Concepts of Cyberspace

Jordan Ashby

Image One: Rule of Law in Cyberspace

“Cyberspace is an alternate geography that needs to be seen, witnessed, and experienced in order to exist” (Barnes, 1997). Cyberspace allows for endless possibilities within the universe but is not so easily understandable. Mapping out cyberspace allows for the areas within that are not easily accessible or understood to then be. Passages of the cyber-flanuer puts it simply, by discovering that cyberspace is a “prison of infinite space but is not entirely mappable” (Barnes, 1997). “The patterns of virtual lives are clear enough to be mapped. The virtual world and its social order can be traced now in its entirety from pole to pole. This does not mean that all areas are perfectly known” (Jordan, n/a). 

As explained in the previous blog I was discussing the issues with Instagram following the concepts of power. But this week discussing cyberspace opens a whole new ball park with Instagram. Instagram while being a social media domain also allows for this concept of cyberspace and discovering the realm of cyberspace to be interpreted. Instagram is this massive media network, a cyberspace arena. People have no idea where their image/s could go or who has that access to view, unless you choose to privatise your account, but truthfully where is the fun in that. It allows for a level of control on what you want to produce and what you want people to see, but what if you want your pictures to get out there, travel to all different places, to be shown to all different people, maybe that’s how you truly get your name out. But with that does come major responsibility for the people viewing. You literally trust them with your photos, who is to say they won’t steal them and use them as their own or worse use them to make criminal advances, it’s a scary world out there and you truly have to be careful of what you put out there, especially how much.

This theory about the passages of cyber space benefits us because it’s a whole other arena, we don’t know how far it exceeds the realm of possibilities. We may never know the depths that it has or where it ends but that’s the mystery in dealing with something so large and so unusual.  We may think that posting one photo won’t do that much damage but that one photo may never go away and ruin all chances at having a solid life. Us as a human race think we can do anything and everything and will never get that damaged or that hurt but we are just as weak as our weakest link and it does only take one thing to truly break us. “We’re smart and have skills and such, but we’re not that extraordinary,” (Miller, n/a).

References

Jr, O’Harrow Robert. (2012). Understanding cyberspace is key to defending against digital attacks. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/understanding-cyberspace-is-key-to-defending-againstdigital-attacks/2013/06/03/d46860f8-ad58-11e4-9c91-e9d2f9fde644_story.html?utm_term=.a5140820662f

Barnes, Gaylene. (1997). BA1002: Our Space: Network, Narratives and the Making of Place Lecture 4: Maps [Readings]. Retrieved from http://www.raynbird.com/essays/Passage_Flaneur.html

Jordan, Tim. (n/a). Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace. Retrieved from https://www.isoc.org/inet99/proceedings/3i/3i_1.htm

Hildebrandt, Mireille. (2013). The Rule of Law in Cyberspace. Retrieved from http://labs.sogeti.com/the-rule-of-law-in-cyberspace-by-mireille-hildebrandt/