Cyberspace

Cyberspace is not something that I’ve ever really contemplated before. There is now doubt that cyberspace has been in my vocabulary from a young age, and yet I never fully understood what it meant. So naturally when I was assigned to choose one out of a list of descriptions or definitions of what cyberspace is, I was a little overwhelmed with the daunting task. So I went with what I understand to be true.

With that in mind the definition that stuck me the most was the third:

“Cyberspace: Accessed through any computer linked into the system; a place, one place, limitless; entered equally from a basement in Vancouver, a boat in Port-au-Prince, a cab in New York, a garage in Texas City, an apartment in Rome, an office in Hong Kong, a bar in Kyoto, a café in Kinshasa, a laboratory on the moon.”

So the one thing that I do understand is that with today’s technology you can link to this thing called cyberspace. Once connected to cyberspace you can transfer data to, from, and between electronic devices. There are many internet providers offering many different levels of connection speeds. There are wireless connections, cable connections, connections over the phone line and who knows what the future may hold. With all these differences, one thing remains the same … the information. No matter how much you pay for a connection to cyberspace it still hold the same information, the same data, the same set of 0’s and 1’s. You can be anywhere in the world or even out of this world, and connect to this vast amount of information. Sure in some places, like China, some information is blocked or filtered presumably for the protection or other reasons, but all the same information is still there. It’s all one big pool of information that can be accessed from any number of locations. Which brings me back to the definition above; one place, one source, accessible from virtually anywhere.