Download - Foreign Military Studies Office - U.S. Army

Jihad” listed the terms cyberattack, cyberwar, cyberterrorism, cybervandalism,
and cybersecurity in one short article. 12 A Google search for the term cyber
yielded 25,600,000 hits!
The term “cyber” enjoys widespread use for good reason—it has been
around for years. The word evolved from cybernetics, a term first written about
at the end of the 1940s. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines
cybernetics as “the science of communication and control theory that is
concerned especially with the comparative study of automatic control systems
(as the nervous system and brain and mechanical-electrical communication
systems).” 13 Perhaps the most famous early cybernetic book was that of Norbert
Wiener, who wrote Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal
and the Machine. Later, in 1954, he wrote The Human Use of Human Beings.
He stated that
It is the thesis of this book that society can only be understood through
a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong
to it; and that in the future development of these messages and
communication facilities, messages between man and machines,
between machines and man, and between machine and machine, are
destined to play an ever increasing part. 14
Cyber-based products have become the backbone of modern societies.
They are used by a host of institutions and organizations to not only support
their contemporary security environments but also to conduct their daily
activities and advance their interests. Computer and telecommunication
businesses across the globe battle one another for customers on each continent.
In turn they create a communications infrastructure that enables both business
and the population of these countries to operate with the efficiency and
precision once reserved for government, military, and security services.
A look at the newspaper on nearly any day of the year confirms just
how widespread cyber-related technologies have become. A recent report noted
that the average Internet user in the US spends three hours a day online. Use of
the Internet has thus replaced much of the time previously spent watching TV
and performing other activities according to the Stanford Institute for the
Quantitative Study of Society. 15 Other examples abound. Surgeons now use
12 Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, “Virtual Jihad,” Newsweek, 10 February 2005,
from CNO/IO Newsletter, Vol. 5, No. 10, 8-18 February 2005.
13 Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as downloaded on 20 February 2005.
14 Downloaded from www.angelfire.com, “Norbert Wiener Quotes.”
15 John Markoff, “Internet Use Said to Cut into TV Viewing and Socializing,” The New
15