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Pure Bollocks Issue 22_054
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* C Y B E R S P A C E * A N D * I T ' S *
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L E G A L * I M P L I C A T I O N S *
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What is Cyberspace?
David G.W. Birch & S. Peter Buck, Hyperion 1
WHAT IS CYBERSPACE?
Introduction
In a recent issue of the Computer Law & Security Report [1], Bernard Zajac
suggested that readers might want to peruse some of the "cyberpunk" novels-in
particular the works of William Gibson-in order to gain an insight into the
organisation and behaviour of hackers. While wholly commending the incitement
to read Gibson's work, we feel that this view understates the breadth of vision
of the cyberpunk genre and could mislead, because the "console men" and
"keyboard cowboys" of Gibson's works are not really the same people as the
hackers of today. We thought it might therefore be both entertaining and
stimulating to provide readers with an overview of the world of cyberspace and
to draw attention to some elements of the works where we feel that there are
indeed some points worth further analysis and discussion. Is it possible that,
like Arthur C. Clarke's much vaunted prediction of the communication satellite
[2], Gibson has produced works which are not so much science fiction as
informed prediction? Gibson is not the only cyberpunk author, but he has become
probably the most well-known. Essential reading includes his books Count Zero
[3], Neuromancer [4], Burning Chrome [5] and Mona Lisa Overdrive [6]. For
readers new to the subject, Mirroshades [7] is an excellent anthology of
cyberpunk short stories which gives an overview of the spectrum of cyberpunk
writing.
Cyberspace
Description
Cyberspace is an extension of the idea of virtual reality. Instead of seeing
computer data converted into pictures that come from human experience (as in a
flight simulator), or extensions from human experience (such as the "desktop"
metaphor used with personal computers), cyberspace comprises computers,
telecommunications, software and data in a more abstract form. At the core of
cyberspace is the matrix or the Net: "The Net... joins all of the computers and
telephones on Earth. It is formed by radio, telepho and cellular links with
microwave transmitters beaming information into orbit and beyond. In the 20th
century, the Net was only accessible via a computer terminal, using a device
called a modem to send and receive information. But in 2013, the Net can be
entered directly using your own brain, neural plugs and complex interface
programs that turn computer data into perceptual events" View From the Edge,
[8]. In several places, reference is made to the military origin of the
cyberspace interfaces:
"You're a console cowboy. The prototypes of the programs you use to crack
industrial banks were developed for [a military operation]. For the assault on
the Kirensk computer nexus. Basic module was a Nightwing microlight, a pilot,
a matrix deck, a jockey. We were running a virus called Mole. The Mole series
was the first generation of real intrusion programs." Neuromancer, [4]. "The
matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games... early graphics programs and
military experimentation with cranial jack" Neuromancer, [4]. Gibson also
assumes that in addition to being able to "jack in" to the matrix, you can go
through the matrix to jack in to another person using a "simstim" deck. Using
the simstim deck, you experience everything that the person you are connected
to experiences: "Case hit the simstim switch. And flipped in to the agony of a
broken bone. Molly was braced against the blank grey wall of a long corridor,
her breath coming ragged and uneven. Case was back in the matrix instantly, a
white-hot line of pain fading in his left thigh." Neuromancer, [4]. The matrix
can be a very dangerous place. As your brain is connected in, should your
interface program be altered, you will suffer. If your program is deleted, you
would die. One of the characters in Neuromancer is called the Dixie Flatline,
so named because he has survived deletion in the matrix. He is revered as a
hero of the cyber jockeys: "'Well, if we can get the Flatline, we're home free.
He was the best. You know he died braindeath three times.' She nodded.
'Flatlined on his EEG. Showed me the tapes.'" Neuromancer, [4]. Incidentally,
the Flatline doesn't exist as a person any more: his mind has been stored in a
RAM chip which can be connected to the matrix.
Operation
So how does cyberspace work?
As noted previously, you connect to the matrix through a deck which runs
an interface program: "A silver tide of phosphenes boiled across my field of
vision as the matrix began to unfold in my head, a 3-D chessboard, infinite and
perfectly transparent. The Russian program seemed to lurch as we entered the
grid. If anyone else had been jacked in to that part of the matrix, he might
have seen a surf of flickering shadow ride out of the little yellow pyramid
that represented our computer." Burning Chrome, [5]. "Tick executed the transit
in real time, rather than the bodyless, instantaneous shifts ordinarily
employed in the matrix. The yellow plain, he explained, roofed the London
Stock Exchange and related City entities... 'Th's White's,' Tick was saying,
directing her attention to a modest grey pyramid, 'the club in St. James'.
Membership directory, waiting list..." Mona Lisa Overdrive, [6]. Is this view
of operating computers and communications networks by moving around inn
ethereal machine-generated world really that far-fetched? When the first
virtual reality (VR) units for personal computers will probably be in the shops
by next Christmas? If you still think that VR is science fiction, note that
British television viewers will shortly be tuning in to a new game show (called
"CyberZone") where the digital images of teams of players equipped with VR
helmets, power gloves and pressure pads will fight it out in a computer-
generated world (built using 16 IBM PCs fronting an ICL master computer).
Cyber World
Organisation
The world of cyberpunk is near future (say, 50 years at the maximum) Earth.
Nation states and their governments are unimportant and largely irrelevant.
The world is run by giant Japanese-American-European multinational
conglomerates, the zaibatsu. Gibson frequently uses Japanese words and
Japanese slang to reinforce the expanding role of Japan in the world and in
society. In the same way that business has agglomerated on a global scale, the
mafia have merged with the Japanese gangs, the yakuza. The zaibatsu are in
constant conflict and the yakuza are their agents: "Business has no stake in
any political system per se. Business co-operates to the extent that co-
operation furthers its own interests. And the primary interest of business is
growth and dominance. Once the establishment of Free Enterprise Zones freed
corporations from all constraints, they reverted to a primal struggle, which
continues to this day." Stone Lives, [9]. Far fetched? Again, not really.
Even as we sat down to write this article, the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of
Nomura (the world's largest financial institution) were resigning because of
their links with organised crime: "Sceptics say that four decades of
accommodation between police, politicians and yakuza will not be overturned
simply by new legislation. There are believed to be almost 100,000 full-time
gangsters in Japan, a quarter of whom belong to the Yamaguchi-Gumi, a mammoth
organisation with 900 affiliates and a portfolio of operations ranging from
prostitution, drugs and share speculation to run-of-the mill protection
rackets" [10]. Herein lies a major feature of Gibson's books. The cyber
jockeys are not student pranksters or teenage hackers messing about with other
peoples' computers for fun or mischief (The Lord of the Files, [11]): by and
large they are either working for the zaibatsu or the yakuza and their (for
profit) activities revolve around industrial espionage and sabotage.
Information A fundamental theme running through most cyberpunk literature is
that (in the near future Earth) commodities are unimportant. Since anything
can be manufactured, very cheaply, manufactured goods (and the commodities that
are needed to create them) are no longer central to economic life. The only
real commodity is information. In fact, in many ways, the zaibatsu are th e
information that they own: "But weren't the zaibatsu more like that, or the
yakuza, hives with cybernetic memories, vast single organisms with their DNA
coded in silicon?" Neuromancer, [4]. Naturally, with information so vital, the
zaibatsu go to great lengths to protect their data. In Johnny Mnemonic, one of
Gibson's short stories, the eponymous "hero" has data hidden in his own memory
to keep it safe from the yakuza: "The stored data are fed in through a series
of microsurgical contraautism prostheses.' I reeled off a numb version of my
standard sales pitch. 'Client's code is stored in a special chip... Can't drug
it out, cut it out, rture it out. I don't know it, never did." Johnny
Mnemonic, [12]. With information so fundamental to the business world, the
mechanics of business are vastly different from those we know at present. In
our current product- and service-based business world, we are used to dealing
with items that can be stamped, traced, taxed, counted and measured. When the
primary commodity is information, these attributes no longer apply and the
structure of the business world is different. This has already been recognised
by many people, including the well-known management consultant Peter Drucker
[13]: "So far most computer users still use the new technology only to do
faster what they have done before, crunch conventional numbers. But as soon as
a company takes the first tentative steps from data to information, its
decision processes, management structure and even the way it gets its work done
begin to be transformed."
Net Running
Hacking is too trivial and undescriptive a term to use for the unauthorised and
illegal activities of the cyber jockeys in cyberspace. A much better terms is
"Net running". "They found their 'paradise'... on the jumbled border of a low
security academic grid. At first glance it resembled the kind of graffiti
student operators somimes left at the junction of grid lines, faint glyphs of
coloured light that shimmered against the confused outlines of a dozen arts
faculties. 'There,' said the Flatline. 'the blue one. Make it out? That's an
entry code for Bell Europa. Fresh, too." Neuromancer, [4]. Everywhere in the
Net, there is "ice". Ice is security countermeasures software. The Net
runners spend most of their time in the matrix encountering, evaluating and
evading these countermeasures. The encounters with ice are brilliantly
described in many of Gibson's books: "We've crashed her gates disguised as an
audit and three subpoenas, but her [the organisation being attacked] defences
are specifically geared to deal with that kind of intrusion. Her most
sophisticated ice is structured to fend off writs, warrants, subpoenas. When
we breached the first gate, the bulk of her data vanished behind core command
ice... Five separate landlines spurted May Day signals to law firms, but the
virus had already taken over the parameter e... The Russian program lifts a
Tokyo number from unscreened data, choosing it for frequency of calls, average
length of calls, the speed with which [the organisation] returned those calls.
'Okay,' says Bobby, 'we're an incoming scrambler call from a l of hers in
Tokyo. That should help.' Ride 'em cowboy." Burning Chrome, [14]. The best
ice contains elements of artificial intelligence (AI): "'That's it huh? Big
green rectangle off left?' 'You got it. Corporate core data for [another
organisation] and that ice is generated by their two friendly AIs. On par with
anything in the military sector, looks to me. That's king hell ice, Case, black
as the grave and slick as glass. Fry your brains as soon as look at you."
Neuromancer, [4]. These descriptions cannot be seen as predictions: they are
just straightforward extrapolations based on current technology and trends.
Predictions
So what are the core "predictions" of cyberpunk and do they have relevance to
security strategies today? Computer and communications technology is already at
a point where the Net is only a few years away. Charles L. Brown, the CEO of
AT&T, put it like this: "The phone system, when coupled with computer
technology, permits a person almost anywhere to plug in to a world library of
information... Just around the bend is an information network that would
increase the range of perception of a single individual to include all of the
information available anywhere in the network's universe." [15]. The
development of the corrate world so that information becomes the primary
commodity is already underway. This does have implications for planning,
because too many existing risk management policies are asset-based. As it is
easier to value a computer than value the information it holds, too much effort
has gone into valuing and protecting physical assets rather than information
assets. Already, there is a good argument for saying that the information
assets are the key [16]: "A new concept of business is taking shape in response
to the info-wars now raging across the world economy. As knowledge becomes
more central to the creation of wealth, we begin to think of the corporation as
an enhancer of knowledge."
How will the information assets be valued? How will the world of mergers and
acquisitions deal with the problem of rate of return on "intangible" assets.
An interesting parallel can be drawn with the relatively recent attempts to
value brand names and include the brand names as assets on balance sheets. The
legal sector is probably even further behind than the security sector. With the
legal system already struggling to catch up with the developments in computer
and communications technology, it is hard to imagine how it could come to terms
with cyberspace: "As communications and data processing technology continues to
advance at a pace many times faster than society can assimilate it, additional
conflicts have begun to occur on the border between cyberspace and the physical
world." [17]. In fact, these conflicts are already causing many problems as
evidenced by recent events and court cases in the U.S. [18]: "Do electronic
bulletin boards that may list stolen access codes enjoy protection under the
First Amendment?" "How can privacy be ensured when computers record every phone
call, cash withdrawal and credit-card transaction. What "property rights" can
be protected in digital electronic systems that can create copies that are
indistinguishable from the real thing." " Ten months after the Secret Service
shut down the [electronics bulletin boards], the Government still has not
produced any indictments. And several similar cases that have come before the
courts have been badly flawed. One Austin-based game publisher whose bulletin
board system was seized last March is expected soon to sue the Government for
violating his civil liberties."
Summary
We hope that this brief overview of the
world of cyberpunk has done justice to the excellent books from which we have
quoted and encouraged some readers to dip into the collection. So is Gibson's
work an example of a science fiction prediction that will prove to be as
accurate as Clarke's prediction of the communications satellite? Not really:
the world that Gibson writes about is more a well thought out extension of the
situation at present than a radical prediction. After all, as Gordon Gekko
(the character played by Michael Douglas) says in the film Wall Street, "The
most valuable commodity I know of is information. Wouldn't you agree?"
References
1. Zajac, B., Ethics & Computing (Part II). Computer Law and Security Report,
1991. 7(2).
2. Clarke, A.C., Extraterrestrial Relays, in Wireless World. 1945, p. 305-308.
3. Gibson, W., Count Zero. 1987, London: Grafton.
4. Gibson, W., Neuromancer. 1984, New York: Ace.
5. Gibson, W., Burning Chrome. 1987, New York: Ace.
6. Gibson, W., Mona Lisa Overdrive. 1989, London: Grafton.
7. Sterling, B., ed. Mirrorshades. 1988, Paladin: London.
8. View from the Edge-The Cyberpunk Handbook. 1988, R. Talsorian Games Inc.
9. Fillipo, P.D., Stone Lives, in Mirrorshades, B. Sterling, Editor. 1988,
Paladin: London.
10. Japan's Mafia Takes on a 6bn Business, in The Guardian. 1991, London.
11. Girvan and Jones, The Lord of the Files, in Digital Dreams, Barrett,
Editor. 1990, New English Library: London.
12. Gibson, W., Johnny Mnemonic, in Burning Chrome. 1987, Ace: New York.
13. Cane, A., Differences of Culture and Technology, in The Financial Times.
1991, London. p. European IT Supplement.
14. Gibson, W., Burning Chrome, in Burning Chrome. 1987, Ace: New York.
15. Wurman, R.S., Information Anxiety. 1991, London: Pan.
16. Toffler, A., Total Information War, in Power Shift. 1991, Bantam Books:
London.
17. Barlow, Coming in to the Country. Communications of the ACM, 1991. 34(3).
18. Elmer-Dewitt, P., Cyberpunks and the Constitution, in Time. 1991, p. 81.
Authors
David Birch graduated from the University of Southampton and then joined
Logica, where he spent several years working as a consultant specialising in
communications. In 1986 he was one of the founders of Hyperion. He has worked
on a wide range of information technology projects in the U.K., Europe, the Far
East and North America for clients as diverse as the International Stock
Exchange, IBM and the Indonesian PTT. David was appointed Visiting Lecturer in
Information Technology Management at the City Univeristy Business School in
1990 and was one of the founder members of the Highfield EDI and legal security
business research group. His Cyberspace address is 100014,3342 on Compuserve.
Peter Buck graduated from the Imperial College and spent 10 years with the
International Stock Exchange, where he was co-architect of SEAQ, the computer
system that was at the heart of the City's "big bang" He then joined Hyperion,
where he is a Senior Consultant working in the field of advanced
communications. His work on the application of satellite and mobile
communications-for clients including Mercury, Dow Jones and SWIFT-for business
has put him at the leading-edge of work in these fields.
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