Cyber warfare: Communities

Cyber warfare means many different things to people. As a population of researchers and practitioners we have a tendency to bring our own biases to the processes of evaluating the domain. Whether we are part of the military, intelligence, corporate, counter culture, or civilian communities we bring a certain set of expectations and thinking to the idea of cyber warfare.

Unfortunately those biases often have the leaders talking past each other and mainstream media mistaking cyber crime for cyber warfare. The term “cyber” is used to mean “computer” to often. Cyber is the term that discusses the command and control structure of a system. In many cases of the modern world “cyber” refers to the computers that command and control networks and weapons systems. However, it is also apparent that it gets stretched far beyond command and control.

The metaphors of cyber warfare are partially to blame. In trying to force cyber warfare into a metaphor it is denigrated and castigated as much as it is heralded with miraculous powers. The better case is that metaphors and analogies are rife with systemic bias of the community positing the miraculous conceptual allegory. Over the next few days we’ll look at the metaphorical and allegorical analysis along with the biases of the different communities. This is all in part the written notes of a book chapter I’m preparing for the Cyber Conflict Studies Association.

In a recent Armed Forces Journal issue (September 2009) cyber security was metaphorically referenced to as the Silk Road, and air power.  If a metaphor is a comparison of items, to say for example that the Silk Road is like cyber space.  And, an analogy is a process of transferring knowledge from one area to another.  The fuzzy realm of cyber space is a natural place to grow biased representations of something you can’t touch or feel. Of course cyber space is overgrown with cognitive ambiguities. It is a problem though when the castle is outgrown as a metaphor, and building with closed doors are no longer representative analogies for security.  When does the car no longer have to be referred to as a horseless carriage and becomes an automobile?

Over the next few days I’m going to try and look at the different communities and try and determine if they have different ways of looking at cyber space that might bias those viewpoints. Bias being the first form of blindness.