Cyberspace: Explorations
Kilnam Chon
2013.6.11+
1. Introduction
Cyberspace has drawn much attention since the early 2010s with various conferences and
organizations founded during that time devoted to it [Cyber 2013; Seoul 2013; ECIR 2013;
Cyberspace 2013]. This paper tries to clarify the term ‘cyberspace’ and deals as well with
cyberspace governance as discussed in those conferences and by those organizations.
Cyberspace has been talked about since the 1980s when the word was coined by William
Gibson and then given prominence by his book, Neuromancer [Gibson 1984]. In many cases,
the term ‘cyberspace’ – in particular, cyber society – has been used similarly to ‘the Internet’,
including its culture and applications.
In 2010, the US White House issued a report entitled the “International Strategy for
Cyberspace” [White House 2012]. The US government designated a ‘Cyber Command’ as a
fifth domain after land, sea, air, and space. The European Union as well as the UK
government followed suit by forming similar organizations. These initiatives brought
worldwide attention to the ideas of cyberspace and cyber warfare.
In the early 2010s, several conferences were held, and organizations created with cyberspace
as a core issue, including:
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Explorations in Cyber International Relations (ECIR) at Harvard-MIT with various
ECIR Workshops including the workshop, “Who Controls Cyberspace?”
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A Cyber Dialogue Conference held by the Canadian Centre for Global Security
Studies at University of Toronto
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An annual international cyberspace conference inaugurated in London in 2011
Many of these and other activities related to cyberspace focus more on cyber security than
on other aspects of cyberspace.
2. Cyberspace
2.1 Cyberspace, real space, and mixed space
Cyberspace is a virtual space that is typically based on the Internet whereas real space
constitutes the physical world we live in. Additionally, there is mixed space consisting of both
cyberspace and real space. Some mixed spaces are called cyber-physical systems, such as a
sensor-based network system where the Internet may or may not be used. Many of the
Internet-based spaces tend to be mixed spaces rather than pure cyberspaces without any
real space component.
2.2 Cyberspace and the Internet
Cyberspace, when referring to cyber society and cyber security, has the Internet as its
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infrastructure in many cases. But some cyberspaces have other infrastructures – for
example, a telephone system without the Internet, a television system without the Internet,
or a sensor-based network system. Cyberspace has various aspects, which include cyber
society, cyber security, cyber economy, cyber nation-state, and cyber environment, among
others.
3. Aspects of Cyberspace
Particular aspects of cyberspace have been emphasized based by David Clark, in his paper,
“Three Views of Cyberspace”, [Clark 2011]: Cyber Security, Cyber Economics and Cyber
Society
Anthony Giddens, in his paper, “Four Dimensions of Globalization”, proposed four
dimensions of globalization to which Gabriela Tejada added a fifth [Tejada 2007, Giddens
1991]: World Capitalist Economy, Nation-State System, World Military Order, (International)
Division of Labor and Culture.
We proposed an emphasis on the following major aspects [Chon 2012]: Cyber Society, Cyber
Security, Cyber Economy, Cyber Nation-State and Cyber Environment. Other aspects such
as Cyber Education, Cyber Media, and Cyber Labor may also be considered [Chon 2013].
3.1 Cyber society
Cyber society, including cyber culture, is closest in meaning to ‘the Internet’ as they cover a
similar semantic domain. With this understanding, Cyber societal governance would be
similar to Internet governance, naturally. Both would cover multiple social issues such as
privacy, personal security, abuse, addiction, and violence. The concepts of Cyber society
and culture cover a range of content, but the term ‘Internet’ tends to cover this same range
in a more partial fashion.
The Web Index by the Web Foundation may be an only index to cover all the various aspects
of cyber society, as many indexes tend to consider only the economic aspect.
3.2
Cyber security
Cyber security has been the most visible aspect of cyberspace in this decade, partly due to
the addition in 2011 of the cyber domain to the four previously recognized domains – land,
sea, air, and (outer) space – in the military conceptualization by the USA, EU, and UK
governments. Specifically, the organizations charged with preparing for cyber security are
Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) in USA, European Network and Information Security
Agency (ENISA) in European Union, and Government Communications Headquarters in UK.
The Stuxnet incident in 2011 as well as cyber attacks on Estonia changed the cyber security
landscape by bringing the concepts of cyber warfare and cyber weaponry into currency
[Sanger 2012, Clarke 2010].
3.3 Cyber economy
Cyber economy is another aspect of cyberspace that has developed extensively into this
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century, with the current share of the cyber economy in the global economy at around 5%.
In some countries such as South Korea and the UK, the figures now exceed 7% [Boston 2011].
There are several indexes on cyber economy available, including the e-Intensity Index of the
Boston Consulting Group, Internet Matters by McKinsey, and the Network Readiness Index
by the World Economic Forum [Boston 2011; McKinsey 2012; World 2012].
3.4 Cyber nation state
The Cyber Nation State aspect may cover the legal systems for cyberspace as well as the
international relations in cyberspace, which may be substantially different from those of real
space.
Explorations on Cyber International Relations (ECIR) covers the cyber nation state
extensively – in particular, the facet of international relations.
The International
Conference on Cyberspace also covers the international relations aspect of the cyber nation
state.
3.5 Cyber environment
Cyber environment is a new aspect that needs to be studied thoroughly. The cyber
environment on its own is very important including both the (sustainable) cyber environment
itself, as well as the requirements of the cyber environment needed to support a sustainable
physical environment [Chon 2012].
While we work on a sustainable cyber environment, we also need to work on mixed
environments that consist of cyber and real environments including cyber-physical systems.
3.6 Other aspects
Several other facets of cyberspace should be considered. These include: Cyber Education,
Cyber Media, Cyber Labor and Cyber Health.
4. Cyberspace Governance
The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) of the United Nations defined Internet
governance as follows:
"Internet governance is the development and application by governments, the private
sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules,
decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the
Internet.” [WGIG 2005]
For cyberspace, we may look into both control and governance since many aspects of
cyberspace are in their early stages.
The ECIR workshop on “Who controls cyberspace?” is of great interest since we don’t yet
know how cyberspace will be controlled [ECIR 2012]. We may need to look into multiple
dimensions, including, among which:
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Layers, as currently being analyzed by ECIR with its workshops
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Aspects
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Nations and regions
Cyberspace governance may be appropriate to consider now in some aspects such as cyber
society that have significant overlap with the Internet. On the other hand, cyber security
governance may be premature, similar to the state of nuclear technology in the 1950s [Nye
2011]. Cyber security control may be more appropriate than cyber security governance for
time being even though we will eventually need cyber security governance in the same way
that control of nuclear technology required treaties and inspection protocols.
5. Concluding Remarks
Cyberspace, including its various aspects and cyber governance, is still in its early conceptual
stages as explained in this paper. We specifically examined definitions of cyberspace with
respect to real space and the Internet. We then explored various aspects of cyberspace,
cyberspace governance, as well as cyberspace control. We also raised several issues
regarding cyberspace. We would like to see further studies on cyberspace as well as
cyberspace control and governance.
Please refer the full paper, Cyberspace: What is it? for more detail discussion [Chon 2013].
References
[Boston 2012] Boston Consulting Group, e-Intensity Index, 2012.
[CE 2011] Council of Europe, The (Budapest) Convention on Cyber Crime, 2011.
[Chon 2012] Kilnam Chon, Ecological Internet, NORDUNET, 2012.
[Chon 2013] Kilnam Chon, Cyberspace – What is it?, Cyber Commons. 2013.
[Clark 2011] David Clark, Three Views of Cyberspace, ECIR, Harvard-MIT, 2011.
[Clarke 2010] Richard Clarke, Cyber War, 2010.
[CyberCommons 2012] CyberCommons.net
[CyberDialogue 2013] Cyber Dialogue, CyberDialogue.ca
[ECIR 2012] ECIR Workshop: Who Controls Cyberspace?, 2012.
[ECIR 2013] Explorations in Cyber International Relations, ECIR.MIT.edu
[IGF 2013] Internet Governance Forum, www.IntGovForum.org
[McKinsey 2012] McKinsey, Internet matters, 2011.
[Nye 2011] Nuclear lessons for cyber security, 2011.
[Sanger 2012] David Sanger, Confront and Conceal, 2012.
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[Seoul 2013] International Conference on Cyberspace, Seoul, 2013.
[Tejada 2007] Gabriela Tejada, The four dimensions of globalization according to
Anthony Giddens, GLOPP, 2007.
[White House 2011] Whitehouse, International Strategy for Cyberspace, 2011.
[Web 2012] Web Foundation, Web Index.
[WGIG 2005] Working Group on Internet Governance, WGIG Report, 2005.
[World 2012] World Economic Forum, Network Readiness Index, 2012.
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