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The expanding scope of cybersecurity

This chapter explores the history of cyberspace and related security concerns, from the creation of computers to the present day. The development of computers has been spurred on by human innovation, from mechanical tabulators to digital machines linked together in networks. Security concerns have played a central role in this history. The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom funded early research into computers during the Second World War to improve anti-aircraft defense and codebreaking. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the US Department of Defense (DoD) sponsored much of the early research into computing and the development of computer networks to advance US capabilities and power. This stream of government funding has allowed scientists, in government, academia and the industry, to develop computers and networking as a collaborative tool to share resources and information. Openness and transparency - two values that are essential to the scientific process - guided their work, and helped to shape the early development of what would become the Internet.

Growing access to computers spurred on a number of online communities, allowing humans to express themselves and interact in a new domain: cyberspace. Human activities such as commerce and entertainment, but also espionage and theft, found new expressions online. The 1990s witnessed a rise of cyber threats affecting all levels of society and government. Cyberspace became a cause of concern for governments who feared that the sensitive data they kept on computers could be stolen, manipulated and potentially weaponized, to damage national defense, the economy or even the social fabric of society. As human reliance on computers has expanded, cyberspace has provided new opportunities to exert power, and to threaten the domestic and international order.

Today, cyberspace is a complex socio-technical-economic environment embraced by 3 billion individuals, and millions of groups and communities. All these actors benefit from the opportunities, facilitated by cyberspace, to share resources and information. Yet digital networks host an ever-growing number of cyber threats, which can disrupt human activities, in the digital and physical world. Cyberspace is now a global security issue that transcends national, social and cultural boundaries. As a result, cybersecurity has begun to emerge as an important issue in the field of International Relations, where researchers and practitioners are only now starting to consider the nature of cyber threats, and the most appropriate frameworks for mitigating them.

A brief history of the computer

The history of the computer can be traced back to nineteenth-century England, when mathematics professor Charles Babbage designed his analytical engine. Machines like the analytical engine relied on mechanical components such as levers and gears to compute complex calculations. What distinguished Babbage's machine from others - at least on paper, since his engine never came close to being built - was that it was programmable. While machines could only perform a single function, computers like Babbage's could be programmed to perform multiple functions.1 New applications for mechanical computers emerged in the following decades. American inventor Herman Hollerith developed a method of storing information as holes punched into cards. His machine was used to tabulate the 1890 US census.2 The US military developed mechanical computers to improve the use of bombsights on military aircraft in the 1930s. An aimer would input parameters such as speed, altitude and direction, and the bombsight calculated the point at which to aim.3 Human "computers" continued to direct the "program" for these machines. This dependence on humans limited the speed at which mechanical computers could support their activities.

The first generation of electronic computers emerged in the 1930s. This new technology used electric relays and switches to make calculations. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), created by physics professor John Vincent Atanasoff and his graduate assistant Clifford Berry, is often considered to be the first electronic digital computer. The ABC was designed to solve systems of linear equations using binary numbers. The first prototype of the ABC was built in 1939, with the final rendition weighing more than 700 pounds. The advent of the Second World War oriented research into electronic computers. In the United States, researchers working at the Bell Laboratories developed an anti-aircraft gun director, the M-9, that could direct itself without human interaction using data fed by radar tracking. On the other side of the Atlantic, British codebreakers built another set of electronic computers, called the Colossus, to decode text generated by the Lorenz cipher, which was used by the German army to protect high-level messages. The use of these computers was characterized by a high level of secrecy, which limited any subsequent transfer of knowledge to the research and commercial sectors.4 Storybox 1.1 presents a brief history of the ENIAC (figure 1.1), one of the first electronic general-purpose computers ever made, which is sometimes presented as the prototype from which most modern computers evolved.

Storybox 1.1 The ENIAC

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the US government and a group of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania completed the Electronic Numerator, Integrator, Analyzer and Computer (ENIAC). Unlike the ABC or Colossus, the ENIAC ran calculations at electronic speed, without being slowed by any mechanical parts. The ENIAC was also the first general-purpose computer, able to solve a large set of numerical problems through re-programming. Despite its versatility, this new computer was primarily used to calculate artillery firing tables, taking over the work of hundreds of humans working on missile tables.5 The development of the ENIAC inspired a number of similar projects seeking to develop programmable computers that could store information.6

Figure 1.1 ENIAC, c.1946 (University of Pennsylvania Archives)

The next generation of computers emerged in 1947 and was characterized by the use of transistors, which increased their reliability.7 This second generation was the first to be used for commercial purposes, leading, most notably, to the success of International Business Machines (IBM), a company aiming to produce computers for all. By the end of the 1950s, dozen of companies contributed to an emerging computer industry in the United States and the United Kingdom, but also in continental Europe and Japan. The development of general-purpose computers required programs to give them functionality. The development of computer programming languages (to facilitate the tasking of computers) and operating systems (to manage the flow of work of a computer), throughout the 1950s, eventually led to the distinction between hardware and software.8 The US DoD maintained an essential role, sponsoring specific computer languages and operating systems, and indirectly driving the industry.9 Computers remained extremely expensive, which limited the market for them and, by extension, their uses. By 1962, there were around 10,000 computers worldwide, most of them located in the United States.

The invention of the integrated circuit allowed for the development of a third generation of computers. The minicomputers that arose in the mid-1960s were smaller, more powerful and more reliable. A new digital (r)evolution was taking place. Computers moved from being a government machine, to an esoteric hobby and then, finally, to a household item. A number of inventions facilitated this evolution. Human-computer interactions improved following the invention of multiple tiled windows on computer screens, text-editing software, and the mouse.10 New financial and manufacturing applications contributed to the emergence of a market for software and further expanded the uses of computers.11 Developments in hardware, specifically the creation of affordable personal computers (PCs), significantly widened access to computers, inspired new uses and forged communities of practice. In 1975, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs announced the Apple II computer, an off-the-shelf computer targeted directly for the consumer and small businesses. A few years later, IBM introduced its first PC. At a cost of $1,565, this PC was not beyond the reach of small companies and hobbyists. The percentage of American households with computers more than doubled in the 1980s, and continued to expand exponentially in the 1990s, eventually exceeding 40%.12 In 2014, 80% of adults in the United States, 78% in Russia, 59% in China, 55% in Brazil and (only) 11% in India had a working computer in their household.13 In a little over half a century, government support and scientific innovation transformed the digital computer from an advanced research tool to a household item. The increasingly prominent role played by computers in modern society has opened up countless opportunities for individual pursuits.

An open network of networks

The convergence between computing and communication is a defining feature of the digital age. Networked communication over wires has existed since the telegraph (1844), and evolved with the creation of the telephone (1876) and the teletype writer (1914). These machines all rely on circuits to communicate signals, voice or written...