it now requiring government to have some kind of super awkward type of conversations that it's not used to having where it's kind of, it has to be a little bit more humble, perhaps, and come to the companies and say, hey, could we work together?

[00:23:04] I mean, first of all, I presume that they're a part of the national security infrastructure. We would want to use many of those technologies to combat, uh, threats. On the other hand, um, they're not under the control of the government and they might say things like, who's going to pay for that? Or, you know, how much should the license that the government pays us, how much should that cost? And so, how far are we at figuring out how this new dance should be danced? 

[00:23:30] Amy Zegart: Well, you know, we just talked about cyber and how long it took to sort of get the maturation of cyber organization in the U.S. government. We're on day one for AI. So we are not far along at all. Yes, there are awkward conversations. You can see them on television when Sam Altman goes to testify before Congress. You know, many members of Congress are learning how to spell AI. So we have a, we have an expertise challenge there too. So at one point I counted the number of members of Congress that had engineering degrees. I think it was in 2020.

[00:24:00] You will be unsurprised to know more than half the Senate had law degrees. And there were, I think, three engineers. Which is actually more than I thought there would be. So that's part of the challenge too, is, you know, ordinary folks don't know enough to be able to ask the right oversight questions. 

[00:24:16] Russ Altman: So here's overly optimistic Russ's next question. Did we learn from cyber so many lessons that AI is going to be easier? Based on the cyber experience, or are we basically starting from scratch? 

[00:24:28] Amy Zegart: I think I'm trying to be optimistic. I'm trying to get your optimism, Russ. Yes, we have learned some lessons. You can see efforts early on at conversation, both on the private sector side. They know they've got this powerful technology and they're concerned about the risks. I don't want to overstate. 

[00:24:45] Russ Altman: They want to be patriots to some degree, I would guess, slash hope. 

[00:24:49] Amy Zegart: And they know that what they have has great promise and also great peril and trying to harness the upside while mitigating the downside is in everybody's interest.

[00:24:58] So those conversations are happening. We don't have the Edward Snowden problem. So you remember in 2013, former NSA contractor revealed highly classified programs, and it really sowed distrust, deep distrust between companies here in the Valley and the government. We don't have that right now. 

[00:25:15] Thanks to Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin there's a joint concern about authoritarians in the world and the bad they can do. So that's good. We have learned from that, but you know, there is this question of what do we do, given that there's just this capacity differential between talent and compute and algorithms and a handful of companies and what everybody else can do.

[00:25:38] And I think we have three options. One is regulation. I'm concerned about that because you can really, you know, uh, throw the baby out with the bath water. Two is do nothing, let them grade their own homework. That concerns me too. What happens if, uh, people violate OpenAI's rules in the presidential election? They, they go to OpenAI jail, right? I mean, it's voluntary compliance. 

[00:25:59] Russ Altman: No chat for you. 

[00:26:01] Amy Zegart: So that's the world we're in right now. And then the third option, I think this is what we really need to pursue much more seriously is developing independent capacity. Developing the talent, developing the compute thing.

[00:26:15] I know Stanford's been really pushing this idea of a national AI research resource. That's fancy talk for compute power so that independent researchers can ask hard questions, uh, and do the kind of analysis that, that needs to be done. I think we need to be investing much more in that. Compute is a strategic national asset like oil and the government should be investing orders of magnitude more and making that available.

[00:26:44] Russ Altman: You know, as a biomedical researcher, I'm very aware of this because whenever, for example, the drug industry gets out ahead of NIH researchers, the NIH has a history, and I've seen this several times in my career, of making huge investments to try to level the playing field so that academic can kind of not really compete with the pharmaceutical industry. But do things at the same scale. 

[00:27:05] And I'm somewhat surprised to not have seen a government scale, uh, AI resource that's as big as Facebook's or OpenAIs or Anthropics or, it's just surprising because the government can definitely afford it. Yes, it's expensive, but you know, the government has a bigger budget than Facebook even and so it's just surprising and maybe we'll see this.

[00:27:27] Um, let me just ask you, you mentioned about regulation. I'm sure you have opinions about the Europeans. As you know, the Europeans have been very aggressive at um, kind of AI and data protections. What's your take on that in terms of the security implications? Is that a model that the U.S. should seriously look at? Or do you have concerns about how they've approached it? 

[00:27:47] Amy Zegart: I understand where they're coming from, and the Europeans share our values. And so I think that the impetus, I understand. I think their hearts in the right place, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the leading AI companies in the world are not coming out of Europe.

[00:28:01] They're coming out of the United States. Our, you know, wild west approach to innovation, hands off regulation is both a feature and a bug, right? It is what is fostering this innovation explosion that we've had for a long time. But it also means that we have a harder time mitigating the harms. So what I think is most promising and what the Europeans have done, two things.

[00:28:26] One is starting an international conversation about norms. That's really important. Ultimately, I think that we also need a serious bilateral conversation about AI guardrails between the U.S. and China. Things like AI and nuclear command and control, AI and financial system security, things where we have mutual interests, we need to have that.

[00:28:48] But the multilateral approach is important, too, for building norms about what's acceptable and what isn't. The second thing the Europeans are doing is the UK has really taken the lead on their AI Safety Institute. Independent capacity building to really understand what the risks of this technology could be.

[00:29:06] Now it's a beginning, it's not an end. The United States is behind. We're behind in our organization. We're behind in our funding compared to the Brits. And as you probably know, now there's conversation about how can we join our efforts together. And I think that's very promising. 

[00:29:21] Russ Altman: Great. So to finish up. How is AI going to help intelligence? Like, I know that the bad guys might use AI as well, but what are some of the ways, like, kind of tangible ways that we should be excited about AI helping increase our security and safety? 

[00:29:36] Amy Zegart: So, I do think there is some good news of the potential of AI. So, it can help intelligence in a number of ways.

[00:29:43] First, you have to think about intelligence isn't really about secrets, it's about insight. So the question is, how can analysts sitting inside the Central Intelligence Agency better develop insight about what's going on around the world? Well, what can AI do? AI can do pattern recognition at scale and speeds that humans cannot.

[00:30:02] So you think about an analyst, there was actually an experiment done several years ago by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. And they had a human team and an AI team looking at identifying surface to air missile sites over a huge swath of territory. The humans and the algorithms did the, had the same level of accuracy, ninety percent accuracy, but the AI did it eighty times faster.

[00:30:28] What does that mean? Now you're freeing up the human analysts to do things that only humans can do well, like thinking about intention. What does the adversary intend to do with those surface to air? 

[00:30:40] Russ Altman: Why are they pointing in that direction? 

[00:30:42] Amy Zegart: Why are they pointing in that direction? Yeah. So, so incredible efficiency gains, right?

[00:30:46] Pattern recognition. That's thing one. Thing two is AI can help find needles in haystacks. Much better than humans can pouring over images or pouring over data. And the third thing that AI can do, is AI can derive insight from the haystacks themselves. So I think about in your world, AI, um, accelerating scientific discovery, the new antibiotic at MIT, that's finding insight from mounds and mounds of data, all the haystacks, connections that humans didn't even know existed. AI can help with that. 

[00:31:23] Russ Altman: Thanks to Amy Zegart, that was The Future of Cybersecurity. Thanks for tuning into this episode. With over 250 episodes in our archive, you have instant access to an extensive array of fascinating discussions on the future of pretty much everything. Please remember to hit follow in the app that you're listening to now.

[00:31:41] This will guarantee that you never miss out on the future of anything. You can connect with me on x or twitter @rbaltman. You can connect with Stanford Engineering @stanfordeng.

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Essays About Cyber Crime: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts

Cybercrime is a severe issue that threatens user security and safety. To help you with this subject, see our essays about cyber crime examples and prompts.  

As its name suggests, cyber crime occurs in the digital space beyond our tangible keyboards, computer monitors, and phone screens. This criminal activity happens offline and online, and although many are affected, only 10% to 12% of the victims report these wrongdoings.

You may have encountered cyber crime in the virtual world as a victim or an almost-target. Most of us have the misfortune of being hacked, phished, spoofed, or attacked with a denial of service. At the same time, you may not know that you’ve committed a cyber crime by pirating software, music, movies, books, and other data.

5 Essay Examples

1. cyber crime essay for students and children by anonymous on toppr.com, 2. cyber crimes and its effects on youth by anonymous on edubirdie.com, 3. cyber crime by luz owens, 4. cyber crime: a threat to society by ankita yadav, 5. essay on cyber crime by anonymous on vedantu.com, 1. the future of cyber crime, 2. the benefits of cyber crime, 3. cyber crime and its impacts on an industry, 4. cyber crime prevention for the average user, 5. mobile protection from cyber crime, 6. the power of strong passwords to combat cyber crime, 7. laws and cyber crime, 8. my personal experience with cyber crime.

“Cyber Crime is not something which we cannot deal with our self. Likewise, with little use of our common sense and logic, we can stop Cyber Crimes from happening.”

The essay begins with cyber crime’s meaning, defining it as an illegal activity to harm others through a computer. The author also discusses the four significant categories of cybercrime: hacking, privacy, financial, and cyber terrorism, and digs into what each type covers. 

In the next part of the essay, the writer focuses on cybercrime in India, citing how it’s now a significant concern. So, the government implements cybercrime laws to protect itself and its citizens. You might also be interested in these articles about death penalty .

“Becoming the victim of cyber can have long lasting effects on any one’s life.”

After recognizing cybercrime as the most potent crime today, the author probes its direct connection to the creation of the Internet. Aside from pushing organizations to spend more on their online security to avoid vulnerability, cyber crime also causes lasting effects on its victims’ lives.

The essay provides various instances where criminals exploit unaware individuals through the web. An example is fake emails mimicking legitimate organizations that give criminals access to the victim’s personal information to ruin their financial credibility. Unfortunately, the main targets for these crimes are the youth as they are the most who use the web for their studies.  

“In order to diminish cyber crime, all organizations and governments should cooperate, as it has no boundaries.”

Owens compares the new century and the old days when cybercrime didn’t exist. She then describes cyber crime, its different classifications, and how much damage it causes annually. She concedes that this criminal act is difficult to control because most countries don’t have the right laws against it. 

Owens also discusses how the youth are more prone to cybercrime exposure because they’re more likely to use technology and be curious. She includes relevant cases and studies that analyze cyber crime, its effects, and how it’s used to the detriment of others.

“Cyber crime is the criminal act which takes place over the internet through computers as tools or targets or other smart devices meant for making our work easier.”

Yadav determines cybercrime as a punishable offense committed via the internet, causing loss to an individual, organization, or government. She lists examples of cybercrime and how everyone falls victim to them, no matter their educational attainment. In her conclusion, Yadav recognizes cybercrime as the most prevalent misdeed today and calls for more severe measures to prevent it.

“Cybercrime or attack is defined as the systematic criminal activity occurring digitally and done by attackers.”

This essay highlights privacy issues connected to the steady rise of smartphones and internet usage. It’s also the reason users should be knowledgeable about cyber crime. The author defines cyber crime and expounds on its adverse effects on individuals, properties, and the government. The author also mentions specific crimes like hacking, theft, and cyberstalking.

Looking for more suggestions? Check out our essays about technology for your next project.

8 Prompts for Essays About Cyber Crime

Cybercrime continuously evolves as more people learn about its potential and countermeasures. Consider this essay prompt if you have several ideas and theories about how cybercrime will adapt to new anti-cybercrime measures. 

Don’t forget to research the current state of cybercrime, the capabilities of the criminals that perform it, and the laws made to prevent it. Make sure to include research data and support your theories with relevant studies.

While cybercrime is an umbrella term for illegal acts in cyberspace, it can also lead to positive results. One silver lining example of cybercrime is that it pushes software developers to create more effective protection measures against online attacks. Its rising occurrence among the youth also means that more people are becoming more educated about this issue and can thus actively prevent it from happening.

In this controversial essay topic, discuss the possible benefits of cybercrime. Look into how cybercrime might push technology forwards and improve personal data protection online. Cite relevant case studies and reference platforms with strict security measures, such as Meta .

Whether it’s healthcare, education, or banking, you can always find different and unique cybercrime impacts in various fields. Write an essay about how cyber criminals and their illegal actions can affect a specific industry, depending on your specialty or interest. For example, you can talk about the impacts of cybercrime on students and teachers if you work in the educational field.

One frustrating thing about being an average computer or device user is that you may need more resources to protect yourself from the latest cyber-attacks. With in-depth research and help from field experts, write an essay about how the average Joe can defend himself for a small fee or for free.

Most people spend hours on their smartphones and other mobile devices. Those who use their phones for work, banking, entertainment, and others are always at risk of cyber attacks. For this prompt, research how smartphone users can create a security blanket against cybercrime when they surf the internet, use banking apps, or linger on social media. Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead.

If there is one thing cybercriminals hate, it’s a strong and complex password. With this essay prompt, you can discuss creative and memorable ways individuals can create unique passwords. 

For example, they can spell their sibling’s name backward and add their favorite number and symbols at the end. Favorite colors, food items, dates, and other things can also work as effective password choices when used with the right symbol, capitalization, and number combinations. There are also helpful apps such as 1password , which creates strong passwords automatically for users.

For this prompt, look for laws worldwide that successfully assist the government in fighting cybercrime. Add your opinion on how your country should adapt these laws and if there are any areas of these proposals you want to change, remove, or improve.

If you’ve had a distressing memory concerning cybercrime, recount the experience in your essay. Tell how it happened and what you did to battle its impact on your life. Similarly, you can also talk about any cybercrime you unintentionally committed and how you worked on stopping yourself from repeating it. Looking for more suggestions? Check out our essays about technology for your next project.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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• Introduction To Cyberspace

Cyberspace and its Meaning

The term Cyberspace seemed to have originated from a Science fiction movie. However, in the 21 st century, it has become an integral part of our lives. Let us learn what Cyberspace is, the importance of laws to determine Cybersecurity in the introduction of Cyberspace.

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What is Cyberspace Definition?

The best way to define Cyberspace is the virtual and dynamic space created by the machine clones.

According to the Cyberspace definition, it is a web consisting of consumer computers, electronics and communication networks by which the consumer is connected to the world. 

Cyberspace History

The word Cyberspace first made its appearance in Wiliam Gibson’s Science fiction book Necromancer. The book described an online world filled with computers and associated societal elements. In that book, the author described Cyberspace as a 3D virtual landscape created by a network of computers. Although it looks like a physical space, it is generated by a computer, representing abstract data.  

After the publication of the book, the word Cyberspace became a mainstay in many English dictionaries. The New Oxford Dictionary of English provides Cyberspace definition as the notional environment used by the people to communicate over networks of the computer. 

As per the Cyberspace meaning, Cyberspace is a virtual space with no mass, gravity or boundaries. It is the interconnected space between networks of computer systems.

Bits and Bytes- Zeroes and ones are used to define Cyberspace.  It is a dynamic environment where these values change continuously. It can also be defined as the imaginary location where two parties can converse.

If we look into the Cyberspace meaning, it is not a physical space but a digital medium. The differences between a physical world and Cyberspace are as follows:

Cyberspace vs. the Physical World

Cyberspace can be compared to a human brain where the network of computers represent the innumerable neurons and the connections between them. Therefore, it can be considered as a link between the physical and the infinite world.

Cyber Laws and Cyber Security

In order to ensure that humans do not misuse Cyber technologies, Cyber laws are generated. The overall idea of Cyberlaw is to stop any person from violating the rights of other persons in Cyberspace. Any kind of violation of Cyber rights is considered to be a Cyberspace violation and is deemed punishable under Cyber Laws.  

It is important to note that since Cyberspace does not belong to the physical world, the physical laws do not apply to Cyberspace crime. A separate set of Cyber laws are formulated by the government to provide Cybersecurity to Cyber users. Such Cyber laws are needed to monitor and prevent any immoral or illegal activities of humans. Some

of the common Cyberspace violation activities include hacking, theft, money laundering, terrorism, piracy, etc. Hackers can get hold of any internet account through the Domain Name Server (DNS), phishing, IP address, etc. to get entry into the computer system of any person and steal the data, or introduce computer bugs and render the system ineffective. 

Cyber laws encompass all the legal issues related to the communicative, distributive and transactional aspects of network-related information devices and technologies. It is different from the Property Law or any other law. Unlike property law, it is not so distinct; it is broader since it covers several areas of laws and regulations. It encapsulates the statutory, legal and constitutional provisions related to computers and the internet. Cyber laws are related to individuals and institutions that 

Play a crucial role in providing Cyberspace access to people

Generates software and/or hardware to allow people with entry into Cyberspace, and

Make use of their computer system to gain entry into Cyberspace.

If we go by the Cyberspace definition, Cyberlaw can be considered as a generic term related to all regulatory and legal properties of the internet. Any activities of the citizen related to or concerned with the legal aspect of Cyberspace come under the purview of Cyber laws.

To define the different arms of Cybersecurity, two main acts are considered in India. They are:

The Indian Penal Code, 1860

The Information Technology Act, 2000

Cyberspace mainly refers to the computer which is a virtual network and is a medium electronically designed to help online communications to occur. This facilitates easy and accessible communications to occur across the world. The whole Cyberspace is composed of large computer networks which have many sub-networks. These follow the TCP or IP protocol. 

The TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a standard for communications that allows the application programs and other computing devices to exchange data and messages over a Cyber network. These are designed to send data across the internet which then makes sure that the sent data are successfully delivered over the networks. It is the standards that are mostly used to define the rules of the internet and are defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force or IETF. It is a very commonly used protocol and it ensures that there is an end-to-end delivery of data. 

On the other hand, Internet Protocol or IP is the protocol or method that involves sending data from one device to another using the internet. Each and every device has an IP address that is unique to it and this gives it its identity. The IP address enables communication and exchange of data to other devices across the internet. It defines how devices and their applications will exchange packages of data with each other and connected networks.  All the transfer occurs through either of the Internet Protocol Suite or protocols i.e. either TCP or IP. 

Cyberspace is that space in which users share information, interact with each other; engage in discussions or social media platforms, and many other activities. This concept was introduced by William Gibson in his book ‘Neuromancer’ which was done in 1894. Thus, this term is still widely used among everyone as it is rapidly growing and used for various purposes by an individual. 

FAQs on Introduction To Cyberspace

1. What is Cyberspace Definition?

To understand what cyberspace definition is, it is best to go for the generic cyberspace meaning. Cyberspace is defined as the dynamic and virtual space that connects the different computer systems. An analogy can be drawn between cyberspace and the human brain. Like there are innumerable neurons present in the brain, cyberspace has countless connections and networks that exist between the computer systems. The term was first introduced in the Wiliam Gibson’s science fiction book Necromancer. After that, the term found a place in many English dictionaries as the virtual space with no mass, gravity or boundaries.

2. How is Cyberspace Different from the Physical World?

Cyberspace is completely different from the physical world. In the physical world, everything has a definite shape and behaviour. However, if you find the answer to what is cyberspace, you will find that it is absolutely undefined. The changes that take place in a physical world are gradual, defined manners. However, in cyberspace, the changes take place in an exponential manner. The physical world is static, while cyberspace is dynamic. The physical world has a definite reach and form, while cyberspace can be as broad as the human imagination. Therefore physical laws are not applicable to cybersecurity.

3. What is the Need for Cybersecurity?

Since cyberspace is totally different from the physical world, the laws of the physical world do not apply here. Separate laws are needed to be formulated to prevent any kind of antisocial activity in cyberspace. These cyber laws are generated to prevent violations of the rights of any individual. Such violations take place in the form of hacking, money laundering, theft, sabotaging of computer systems, terrorism, breach of online piracy, etc. To prevent such activities, the Indian judiciary system has defined several cyber laws under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Information Technology Act, 2000. 

4. What is the history of Cyberspace and its growth?

Cyberspace was first used by author William Gibson in 1982 when he published his book ‘Neuromancer’ in Omni magazine. This was a Science fiction novel in which William Gibson described the term Cyberspace as the formation of a computer network in the world that has artificial intelligence. In popular culture during the 1990s, the term Cyberspace was used to describe the location where people interacted on the internet. This is the place where people play online games, chat rooms, and a place for instant-messaging conversations. In the 21st century, Cyberspace has become a place for discussions for social or political causes where people can share their opinions. 

5. What are some laws related to Cyberspace?

Cyberspace can be a place for many illegal activities which need proper supervision so that the security of the users is tightened and they feel safe. For this reason, governments of all countries have introduced many Cyber laws including India. Practices like money laundering, identity theft, illegal trade occur through Cyberspace and the Cyber laws take the legal actions that need to be taken to curb such practices. The IT or Information Technology Act was enacted by the Indian Government in 2000 which the main purpose was for the protection of online banking and commerce as well as punishments for Cyber Crimes. 

6. What is the importance of Cyberspace?

Cyberspace has many merits for the human race. It can be said to be a virtual library where one can easily access the required information on any subject they are looking for. With a proper internet connection, this can be done at any time of the day. In addition, communication has become a lot easier and cheap due to Cyberspace. One can simply call the other person or use other services like messages and e-mail. Cyberspace has become a huge place for endless entertainment where a user can find songs to listen to or movies to watch or play games. Most importantly, Cyberspace allows the users to get opportunities like a job which can help the user tremendously.

7. Are Cyberspace and the internet the same thing?

The Internet and Cyberspace are not the same thing and are usually confused by people. The Internet can be defined as a computer network globally that allows effective communication and exchange of information through other interconnected networks. On the other hand, Cyberspace is a ‘virtual’ world where there is a huge network of computers. It is more of a figurative and symbolic space that exists in the spectrum of the internet.

8. Is Cyberspace safe for us to use?

The online world has become a part of all of our lives and its usage has increased enormously. This is mostly used by teenagers where they use social media platforms to talk to friends, chat, play games and post pictures they like. Cyberspace has become a place where one can easily communicate with others without having to go out of their homes. However, Cyberspace has some dangers where one can be harassed, threatened, bullied, and duped. For this, parents should always guide their kids when they are first introduced to Cyberspace and people should be made aware of all the Cyber laws for such ill-practices.

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✍️Essay on Cybercrime: Free Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

• Updated on  
• Apr 26, 2024

The 21st century is a digital age, where any and every task is done on the internet. All thanks to the developments in technology which have been the main factor to ease human life on earth and maybe on other plants in future. But with the benefits of technology, there are several harmful effects, one of them which has recently gained popularity; Cyber Crime. 

Cybercrime has emerged as pervasive and evolved as one of the most dangerous threats to humans. There are several users on the internet who indulge in illegal and criminal activities, using computers and networks. To guide you through this hot debate topic, below we have discussed essays on cybercrime.

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Cybercrime in 100 Words
• 2 Essay on Cybercrime in 200 Words
• 3 Essay on Cybercrime in 300 Words
• 4 Short Essay on Cybercrime

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Essay on Cybercrime in 100 Words

Cybercrime involves illegal activities like hacking, ransomware, cyberbullying, online fraud, etc. People who are involved in cybercrime or any similar activities are called hackers, scammers or fraudsters. Cybercrime leads to financial loss for individuals who have fallen victim to one. Cybercrime often invades a person’s privacy by stealing their personal details, including sensitive data, photos, and communication records, which can be used for blackmailing or any malicious purpose.

There are several governmental and non-government organizations which are working 

To tackle cybercrime by raising awareness among the masses, cyber security training, implementing robust security protocols, and enacting comprehensive cybercrime laws.

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Essay on Cybercrime in 200 Words

Cybercrime is a criminal activity done online using a computer, network and internet. With the increasing use of the internet and mobile phones, the number of criminal activities has also gained pace.  These criminal-minded people steal the personal details of a person, which leads to financial losses and damages the reputation of the victims. Various scams and fraudulent schemes are offered on the internet like online auctions, advance fees, or any investment scam, which are all aimed at deceiving individuals into parting with their money.

Cybercrime is not limited to financial losses or reputational damage, a more discrete term has emerged; cyberbullying.  In cyberbullying, a person is harassed, humiliated, or threatened online. This can have severe psychological and emotional consequences. Ethical hackers or white hat hackers can help organizations identify vulnerabilities in their systems before malicious hackers exploit them. 

Cybercrime doesn’t have any boundaries and is an international issue and international cooperation is crucial for tracking and prosecuting cybercriminals who operate across borders. To combat cybercrime effectively, a multi-faceted approach is required, involving education, technology, legislation, and international cooperation. As technology continues to advance, our efforts to combat cybercrime must keep pace to protect our increasingly interconnected world.

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Essay on Cybercrime in 300 Words

Economists have termed cybercrime as ‘ A Hidden Threat to the Digital World.’ Modern humans are relying on the internet for their day-to-day activities and every macro and micro activity. In this sense, the term cybercrime comes to the front. Cybercrime refers to criminal activities conducted through the use of computers, networks, and the Internet. 

Cybercrime consists of various malicious activities like hacking, phishing, ransomware attacks, identity theft, online fraud, and cyberbullying. Hackers, fraudsters, scammers, criminals, and even state-sponsored actors exploit vulnerabilities in digital systems to steal sensitive information, disrupt operations, and cause financial and emotional harm to victims.

The consequences of cybercrime are far-reaching. Financial losses run into 10 digits annually, affecting individuals and organizations alike. Personal privacy is invaded as cybercriminals steal sensitive data, photos, and communication records. In cases of cyberbullying and harassment, victims suffer reputational damages, psychological distress, and emotional trauma, particularly in cases of cyberbullying and harassment.

It’s necessary to look for a multifaceted approach to deal with cybercrime, some of which are.

• Raising public awareness through campaigns where people are informed about the risks of cybercrime and educate them on best practices for online safety.
• Individuals and organizations should implement robust security protocols, regularly update software, and use multi-factor authentication to protect their digital assets.
• Governments should enact and enforce cybercrime laws, providing law enforcement agencies with the resources and expertise needed to prosecute cybercriminals effectively.
• Looking at the global nature of cybercrime, international collaboration is vital. Countries should work together to share threat intelligence and cooperate in the investigation and prosecution of cybercriminals.
• Ethical hackers can help organizations identify and rectify vulnerabilities in their systems before malicious actors exploit them.

Tackling cybercrime requires proactive measures, including education, strong cybersecurity practices, legislation, international cooperation, and the active involvement of ethical hackers.

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Short Essay on Cybercrime

Find the short essay on cyber crime from below:

Cybercrime is an illegal and unethical activity which is done by hackers and fraudsters to gain financial or any other benefits for themselves.

To tackle cybercrime, several measures can be taken. Some of these measures are education and public awareness, research and innovation, ethical hacking, etc.

To write an essay on cybercrime, you need to give details on how it works and the level of danger it poses to humans. Cybercrime consists of various malicious activities like hacking, phishing, ransomware attacks, identity theft, online fraud, and cyberbullying. Hackers, fraudsters, scammers, criminals, and even state-sponsored actors exploit vulnerabilities in digital systems to steal sensitive information, disrupt operations, and cause financial and emotional harm to victims.

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Shiva Tyagi

With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Cyber Crime Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on cyber crime.

Cyber Crime Essay – Everybody thinks that only stealing someone’s private data is Cyber Crime. But in defining terms we can say that ‘Cyber Crime refers to the use of an electronic device (computer, laptop, etc.) for stealing someone’s data or trying to harm them using a computer.

Besides, it is an illegal activity that involves a series of issues ranging from theft to using your system or IP address as a tool for committing a crime.

Types of Cyber Crime

Speaking in a broadway we can say that Cyber Crime are categorized into four major types. These are Financial, Privacy, Hacking, and Cyber Terrorism.

The financial crime they steal the money of user or account holders. Likewise, they also stole data of companies which can lead to financial crimes. Also, transactions are heavily risked because of them. Every year hackers stole lakhs and crores of rupees of businessmen and government.

Privacy crime includes stealing your private data which you do not want to share with the world. Moreover, due to it, the people suffer a lot and some even commit suicide because of their data’s misuse.

In, hacking they intentional deface a website to cause damage or loss to the public or owner. Apart from that, they destroy or make changes in the existing websites to diminish its value.

Modern-day terrorism has grown way beyond what it was 10-20 years ago. But cyber terrorism is not just related to terrorists or terrorist organizations. But to threat some person or property to the level of creating fear is also Cyber Terrorism.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Cyber Crime in India

Web world or cyberspace is a massive community of millions and billions of users and websites. Also, people access it for different uses like shopping, movies, music, video games, transactions, and e-commerce, etc.

In this Age of Technology and easy access to the internet, anyone can easily reach it. Because of this fast pace growth from the previous decade. Besides, the internet has opened a world of information on which anyone can connect.

Due to, this the rate of crime especially the rate of Cyber Crime has increased much fold. Moreover, the rate of circulation of data is also increased much fold due to the higher speed of internet. Above all, due to all these issues, the Cybersecurity has become a major concern for society.

Laws related to Cyber Crimes

To stop the spread of Cyber Crime and to safeguard the interest of people the government has made several laws related to Cyber Crimes. Also, these laws serve as protection against Cyber Crime. Apart from that, the government has also introduced cyber cells in police stations to counter the problem of Cyber Crime as fast as they can.

Ways of stopping Cyber Crime

Cyber Crime is not something which we cannot deal with our self. Likewise, with little use of our common sense and logic, we can stop Cyber Crimes from happening.

To conclude, we can say that Cyber Crime is a dangerous offense to someone’s privacy or any material. Also, we can avoid Cyber Crime by following some basic logical things and using our common sense. Above all, Cyber Crime is a violation of not only law but of human rights too.

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THE DIGITAL MANIFESTO: CYBERFEMINISM AROUND THE GLOBE (Edited Collection)

Cyberfeminism is a fusion of the term 'cyber', denoting the act of steering, governing, and controlling, and 'feminism', which represents an activist movement dedicated to women's liberation and justice at various levels - local, national, and international. Cyber-feminism aims to bridge the gap between the historical and philosophical traditions of feminism and contemporary feminist initiatives both online and offline. These initiatives focus on the lived experiences and realities of women from diverse backgrounds, including different ages, races, and socioeconomic statuses. The primary objective is to establish feminist politics in the digital sphere and equip women with the necessary skills, knowledge, and solidarity from fellow women across the globe. In spearheading this politicised feminist movement online, cyber-feminists must confront the novel social, cultural, and economic dynamics brought about by information technology, recognising that cyberspace mirrors the gender dynamics and struggles prevalent in the physical world (Wilding, 1998).

Emerging as a powerful tool in challenging traditional gender norms and advocating for women’s rights across the globe, Cyberfeminism movements have become a multifaceted phenomenon that intersects with empowerment, leadership, and activism. By utilising digital platforms, cyberfeminism has provided a medium for women to voice their concerns, share experiences, and mobilise for social change, thereby influencing the gender landscape of different nations and cultures. Moreover, cyberfeminism has also played a crucial role in raising awareness about women’s rights issues, which were previously considered taboo. By utilising online platforms, women have been able to shed light on issues such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, and discrimination. This has sparked public discussion and brought attention to these issues, leading to increased pressure on the authorities to address them.

This edited collection seeks to investigate the influence of cyber-feminism and digital activism in addressing gender inequalities and advocating for women's rights around the globe. Utilising feminist theories, postcolonial studies, and media studies, this collection will study the intersection of gender, technology, and activism within the realm of cyberfeminism.

Proposals from scholars at all stages of their careers on the intersection of Feminism, Media, and Cultural studies will be considered.

Questions to consider (potential topics):

• How has cyberfeminism and digital movements reshaped gender discourse, empowered women, and challenged societal norms through digital activism and advocacy?
• How has cyberfeminism reshaped gender discourse, empowered women, and challenged societal norms through digital activism and advocacy?
• What are the challenges and opportunities for cyberfeminists on a global scale?
• How has Art (Street Art/Film/TV Shows) and Music (and music videos) influenced and shaped cyber-feminist movements in different parts of the world (Asia/Middle East/North America/South America/Europe etc)?
• What are the socio-economic barriers to technology access and how do they impact the effectiveness of cyberfeminism?
• How has cyber feminism in different parts of the globe influenced policy and legal frameworks?

-       Cyberfeminism in the Middle East, North America, Asia, South American and Europe.

-       Cyberfeminism in Film, Music and Art.

-       Cyberfeminism and the Waves of Feminism.

-       The Evolution of Cyberfeminism.

Please email proposals of no more than 350 words to Miniature Malekpour at the following email address: [email protected] or [email protected]

116 CyberCrime Topics & Essay Samples

If you are writing a cybercrime essay, our team prepared this article just for you. Here, you will find 115 unique topics for any type of paper.

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