A history of the word 'cyber'

1. CYBER

2. 1948 Norbert Weiner coins the term cybernetics: The control of complex systems in the animal world and in mechanical networks; in particular self-regulating control systems Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (MIT Press, 1948).

3. 1960 The cyborgwas born: Medicalresearch into surgically or mechanically augmenting humans or animals Then zeitgeisty talk of cybernation & cybernocracy to describe the encroach of computers into administrative affairs

4. Sci-fi gave birth to cyberspace (and cyberpunk) 1982

5. Late 90s By the time of the dot-com boom and the Millennium Bug, cyber has become a media fad: Cybersex Cybercafes Douglas Rushkoff& cyberculture

6. 2010 Today the head of GCHQ Iain Lobbensaid: “I, as a national security official, am giving a speech about cyber” [sic] "Cyberspace is contested every day, every hour, every minute, every second. I can vouch for that from the displays in our own operations centre of minute-by-minute cyberattemptsto penetrate systems around the world."

7. Iain Lobben: "There is an opportunity which we can seize if government and the telecommunications sector, hardware and software vendors, and managed service providers can come together. "It's an opportunity to develop a holistic approach to cyber security that makes UK networks intrinsically resilient in the face of cyber threats. Cyber threat Cyber attack Cyber terrorism Cyber strategy Stuxnet worm heralds new era of cyberwar The biggest threat was from "state actors," said Lord West, but the threat from terrorists was also growing and he warned that future targets could include key businesses, the national power grid, financial markets and Whitehall departments. Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Tom Brake: "The cyber security strategy uses broad, undefined terms that risk creating panic among the public and a demand for further government powers.”

8. The history of the word CYBER

9. We can only think using language. Words have histories. Meaning is defined by use. Does this mean the higher ranks of the military are thinking about their own technology through the lens of science fiction?

10. (We already know they’re reading post-structuralist social theory...)