One thing I have learned in this project was this website and CMC Blogger. I learned that the posts are totally backwards from what I intended, so if you are just starting to read this blog, start from the bottom! :)
In this journey to define the term cyberspace I am left torn with my definition. While most articles and discussions of the term seem to imply that the world wide web is cyberspace, I have to lean more towards cyberspace being the mythical out there space in the universe that holds, converts, and transmits information. Cyberspace is just that...space in the cyber world. I have found it interesting how early in the evolution of cyberspace it was viewed with an excited cautiousness, but as it evolved it became a place of necessity, but also a place of evil. The want to connect to the world is now strong in all of us and the increase in CMCs has proven that idea. It will be interesting in a time of heightened security to see how the "freedom of speech" aspect of the Internet, or as some would say, cyberspace will evolve.
2008 - 2
I found two recent articles to review for our current year. The first was published April 26 by Neil Humphreys with The Straits Times and is titled, "In cyberspace, no one hears you scream curses; How do you fight back against the nerds who make you pay to have a website in your name?" This comical article discusses how Mr. Humphreys had to pay $200 for a website in his own name and how he finds that to be outrageous. He does not define the term cyberspace, but it is implied to be the Internet. This article is interesting to me because he seems to be in the "dark ages" in terms of technology. He admits to not liking computers although he is a journalist. He does, however, discuss how paying for a domain in cyberspace it a conundrum because if cyberspace is this open world, who owns the space you buy? This is a very interesting question in terms of this hugely open environment discussed in all other articles.
The second article was published September 9, 2008 by The Korea Herald and is titled, "Cyberspace: A platform for social integration." I found this article to be a great closing article because it directly contradicts the 1998 article that stated that cyberspace was one of the worst things to ever happen to the non western world. This article states that "the Internet has eased fears and worries about the destruction of community because it helps to connect everyone." This is a fascinating turn of events compared to the 1998 article. It shows how information technology spreads and how the world is truly connected.
The second article was published September 9, 2008 by The Korea Herald and is titled, "Cyberspace: A platform for social integration." I found this article to be a great closing article because it directly contradicts the 1998 article that stated that cyberspace was one of the worst things to ever happen to the non western world. This article states that "the Internet has eased fears and worries about the destruction of community because it helps to connect everyone." This is a fascinating turn of events compared to the 1998 article. It shows how information technology spreads and how the world is truly connected.
2007
The West Australian posted an article by Alison Batcheler dated September 4, 2007 titled, "Barbed wires." The article explores the "darker corners" of cyberspace. The term is not defined in this article, but is implied to mean the web/Internet. Batcheler's article describes how cyberspace has become a vulnerable place for children because of how easy it is for predators to stalk anonymously. She states that parents should be very careful and monitor their children online because in today's society, children know almost as much if not more than their parents when it comes to cyberspace and new technology. She describes how filters are great, but easy to get around for both kids and predators and that CMCs are the breading ground for misconduct. This is an interesting article that looks at cybercrime from a different angle than the rest of the articles I found.
2006
In the November 3, 2006 article "Air Force Corms Cyberspace Unit," Dave Ahearn details how the United States Air Force formed an offensive and defensive cyberspace unit to handle the increasing amount of threats and opportunities in cyberspace. The term cyberspace is implied to be much bigger than in other articles, including global positioning satellites, radar, and navigational jamming devices. He describes how terrorists are using these items to attack American computer servers and destroying key data in cyberspace. Ahean discusses how the world is in a "cyber war," and stating that the openness of cyberspace could create an "e-Katrina." This article really tackled what seems to be the main theme in most of these articles, which is that while cyberspace is great for communication, it is set up to be a platform for information destruction.
2004
On November 20, 2004 the South China Morning Post published an article by Stuart Biggs called Cyberspace 'chaos' is scaring off business; Former US security adviser says the corporate world is losing billions because the Internet is unsafe. This article describes how a normal person and corporations are at risk by using the Internet because criminals, hackers, and terrorists have made it their primary place of business. Biggs states that because of spam, phishing, hacking, worms, and viruses have taken over the information superhighway, average people and companies are losing billions in productivity and in sensitive information. The term cyberspace is used interchangeably with the web/Internet in this article. An interesting point made is that in this time terrorist were using cyberspace and CMCs as a source of plot communication. Biggs states, "sharing user names and passwords for web-based e-mail sites such as Yahoo, terrorist communicated with each other by leaving messages in draft folders rather than risking sending messages from one account to another. " This is a fascinating way to us a CMC and one I had never heard about before.
2003
The term cyberspace was first coined such by William Ford Gibson in a 1984 science fiction novel Neuromancer. The article, "Gibson's cyber-world is now our world," written by Brent Staples from the New York Times on May 12, 2003, describes Gibson's novel and its vision in relation to modern time. Staples defines cyberspace as "the circuits and fibre optics that move data from one place to another as a landscape." This definition implies that cyberspace is the machinery that moves information around the world. The article describes how Gibson's vision was a world that was information saturated where information stealing and protection were a main job of society. This article too describes how Gibson knew the Internet would bring out the worst in society and allow immoral actions to take place anonymously. This is an interesting article because it shows that Gibson was truly before his time and that all of his predictions in his fiction novels have turned out to be non-fiction.
2000
In the article, "Cyberspace faces up to its Demon; The illusion of Internet unaccountability has been blown," the Guardian Leader addresses the then growing business of identity theft through impersonation, copyright infringement, and piracy. The term cyberspace is implied to be the world wide web. The article looks at how easy it is to impersonate someone through emails because of the lack of accountability inherent in the Internet. The author calls for Internet control, which I believe has been somewhat achieved in 2008.
1998
In an article named, "Is cyberspace our friend or foe?: Or the worst thing that ever happened?," Nick Wilgus discusses the effects of cyberspace outside of the western world. Published December 16, 1998 by the Bangkok post, Wilgus points out that at the time in order to truly explore the web, which he uses interchangeably with cyberspace, that one must understand the English language. He states that because of this, cyberspace has become "a great way to smother the world in bleary-eyed sameness." He also explored the fact that there was a large population of the world that had never seen a telephone, much less a computer or the world wide web. It is apparent from this article that the global influence of the web was not yet realized where he was located. Today there are many ways to communicate with the eastern world through cyberspace. The use of computer-mediated-communication has bridged some of this gap. I would be interested in seeing what he had to say today in 2008.
1995
Moving forward in time I read an article by Paul Goldberger with the New York Times published on October 5, 1995 entitled, Cyberspace Trips to Nowhere Land. In this article, Goldberger touches on John December's idea that the world wide web was is a communications system. The difference is that Goldberger used cyberspace interchangeably with the web. He sates, "We hear continually about cyberspace as a place of connections made between all kinds of people who would not have come together before." He too agrees that cyberspace is anything but linear, but he sees this as a problem when it comes to being a community. He states that the interpersonal relationships that are necessary in forming a community is gone in cyberspace and that it is leading to a society that is forgetting about social graces. This is an interesting view when thinking about this idea in context with computer-mediated communication. Programmers have tried to fuse this gap by creating instant messages, chat rooms, and e-mail platforms, but in the end we are still missing face to face reality.
1992
I decided to go back a minute to the days when cyberspace was relatively new to see what the definition looked like. I found an article from December 12, 1992 named "The successful companies and countries of the future will be those who have mastered the manipulation of cyberspace" by W. Brent Cowan with The Gazette from Montreal, Qubec. Cowan states that cyberspace consists of "computers, and the wires, airwaves and automatic switches which link them." His article goes on to explain that we all are a part of cyberspace whether we know it or not because our personal information is stored electronically. He explains that all of our information, purchase patterns, tax records, bank information, school information, all of our life is stored somewhere in cyberspace. Cowan realized that cyberspace was the way of the future and that governments, companies, and even individuals would use the technology to know anything about everything and urged Canada to jump on board. This was an interesting article in that he saw the realization of cyberspace when it was relatively new.
Why I'm Blogging!
A question has been posed that asks this: "What is cyberspace?" I am tasked to find articles and compare and contrast the term to help come up with my own definition. The Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines cyberspace as "the online world of computer networks and especially the Internet." I see this as a very vague term and I am hoping that by interpreting the following 10 articles regarding cyberspace I can bring the question into better focus.
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