"More than two decades after novelist William Gibson coined the term cyberspace as a 'consensual hallucination' of data... the Pentagon has come up with its own definition,"* *Inside Defense reports. "A May 12 'for official use only' memo signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon
England... offers a 28-word meaning for the term."
It is decidedly "less poetic" than Gibson's. It is different from previous military definitions. And it doesn't exactly square with how the Air Force's new "Cyberspace Command" sees this emerging battlefield.
The Pentagon's definition will “serve as the foundation” upon which the Defense Department will “further mature this warfighting domain,” England writes. And "it is not the first time the U.S. government has tried to define, or redefine, cyberspace,"* Inside Defense* notes.
Major General William T. Lord, the chief of the Air
Force's new Cyberspace Command, expanded that definition evern further, saying, "We define the domain as the entire electromagnetic spectrum."
Everything from microwaves to radio to lasers to x-rays, on other words. He sees his fledgling force conducting "not just [c]omputer network operations, but [a]lso [e]lectronic warfare, electronic combat and even, potentially, directed energy."
Exactly how that will square with the Pentagon new definition of cyberspace remains to be seen.
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