Cyberjerk 2023
We look into the origins of the word 'cyber' and where it came from. It's meaning and application has changed over time and it's useful to see how the definition has evolved.
I was vaguely interested in where the word ‘cyber’ came from and some time ago I picked up ‘The Human use of Human Beings - Cybernetics and Society’ by Norbert Wiener. It is an interesting read drawing from many concepts across science, religion, philosophy, psychology, and even Alice in Wonderland. Needless to say, I fell down the rabbit hole and what I found wasn’t necessarily what I was expecting.
Within security we are plagued with a term, and that term is ‘cyber’. It has become a shorthand prefix for making things sound cool and edgy. Although I appreciate cyber where it is used in the context of a dystopian hellscape, it’s over application in the security industry has cheapened the term to be an advance indicator of something I will have little interest in. That being said, there are some intriguing notes about the etymology which allows us to reconsider reconsider how we think of ‘cyber’.
Norbert Wiener coined the term Cybernetics in the late 1940’s as a description for an emerging field of work. He had been trying to ascertain the ramifications of a nexus of concepts oriented around the interaction of humans and machines. He needed a word to describe the endeavour. To paraphrase, this is relating to theory of messages, electrical engineering theory, the study of language, and the study of messages as a way of controlling machinery and society, and the development of computing machines and other such automata. This was all underpinned by a larger theory of messages which is probabilistic theory. Additionally, philosophical, and psychological considerations are explored around these concepts. The intersection of these ideas is complex by virtue of their constituent parts. Perhaps in some way Wiener was trying to describe the philosophical basis for our relationship with machines.
The following statement could be used to summarise the term Cybernetics, but we need to be mindful of the extended definition as a single line doesn’t adequately articulate its full scope.
“Control and communications in the animal and machine.”
Wiener explains that he derived Cybernetics from the Greek word Kubernetes and gives three main components of Cybernetics that are communication, control, and feedback. Wiener doesn’t differentiate between animal and machine insofar that control can be exerted onto a machine or animal through messaging and communication. Essentially when you communicate with something, you are providing it an input and the existence of feedback is a manifestation of an aspect of your control with what you are communicating with. He clearly had in mind a requirement for there to be an electrical component given the upfront inclusion of electrical engineering theory. He was talking about machines and computers essentially. So when we see articles on the ‘first cyber attack’ being against Napoleonic semaphore systems in 1834, we should probably raise an eyebrow to those claims.
The Greek word Kubernetes means steersman or the person giving steerage or direction. Kubernetes is where we derive the word Governance. This seems to be a fitting parallel to Wiener's view but we have relegated the term Cyber to considerations of pure IT. We talk in terms of applying controls to mitigate specific things, or how to meet control objectives. We are not the steering hand that guides the course, we are the scrambling fools with buckets bailing out the boat because we sailed directly into the storm. What we have missed in the application is Wiener’s included aspects of the human element, exertion of control, and the construct of messaging and communication.
The term cyber was then used at various points in Sci-Fi writing from the 80’s with the first being Bruce Bethke’s “Cyberpunk”. This became the name of the genre and it explored complex issues of morality, machines, and the impact on society. The genre seemed to persist the themes that Wiener outlined (at least in sentiment). But it did also introduce the “stereotype of the punk hacker with a mohawk”. And it is perhaps this stereotype of alienated loners the permeated into “cyber security”.
From there it has been prefixed onto every other word under the surface of the sun. Cyber security, cyberpunk, cyber space, cybersex, cyber-crime, cyber-attack, cybercafé, cybergoth. This list could go on to nauseating extremes but I’ll grant you the small mercy of not going further with it.
What we had was a thoughtful and considered definition that required reflection and understanding. What we did was obliterate it into parody through ill-considered overuse. Like many things, contemporary reinterpretation has acid stripped the nuance and subtlety away. We have gone from thinking about the societal to the parochial, from conceptual to configuration, from philosophy to step by step instructions. Industry bodies gives us reductive definitions such as the following which shows how the modern conceptualisation orients around the device and omits the core sentiment of Wiener’s explanation.
“cybersecurity
Prevention of damage to, protection of, and restoration of computers, electronic communications systems, electronic communications services, wire communication, and electronic communication, including information contained therein, to ensure its availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and nonrepudiation.”
We could say that cybersecurity is not cybernetics and that would be correct. But there has been a devolution in the scope of application for the term cyber on a fundamental basis. Wiener was somewhat prophetic in this sense musing on the Gibbsian impact on modern life saying “as entropy increases, the universe, and all closed systems within the universe, tend naturally to deteriorate and lose their distinctiveness”. And this is exactly what we see in the language we use today.
But revisiting the origins gives us some insight as to its intended use at least.