Pym, D; (2021) The Origins of Cyberspace. In: Cornish, P, (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Cybersecurity. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.

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Abstract

‘Cyberspace’ is a romantic term, introduced in the elegant science-fiction writing of William Gibson, but the concepts that make up the environment called ‘cyberspace’ are the stuff of real science, with origins that can be traced to ancient Greece. Much has been written about the origins of cyberspace, including a comprehensive sourcebook by Hook and Norman. This chapter tries to take a rather conceptual view of what constitutes cyberspace, tracing the origins of the ideas from fourth-century BCE Greece to the modern Internet-supported interaction space—throughout the discussion, the chapter will seek to elucidate the concept of ‘space’ and how it helps us to think about the cyber-world. On the way, the chapter considers the literary origin of the word, and the mathematical and logical theory that is required to build models of cyberspace.

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