# The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society (part 7 of 10)

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [143], part 7 of 10. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: document (PDF), 2013-05-08 (from the career record), https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf. Text: document text
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the money step (Global Village Development Bank, 2009), before the ledgers step (Ethereum launch, 2015).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): Defence-tier report citing his cyber views; tangential to the build.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society (2013): Hardin Tibbs's 2013 report of the UK Defence Academy Cyber Inquiry for the Ministry of Defence, which...
  - Blind in the Panopticon: The decreasing marginal utility of access to information as an aspect of cyber policy (2012): Cyber policy essay: past a point, more surveillance data has negative value, because a state can collect... (suggested by machine)
  - Multipolar Realpolitik (2024): Essays arguing that a global truce among a few great powers, with treaties checked by AI, blockchains and... (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - cyber and defense: Security work for defense clients, built on one idea: set rivals to check each other. Resilience and Opportunity in...
  - CheapID to Mattereum: One identity pattern, from a person's ID card in 2006 to warranties on physical goods in 2017. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - nuclear / panflu: Pandemic, evacuation and rehousing plans. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - rich data capitalism: Cheap information changes what a market can carry: price signals hold only a few bits (2013), blockchains cut... (through a work suggested by machine)
- Topics: The Global Cyber Game (94%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: cyber (660 here; 32 sources in all, earliest dated 2009); Wired (35 here; 22 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 1 undated); Hardin Tibbs (8 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2011); DARPA (7 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2013); jobs (28 here; 85 sources in all, earliest dated 2003, 4 undated); communications (26 here; 81 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 5 undated); DNS (10 here; 23 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); Barlow (5 here; 7 sources in all, earliest dated 2013); ICANN (3 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2011); realpolitik (5 here; 11 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 2 undated)
- The earliest dated source in this archive for (undated sources may be earlier): peer-to-peer; Barlow; John Perry Barlow; economic zone; Forbes; Westphalia; real-world assets; DARPA; global commons
- Importance: core-text score 0.19 (1.00 is the top), number 371 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [243] [Multipolar Realpolitik (Omnibus draft) (2024)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/243.md): close in content (cosine 0.92)
  - [851] [Global governance in the era of blockchain. (2018)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/851.md): close in content (cosine 0.89)
- On the same works, just before: [400] [http://hub.coe.int/forum-mondial-de-la-democratie-5-11-oc... (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/400.md); [399] [Council of Europe World Forum for Democracy... (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/399.md); [395] Open Data Ireland 25 October inaugeral meeting (2012)
- On the same works, just after: [319] [A sleepless night trying to find words (2013)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/319.md); [115] [Warlords, Inc.: Black Markets, Broken States, and the... (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/115.md); [286] [Ouishare on global democracy and the real sharing economy (2016)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/286.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society, document, 2013-05-08, https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [143], https://guptaoption.com/texts/143.md.

## Passages, part 7 of 10
[p. 78 to 79](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=78) it could transform social dynamics, though if it happened to the generation who have grown up with Facebook, perhaps they would be well-prepared for this outcome! Nevertheless, at least in terms of the prospect for quantum computing tipping cryptography into a terminal condition, this currently appears unlikely. 138 In short, the intrinsic security weakness of existing information architectures cannot be expected to last indefinitely. Either the Internet will be hardened and encryption will remain strong, which on balance in the wider picture would seem the best outcome, or the Internet itself may be progressively dismembered—Balkanized into islands—in search of security. The future of human conflict Although much of the Global Cyber Game will be about positioning for competitive advantage, some destructive cyber conflict is to be expected. Rather than immediately trying to think what form this might take, however, it is instructive to think about the future of human conflict in general, as it helps to put more speculative thinking into perspective. W. Brian Arthur, The Nature of Technology (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2009) 137 Ross Anderson and Robert Brady, ‘Why quantum computing is hard—and quantum cryptography is not 138 provably secure’ Quantum Physics 7351 (Jan 2013) http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.7351 accessed 26/02/13 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 73 www.da.mod.uk It is at first surprising to learn that, despite the popular impression of increasing violence, war and violent deaths have actually been decreasing over time. According to evidence quoted by Harvard Professor Steven Pinker, violence in human society is in long run decline. According to the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Database, worldwide battle deaths in the first decade of the 21st century were 0.5 per 100,000 a year, which is lower than the homicide rate in the world’s least violent countries. In absolute numbers, annual battle deaths have fallen by 90 percent from half a million per year in the late 1940s to 30,000 per year in the early 2000s. During this period interstate war shrank to vanishing point, and the greatest source of deaths was civil war. Even civil wars have become less lethal. In 1950 the average armed conflict of any kind killed 33,000 people, by 2007 it killed less than 1,000. Among the wealthy countries in the developed world the purely statistical risk of civil war is essentially zero. If the long run decline and the recent statistics are taken as a guide to the probability of conflict over the next few decades, a not unreasonable assumption, then the most likely form of conflict is now civil war in countries with governments referred to as anocracies, neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. 139 Income polarization is rising within wealthy countries, as a side effect of globalization, and is hollowing out the middle class. Commentators and researchers have noted this effect particularly in the US. 140 Whether this rising polarization could raise the risk of civil war in wealthy countries is questionable, as long as their governments remain effective. This itself will be a function of how well they adapt to

[p. 79 to 80](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=79) as a side effect of globalization, and is hollowing out the middle class. Commentators and researchers have noted this effect particularly in the US. 140 Whether this rising polarization could raise the risk of civil war in wealthy countries is questionable, as long as their governments remain effective. This itself will be a function of how well they adapt to the evolving information environment. If they fail, and a combination of financial, economic and environmental crises threaten the ability of governments to maintain the quality of life, then internal conflict is entirely possible. One way of thinking about this possibility is that the economic impact of global F-space (the transnational ‘flow-space’ of global social and economic flows as described in the next section) on states that must govern locally in the ‘space of places’ is to sharply heighten income polarization in their home geography. The front line of potential conflict is not between nations but between social groups who benefit from the global economy of F- space, and those who do not. Either this disparity will be addressed or, if it develops too far, it will become a serious political issue, possibly in many countries at once, with populations splitting into two factions, either resisting or supporting civil society-led reform movements. Successful reform might be the result of crowd-sourced social redesign spanning many societies globally, along the lines of a more effective Occupy movement. If reform is denied, the anger of the ‘indignados’ might be expressed in the form of cyber attacks on the ‘ground stations’ of F-space, such as the wealthy financial districts of major cities. In short, while globalization has been helping to reduce interstate conflict, it has simultaneously been stoking possible intrastate conflict. This would imply that any cyber conflict is less likely to be between states as such, and more likely to be between the winners and losers of globalization, even though the statistics suggest that the overall probability is 139 Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (London: Penguin, 2011) 140 http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/ accessed 18/02/13 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 74 www.da.mod.uk low. Nevertheless the trendline of declining conflict is not smooth, and an upsurge is possible. Nations become post-Westphalian The industrial-era form of the nation state is referred to as Westphalian, after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 after the Thirty Years War. This established the principle that states are the only international players and have a monopoly on force within their mutually recognized borders. States in the Westphalian system are independent and may not intervene in the domestic affairs of another state, either for reasons of self-interest or by appeal to any higher principle, as no higher power than state sovereignty is recognized. The domestic and international spheres are separated, and coexistence between states is regulated by diplomacy and treaties that form international law. Power is thus decentralized, and the use of force is not prohibited: occupation is considered a legitimate means of acquiring territory. In a formal sense, the UN Charter

[p. 80 to 82](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=80) higher principle, as no higher power than state sovereignty is recognized. The domestic and international spheres are separated, and coexistence between states is regulated by diplomacy and treaties that form international law. Power is thus decentralized, and the use of force is not prohibited: occupation is considered a legitimate means of acquiring territory. In a formal sense, the UN Charter in 1945 marked a move beyond the Treaties of Westphalia, because although it is strictly a treaty between signatory states, it regulates the use of force between states and, with the concept of human rights, introduced the idea that states are accountable to international norms for their domestic actions. This shift became decisive with UN Resolution 1244 on Kosovo in 1999 which, by declaring the Yugoslav government’s authority invalid and sanctioning military intervention, redefined the sovereign character of the nation state. In a less formal sense, the Westphalian system has been slowly dissolving for some time. This is particularly evident in the greater range and much larger number of players operating The Global Cyber Game © 2013 75 www.da.mod.uk internationally, including transnational companies, global media organizations, NGOs, and at the coercive end of the spectrum, international terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. The freedoms and tools these organizations and networks employ are very similar to the tools used by transnational business for globalizing operations and, in many cases, they run ahead of state use of the same tools. Westphalian erosion is also clear from the growing constraints on state unaccountability, and on state freedom to use armed force. This pressure towards accountability is coming from many directions, ranging from NGO pressure to media coverage. Populations too are no longer static and ethnically homogenous, they are very large, highly mobile internationally, mixing ethnically, and the webs of social and business interactions are complex and global. Life is no longer simple for the state. Once one of a few privileged players enjoying relative isolation, the state is now crowded together with very large numbers of other types of players in a high pressure environment in which geography is not a buffer. The state still has a special level of some resources, such as military power, but in the multiplayer information saturated environment these resources may prove less useful than before. States are at different stages of development in their exposure to, recognition and acceptance of the evolution beyond Westphalianism. Some countries, for example China and Russia, are still keen to assert full Westphalian independence. Other countries, notably those of the EU, are already enmeshed in a deeply post-Westphalian situation. If the driving forces towards post-Westphalianism are such things as the increased migration, communications, The Global Cyber Game © 2013 76 www.da.mod.uk and trade that form part of rising global connectivity, then all states are on a conveyor belt to post-Westphalianism, but some will arrive sooner than others. Possible global system discontinuity The global socio-economic system has been experiencing a growth surge for over 200 years from a condition of low interconnectedness, low

[p. 81 to 82](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=81) communications, The Global Cyber Game © 2013 76 www.da.mod.uk and trade that form part of rising global connectivity, then all states are on a conveyor belt to post-Westphalianism, but some will arrive sooner than others. Possible global system discontinuity The global socio-economic system has been experiencing a growth surge for over 200 years from a condition of low interconnectedness, low complexity, low technology, low throughput, low population, and low interdependence to high values of all those factors. This growth surge is the result of the scientific and industrial revolutions, and the spreading culture of modernity, which together have lifted global population from less that half a billion to over 7 billion people in under 300 years. A key measure of this change is complexity. The global system has an ‘evolutionary direction’ towards greater complexity. This complexity delivers greater capability up to a threshold at which the structure of the existing system cannot handle the level of throughputs and intercommunication, and where marginal returns start falling. 141 At this point, in order to continue developing, it must either transform to a qualitatively different state of organization from which it can continue to deliver increased capability or, if this fails, it will fall back to a lower level of complexity and capability. Falling back would be somewhat like a disorderly return to a previous time period. What is not plausible is that the system will simply continue on its existing trajectory of increasing complexity supported by the existing pattern of organization. This is essentially why the current structure of the global system has frequently been described as unsustainable. To use the analogy of the board game snakes and ladders, the principal scenarios now are a very big snake or a very big ladder. The jump to a qualitatively new level of organization is highly unlikely to be accomplished by conscious deliberate design from within the existing system structure, because present human knowledge and human agency operating within today’s system are not up to the challenge. A new structure is much more likely to emerge spontaneously as a consequence of the developing potentialities of the system as a whole. This is most plausibly going to involve massively parallel responses among large numbers of highly connected individuals, simultaneously generating many networked solutions to today’s issues. The quality of global connectedness, its openness and transparency, and the freedom it allows to innovate collaboratively and without fear, and to critique the existing system, will be a critical resource for enabling the system transformation that is now needed. Many other existing and emerging attributes would also be involved, but without the full functioning of global connectedness the potential of the whole system to make a transformational jump will be impeded or prevented. A cyber scenario framework The possible future changes described here, taken together with the earlier discussion and the history of cyber security to date, allow a simple scenario framework for the Cyber Game to 141 Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University

[p. 82 to 83](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=82) potential of the whole system to make a transformational jump will be impeded or prevented. A cyber scenario framework The possible future changes described here, taken together with the earlier discussion and the history of cyber security to date, allow a simple scenario framework for the Cyber Game to 141 Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) The Global Cyber Game © 2013 77 www.da.mod.uk be assembled. The aim is to capture the extremes of where the game could end up. This spans three slightly overlapping periods, running from the past into the future: • The first period, running from approximately 1990 to 2010, is referred to here as the ‘Free Lunch’ when states and hackers were essentially free to explore and exploit cyber possibilities on the Internet without any real expectation of detection, let alone reprisals. This meant that they did not have to fully resolve questions of doctrine, and were still operating in an experimental mode. The World Wide Web appeared and online commerce burst into life. Effective surveillance was possible because targets were naive about Internet vulnerabilities, and state and hacker capability. Defences were weak or non-existent, and while most activity was fairly random, a few well-organized, clear-sighted players were able to make substantial positioning gains. • The second period, from approximately 2010 to 2020, is referred to here as ‘Rising Alarm’. The problem of cyber insecurity is now severe, but denial is still widespread, and the response of many organizations is disorganized and largely ineffective. The risk is high, because much of the global economy now depends on the Internet. State intelligence agencies are making effective use of cyber capabilities, but are beginning to encounter various forms of blowback. National military organizations are developing doctrine, and threaten to militarize cyberspace at the expense of economic and social development. Debate about ethical concerns is heating up, including issues such as privacy and surveillance, and robotic weapons. The long run implications are still not well understood as the experience base is limited, but a succession of limited cyber conflicts help to clarify thinking. The third period, from 2020 onwards, progressively splits into two different primary future possibilities, in which the best potentials of global information abundance are either won or lost. The big watershed is the likely global system ‘bifurcation’ from 2020 onwards, in which the overall system either transforms to a new state of organization, or regresses. 142 This development affects everything, and is closely interwoven with the Cyber Game. The information revolution is entangled in most aspects of global change, frequently as a catalyst, and is an enabler of some of the more far-reaching potential solutions, so cyber change and global change tend to go hand in hand. Cyber-catalysed scenarios of global change are therefore an appropriate way to understand the various futures that both shape the Cyber Game and are shaped by it. • In the upside scenario, ‘N-topia’, the world as a whole goes through the final ‘deployment’ stage

[p. 83 to 84](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=83) the more far-reaching potential solutions, so cyber change and global change tend to go hand in hand. Cyber-catalysed scenarios of global change are therefore an appropriate way to understand the various futures that both shape the Cyber Game and are shaped by it. • In the upside scenario, ‘N-topia’, the world as a whole goes through the final ‘deployment’ stage of the information revolution and this turns out to be exactly the transformation needed to address most of the major global issues that looked intractable at the start of the 21st century. As a key part of enabling this, all the critical cyber issues are well managed. The global information infrastructure is re-architected and is now far more secure. The level of cyber exploits drops to a minimal level, and cyber security has become a matter of routine skills. Most online criminal activity is locked out by the new Internet architecture. As a result the Internet remains globally open and, following several rounds of negotiation, governance is shared 142 The conjectural timing for this is taken from Scenario 1 of Limits to Growth. Donella Meadows et al, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. (London: Earthscan, 2004) p.169 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 78 www.da.mod.uk internationally and is made democratically accountable. New algorithmic approaches to resource allocation are introduced in response to the technologies of abundance such as 3D printing. These displace market fundamentalism and economic disparities decline both within countries and between them. Privacy and state surveillance issues are addressed by a new UN Human Right for Information. What could have been serious emerging threats, involving nanotechnology and biotechnology, are managed effectively in the newly secure information environment. Reassured by the success of the architectural reforms and the new economic system, the US, China and Russia move far from their positions a decade or two earlier, and many of the old abuses now appear pointless. • In the downside scenario, ‘N-crash’, things do not go so well. The existing Internet architecture persists because there are too many alternative solutions and no consensus. The level of cyber crime rises to levels that act as a significant drag on economic activity. A massive but botched cyber offensive against online criminal organizations leaves the participating states looking weak and emboldens the criminals. Continued cyber attacks and espionage by the US undermine US market dominance in information products, and many countries and consumers who feel threatened by the US turn to Chinese manufacturers and Russian software providers. All the former information technology market leaders suffer because they lose critical scale as the global market fragments, and the pace of technological development slows. US total domestic online surveillance creates a repressive model that undermines much of its previous moral authority. Iran surprises everyone by creating an effective national intranet that proves robust to outside intrusion, and sells it to many states that feel threatened by the oppressive climate of online espionage. This further Balkanization undermines already faltering economic growth and trade. The technologies of

[p. 84 to 85](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=84) total domestic online surveillance creates a repressive model that undermines much of its previous moral authority. Iran surprises everyone by creating an effective national intranet that proves robust to outside intrusion, and sells it to many states that feel threatened by the oppressive climate of online espionage. This further Balkanization undermines already faltering economic growth and trade. The technologies of abundance are made illegal in many countries to protect old resource-intensive industries, which heightens resource shortages and the rising environmental problems in many parts of the world. The chronic cyber war between the US and China spills over into cyber attacks on resource supply lines which splits the world into separate spheres of economic influence and greatly weakens the US. The message of these simplified scenarios is that the Global Cyber Game could have widely different outcomes over a 10 to 20 year period into the future. The aim of this report is not primarily to create cyber-security scenarios but to assess possible strategies for playing the game with reference to what we value culturally. 143 By depicting the upside and downside extremes, these scenarios aim to show the stakes for which the game is being played. Many players will be focused on winning short term advantage in the Cyber Game. But no player can cash out, and the longer run stakes are so high that all strategies must ultimately be evaluated against the contribution they make to the bigger outcome. The Cyber Game is both a game of tactical advantage and a contest for the future of humanity, and this means lifting the game to a higher level of thinking than has been typical in the geopolitics of the past. 143 Scenarios can be used simply to explore different combinations of uncertainties, or can depict preferred (normative) or aversive futures, as here. Because the future remains persistently unknowable, both approaches are ultimately based on subjective judgments. The Global Cyber Game © 2013 79 www.da.mod.uk The Global Cyber Game © 2013 80 www.da.mod.uk N-topia scenario 2020 onwards Anopen, just, globally connected information environment prevails, buoying economic Free Lunch Rising Alarm prosperity and social equity. The Internet is r- architected, alleviating most security issues. period period Political cyber tensions ease and a UN human right for information is agreed. New information- 1990 to 2010 2010 to 2020 enabled technologies propel economic and social States and hackers explore development. and exploit cyberspace severe, but denial lingers. possibilities safe from Many organisations are slow N-crash detection or reprisals. Cyber to organise effective scenario players are in gung-ho responses. Intelligence experimental mode. Online agencies make good use of commerce bursts into life. cyber capabilities, but begin to 2020 onwards Surveillance is effective encounter blowback. National Cyberspace is a war zone, and the Internet is because targets are naive military organisations develop Balkanised defensively. Online insecurity and about vulnerabilities and doctrine, and militarise crime rises, and online trust declines. Cyber hacker capability. Defences cyberspace with possible risk espionage breeds pervasive suspicion of all are weak

[p. 85 to 86](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=85) but begin to 2020 onwards Surveillance is effective encounter blowback. National Cyberspace is a war zone, and the Internet is because targets are naive military organisations develop Balkanised defensively. Online insecurity and about vulnerabilities and doctrine, and militarise crime rises, and online trust declines. Cyber hacker capability. Defences cyberspace with possible risk espionage breeds pervasive suspicion of all are weak or non-existent, and to economic and social information technology market leaders, which though most activity is fairly development. Debate about random, a few far-sighted ethical concerns heats up. information-enabled technologies are widely players make substantial Long run implications are banned to protect incumbent firms, deepening positioning gains. poorly understood, but the resource shortages. The chronic US-China cyber experience base is growing. war undermines global unity and the world economy and culture regress. How the Cyber Game relates to cyberspace The Cyber Gameboard is closely related to cyberspace, but rather than existing in cyberspace, it would be more accurate to think of it as being on the surface of cyberspace. This can be understood by looking more closely at the meaning of cyber and cyberspace. The terms cyber and cyberspace are typically used in a fairly ambiguous way, and the words themselves need some clarification. In normal usage, according to the Oxford dictionary, ‘cyber’ is an adjective that means ‘relating to the culture of computer and information technology.’ Until recently the more popular word for this was online. The word cyber is a shortened version of cybernetics, the study of regulatory systems, which comes from the Greek word κυβερνητικός meaning good at steering. 144 Cyberspace is a noun that means, according to the Oxford dictionary, ‘the notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs.’ In defence circles, the word cyber is sometimes also used as a noun to mean either cyberspace or more generally the Internet or the net. The idea of cyberspace The notion of cyberspace originally came into use almost as a joke. The term was first used in the early 1980s by cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, who later said, ‘...it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page.’ 145 John Perry Barlow, who founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1990, famously said, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek, ‘cyberspace is where you are when you’re on the telephone.’ He also wrote in 1990 that ‘the ambiguophobes’ would soon want to define the conceptual map of cyberspace ‘with punitive over-precision.’ 146 And in 1994 Wolfgang Staehle, an artist and early online innovator, said of cyberspace, ‘I don’t know, if I try to define it today, I laugh about it tomorrow. It’s developing so fast.’ 147 In the years since, cyberspace has been adopted unquestioningly as a real thing and this presents a problem, at least for strategic analysis and operational purposes. The problem centers on the idea that the evocative but vague notion of

[p. 86 to 87](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=86) cyberspace, ‘I don’t know, if I try to define it today, I laugh about it tomorrow. It’s developing so fast.’ 147 In the years since, cyberspace has been adopted unquestioningly as a real thing and this presents a problem, at least for strategic analysis and operational purposes. The problem centers on the idea that the evocative but vague notion of cyberspace must first be precisely defined to make it operationally usable, just as John Perry Barlow anticipated. The search for a perfect definition of cyberspace mesmerizes the Western mind. It does not trouble the Russian or Chinese mind. Part of the problem is linguistic. In English, cyberspace clearly implies the existence of a space or place that can be treated much like any other space. But cyberspace has no middle or inside, nowhere that can be entered. The border of cyberspace is cyberspace. Its interior is non-existent, somewhat like the inside of a Klein 144 Henry Liddell & Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940) 145 William Gibson: No Maps for These Territories, directed by Mark Neale, UK: Docurama, 2000. 146 http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/crime_and_puzzlement_1.html accessed 14/02/13 147 http://www.lacan.com/frameVIII15.htm accessed 14/02/13 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 81 www.da.mod.uk bottle 148 (which is, approximately, a three dimensional version of the Möbius Strip). It could be said that cyberspace is a manifold of high-dimensionality with no ‘inside.’ 149 It is all surface, all boundary. A simple analogy would be with a sheet of fishing net, which has no ‘inside’. Each node of the Internet, each connected computer, sits on the boundary of cyberspace, accessible from outside the network by virtue of its physical existence, giving entry not to an inside but to an interactive networked medium. So cyberspace is not a space in the sense that it can be entered, occupied or conquered. It is not even the same thing as virtual space, although an infinite number of virtual spaces can be created, thanks to interfaces that simulate 3D environments. It would be less misleading to call cyberspace ‘electronic space’ or ‘computational space’ as that conveys the idea of networked computational power rather than a space similar to air or sea. It might be helpful to bring cyberspace down to earth by calling it ‘C-space’ to suggest computational space, while still keeping the link to cyberspace. The concept of C-space is difficult to pin down because it is not a physical thing, or at least it is only partly physical. It is a dynamic field-like phenomenon generated by the entire networked computational environment, including all the user inputs and outputs, the software, the processing, and the hardware that directly hosts these functions. The best analogy is the brain, with its physical structure, its neural activity, and its resulting mental phenomena all contributing to a sense of mental space. C-space is, in effect, the global brain with its physical infrastructures, computational processing, and resulting intangible cognitive augmentation effects. Any serious intent to act directly ‘in’ C-space (other than just disrupting it) would involve

[p. 87 to 88](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=87) The best analogy is the brain, with its physical structure, its neural activity, and its resulting mental phenomena all contributing to a sense of mental space. C-space is, in effect, the global brain with its physical infrastructures, computational processing, and resulting intangible cognitive augmentation effects. Any serious intent to act directly ‘in’ C-space (other than just disrupting it) would involve something equivalent to electronic psychology. Perhaps in the future it may be possible to work with ‘thought-like’ cognitive phenomena that arise literally within C-space itself and, thereby, influence human psychological responses. 150 For the moment, however, this prospect lies largely in the realm of science fiction. In practical terms, thinking of C-space primarily as a boundary or surface yields a number of useful insights. Because C-space is not a place it cannot be entered by any physical object or person, therefore all users, and all physical objects acted on through C-space, are on the outside surface of the boundary. The boundary itself can be regarded as the interface between human consciousness and the ‘cognitive augmentation field’ of C-space. For the most part this interface is at the meeting point between an individual human awareness and the sensory affordances 151 of a computational device (e.g. the screen and keyboard). This means that the frontier of C-space is everywhere online individuals are. An organization may operate in C-space, but networked individuals must always act as its avatars, so to speak. In many cases, these individuals do not need to use their real-world identities. Indeed, the 148 http://www.kleinbottle.com/whats_a_klein_bottle.htm accessed 14/02/13 & http://plus.maths.org/content/imaging-maths-inside-klein-bottle accessed 14/02/13 149 From commentary submitted to the Inquiry by Smari McCarthy 150 Ben Cerveny, The Luminous Bath http://liftconference.com/videos/ben-cerveny accessed 14/02/13 151 James J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers,1986), p.127 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 82 www.da.mod.uk activist movement Anonymous demonstrates that an entire network of online actors can operate without any reference to their real-world identities. 152 All connected citizens of all countries live on the frontier, and they directly face the citizens of all other countries as individuals across the no-human’s-land of C-space. This brings all global cultures into direct contact, and makes online culture shock a likely source of friction if not conflict (e.g. the Danish cartoons episode 153). At the same time, over the longer run it should tend to bring all cultures into much greater comfort with each other. The limitations of C-space as a new domain or environment It is very tempting to imagine that C-space is fully analogous to familiar operational spaces such as air and sea, as they appear to provide a ready-made model for security thinking. In the native English-speaking (and Francophone) world, much emerging thinking about cyber security rests on the idea that a new military domain or environment 154 called cyberspace has come into being, and that it needs to be made secure for the state, commerce, and citizens— with preparation even being made for military operations ‘in’ cyberspace. Unfortunately

[p. 88 to 89](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=88) model for security thinking. In the native English-speaking (and Francophone) world, much emerging thinking about cyber security rests on the idea that a new military domain or environment 154 called cyberspace has come into being, and that it needs to be made secure for the state, commerce, and citizens— with preparation even being made for military operations ‘in’ cyberspace. Unfortunately the cultural and operational limits of this perspective are likely to lead to the risk of being strategically blindsided by players such as Russia and China, as well as leading to incomplete operational doctrine. 152 http://canopycanopycanopy.com/15/our_weirdness_is_free accessed 30/03/13 153 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy accessed 14/02/13 154 MoD Operational Doctrine manual, ‘Campaigning - Joint Doctrine Publication 01’ MoD DCDC, 2nd Edition, December 2008 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 83 www.da.mod.uk One way of categorizing state cyber actors would be in terms of those who want to play according to the rules as far as they can discern them, those who simply make use of whatever information potential is available, and those who make use of whatever information technology potential is available. The Russians think of Western countries as ‘rule-based’ players, but do not regard themselves as being limited by the same rules. The rule-based players tend to want clear definitions as a basis for codifying the rules, while the more opportunistic players simply take action and may gain an unforeseen advantage. It would be more constructive, therefore, to shift from thinking about trying to do things ‘in’ C-space, which strictly speaking remains an illusion, to thinking instead about the comprehensive control of effects produced via C-space. This is both a more accurate interpretation of the technical reality and more closely focused on fundamental operational objectives. A growing feature of our highly networked world is that more and more effects achieved in physical space are actuated via C-space, that is to say a growing number of actions in physical space are dependent on and determined by information flowing through C-space. Increasingly, flows of information through C-space are directly determining physical flows and actions in real space, to the extent that this is giving rise to a new hybrid space that can be called flow-space (abbreviated here to F-space), after the ‘space of flows’ concept originally articulated by sociologist Manuel Castells. 155. If there is a new operating domain or environment, a good case can be made that it is F-space, not C-space. The distinction between C-space and F-space brings useful insights to the Cyber Game which, at the risk of introducing additional new terms, are worth exploring. The anatomy of F-space An increasing number of Internet nodes are mobile, and their movements and actions in real space are partly or completely determined by information flowing to them from C-space. These mobile nodes range from individuals in the street with smartphones, to container ships on the high seas, to stock-picking robots in warehouses. 156 All actors now exist in an environment of globally integrated flows on which they depend for their prosperity and even existence,

[p. 89 to 91](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/cyber/20130508-Cyber_report_final_U.pdf#page=89) in real space are partly or completely determined by information flowing to them from C-space. These mobile nodes range from individuals in the street with smartphones, to container ships on the high seas, to stock-picking robots in warehouses. 156 All actors now exist in an environment of globally integrated flows on which they depend for their prosperity and even existence, meaning they are socially and economically entangled, and highly interdependent in real time. F-space is this dynamic aspect of physical space, encompassing all movement and action in the real world that is actuated via C-space. Movement in F-space is a blend of movements and actions determined in the ordinary way by direct contact with the physical world, in combination with movements determined by a flow of information from C-space, which may range from sensor data, map information, routing instructions, customer orders, to social contact coordinates. In the future it will be increasingly important to be able fluidly and elegantly to coordinate complex interacting combinations that include people, cyborgs, 157 remotely piloted aircraft, semi-autonomous 155 Manuel Castells, Communication Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 156 http://www.forbes.com/sites/markpmills/2012/03/23/amazons-kiva-robot-acquisition-is-bullish-for- both-amazon-and-american-jobs/ accessed 14/02/13 157 A cyborg, short for ‘cybernetic organism’, is a being with both organic and cybernetic parts The Global Cyber Game © 2013 84 www.da.mod.uk robots, 158 transport equipment, and even moveable parts of buildings. This capability will be a hallmark of efficient operations, from the factory floor to public entertainment spectaculars. This is also relevant to military manoeuvres in that network connectivity is already pervasive for all aspects of military equipment, platforms and personnel, and manoeuvres are increasingly coordinated by data-flows through C-space (in this case, not necessarily the public Internet). This networked warfighting is known as Network Centric Warfare (NCW), and it is likely to evolve towards sophisticated F-space capability (rather than C-space capability) as a critical new factor that will help determine the conduct and outcome of operations. F- space capability will involve C-space skills, but the primary focus of military cyber expertise will be support for seamless orchestration of ‘sense and shoot’ activity in F-space. The future battlefield looks set to contain huge numbers of mobile nodes, including thousands of robots of all sizes, drones, soldiers with robotic exoskeletons, smart-dust sensors, conventional aircraft, and walking vehicles. The highly specialized knowledge and skills required to do this well make it likely that the ‘flow-space’ function will need to become an operational component of military operations. Military expertise in F-space operations as authorized under the international Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) will need support in C-space that is likely to be fielded by future incarnations of today’s electronic intelligence gathering agencies. These C-space activities could include intelligence-gathering, surveillance, infiltration of remote computers, exfiltration and 158 http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/automotive/news/robots-to-organise-themselves-like-a-swarm- of-insects/1012101.article accessed 14/02/13 The Global Cyber Game © 2013 85 www.da.mod.uk manipulation of data, and C-space interdiction. In the United Kingdom these would need to be authorized under the 1994 Intelligence Services Act (ISA). 159 In fact many aspects of what are currently being thought

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Continues in https://guptaoption.com/texts/143-8.md (part 8 of 10).
End of [143] The Global Cyber Game: Achieving strategic resilience in the global knowledge society, part 7 of 10. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.