Networker: Where is cyberspace?
Where is cyberspace?
Log on to the internet. Chances are there is someone already logged on who you know or might be interested in "chatting" (taking turns to type messages to each other in real time). The two (or more) of you could be in the same city or in different parts of the world. The messages probably go via other countries as well. So where is the activity happening?
There is a term for this: cyberspace. It is somewhere independent of the real world, somewhere that consists of electrons, messages and imagination.
Internet-based games are based on the same idea. Here the disconnection from the real world is often emphasised by the mythological features of the game.
Some games go further, creating communities of disembodied participants who spend much of their lives in cyberspace. Many of these communities have distinctly feudal or autocratic characteristics. Nevertheless, they have given millions of users an opportunity to experiment with how they present themselves, often pretending to have a different gender, age or other characteristics.
Theories have been developed about how, in this new "cyberworld", national boundaries are breaking down, the state apparatus is becoming irrelevant, a new cyber-society is being formed.
There is a hint of truth. The success of the internet in allowing tens of millions of people to communicate is increasingly at odds with capitalist concepts such as patents and copyright. Capitalist courts across the world are trying to tie the internet into some sort of commodity distribution mechanism. This illustrates how capitalism has passed its use-by date when it comes to helping technology develop for social use.
But how ethereal is cyberspace?
Take the case of on-line gambling. Major legal battles are currently underway. Several Australian state governments have distinguished themselves as the most greedy, pro-internet gambling jurisdictions in the world.
The United States, on the other hand (with its own gambling industry at the forefront), heads the campaign against internet gambling. How can the US government stop its citizens logging on to foreign gambling sites? It tells companies that if they knowingly let any US-based gambler spend money with such a site, any public officer of that company who sets foot in the US could be arrested. In early August, the first chief of an off-shore gambling company was jailed after visiting the US.
When cyberspace comes to earth it looks awfully like it is back in the USA.
BY GREG HARRIS