Abstract
Cyberspace is barely two decades old. Yet it is already globally pervasive, powerfully disrupting perceptions and realities in the legacy spaces; on the land, at sea and in the air where human beings live, move and work. The pace at which its influence is spreading and intensifying is amazing; the number and reach of the consequences arguably even more so, and they continue to emerge, mash-up and surprise. For humanity and its planet, an acceptable future depends on ‘seeing’ and understanding Cyberspace well enough to do two things; manage and exploit it successfully in the present, and make timely, flexible preparations for a future that is uncertain, except in that it will be different to today, in no small part because it will be substantially shaped by the state of and actions in the Cyberspace. This chapter is a first attempt to explain why Cyberspace has become so important so quickly and describe briefly the most meaningful of its initial consequences, all with the aim to promote strengthening the good in Cyberspace while keeping the bad in check.
Submitted: 4.10.16; Accepted: 3.11.2016.
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Notes
- 1.
Rare, but not never. Parts of Donald Trump’s 1995 tax returns were mailed in August 2016 to a NYT reporter. See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0.
- 2.
In 2008, in a private discussion late one evening at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Penn with members of its Strategic Studies Institute, the author was asked if he had heard of the ‘theft from the US Treasury’. He had not, and said so, upon which he was told, confidentially, that ‘someone’ had ‘looted the US’ of more than 1 trillion ‘in the seconds it took for the defences to kick in’. The event was never reported in US media (or anywhere else for that matter, to the author’s knowledge).
- 3.
On 29 Jul 2016, John O. Brennan, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, made clear that while spying on each other’s political institutions is fair game, making data public—in true or altered form—to influence an election is a new level of malicious activity, far different from ordinary spy versus spy maneuvers. See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/us/politics/us-wrestles-with-how-to-fight-back-against-cyberattacks.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-2&action=click&contentCollection=Politics®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article.
- 4.
Foresight Canada (FC) definition of Strategic Foresight: The integrated capacity to see, think through and do what needs to be done NOW in the light of history-altering implications of the weak signals of change, while there is still time to act pro-actively and creatively and before hidden opportunities are lost and unseen threats have become crises.
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Harries, D. (2017). Narrative Mapping of Cyberspace. Context and Consequences. In: Ramírez, J., García-Segura, L. (eds) Cyberspace. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54975-0_2
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