Cyberspace Outcast

Author: Ye Ping, Luo Zhixin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: True genius is very valuable, and entrepreneurship is initially centered around genius. During the development stage of a company, comprehensive organizational ability is more important, requiring different skills. Geniuses often cannot cooperate with others, and cooperation is more important than genius. — Simonni
At first, Apar created the ARPANET. The ARPANET was empty and dark, and the spirit of Apar walked upon it. Apar said, "There should be a protocol," and there was a protocol. Apar saw it was good. Apar said, "There should be more protocols." And so it was, Apar saw it was good. Apar said, "There should be more networks." And so it became.
White-tiled rooftop rooms, filled with control panels, with dashboard lights twinkling like stars. Case sat down, put on his skin-tight headgear, and watched dust fly in the faint light coming through the skylight from above. A countdown timer was displayed in one corner of the monitor screen. The display screamed a warning for the last three seconds. Three, two, one, start! Cyberspace appeared before him from four bases, gradually pulling closer, enveloping him. Case closed his eyes, reached out and pressed the switch, the electrodes on his skin-tight headgear connecting. Suddenly, in the blindingly white eyes, silver visions rolled in from the edge of space, like randomly edited movies flashing by—symbols, shadows, faces, a strong field of fragmented and unclear visual images.
"Quick!" he prayed. A gray disc began to rotate, getting faster and faster, gradually turning into a light gray sphere, growing larger. Smooth neon-shaped scenes unfolded before his eyes, extending into infinite space, as if all of it was flowing for him. He saw the stepped red pyramid of the East Coast Nuclear Division, blinking behind the green cube of Mitsubishi Bank in the U.S., and higher up, he saw the spiral weapons of the military system. Case had a strange feeling, as if he were in the cockpit of an airplane, flying at a speed beyond any flying object, rapidly passing through layers of emerald and milky white walls. He spun over the boundless wilderness without a horizon, the blue-topped towers rushing past beneath his feet. Strangely, each tower seemed to be made of dense data, somewhat resembling the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
"Boston," a voice came from afar, "you're down." Case activated the second program, a carefully designed virus swiftly flew toward the glass curtain wall of the network consortium center. The pyramid emitted a sharp, piercing alarm. The virus instantly broke through the main defensive barrier constructed with electronic countermeasures, creating a window. Case followed the virus in, only to find it was another boundless blue space. Ahead of him, a huge sphere of colored code hovered. He couldn’t hesitate, squeezing himself into the spherical dome of the sphere. Case’s hands instinctively tapped the keyboard, typing program code he had bought from a mid-level employee with a serious addiction problem. Soon, as the subroutines activated, the core monitoring command of the colored code sphere was finally modified. He smoothly turned around, the virus mending the fiber of the window. Only then did Case feel the burning pain on his left thigh.
In 1984, William Gibson (W.Gibson), an American science fiction writer who moved to Canada, wrote a long and strange story for us, titled Neuromancer. This novel was immediately praised by readers and critics, receiving rave reviews and becoming a bestseller, winning the three major science fiction awards: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. Gibson was thus instantly famous.
Gibson’s novel was novel and vivid. It described Case, a rebel and a cyber-roamer, who, after experiencing poverty and humiliation, was forced to take a job with a multinational company and sent to the vast space of the global computer network to execute a highly risky mission. To enter this vast space, Case didn’t need a spaceship or a rocket; he only needed to implant a plug into his brain, connect the electrodes, and then perceive the computer network. When the network merged with human consciousness, he could roam within it. In this vast space, there were no high mountains, deserts, towns, or villages—only a huge three-dimensional information database and various information flowing at high speed.
With his story, Gibson vividly told us that "there is another real space beyond the screen of the computer, a space invisible to people but known to exist. It is a real realm of activity, almost like a landscape painting." The space Gibson imagined could not only contain human thoughts but also include systems created by humans, such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality systems, and even things created by God. Heidegger described in the mid-20th century: "We are entering an age of world pictures, where the world has become a series of pictures for humans." Gibson’s science fiction story perfectly validated the prophecy of this philosophical master.
In this novel, Gibson coined a strange term—"cyberspace." He told reporters that the inspiration for "cyberspace" came from a group of children playing computer games. Through their intoxicated gazes, he suddenly felt that there must be a virtual place between their minds and the computer screens—"cyber." We know that "cyber" was not by Gibson but originated from the new term "cybernetics" coined by the American scientist and father of cybernetics, Robert Wiener. In a sense, outstanding science fiction writers are also futurists. Children still love to read Jules Verne’s novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island today, even though his scientific fantasies, such as submarines and spaceships, have mostly become reality. Conversely, futurists are like science fiction writers. When Toffler and Naisbitt’s wild theories about the information age reached China, weren’t we also immersed in a sermons-like illusion? Science fiction writer Gibson’s creation of "cyberspace" vividly reflects the connection between computers (electronic) and human brains (biological), as well as computer network culture (spiritual), and carries more cultural significance of the computer and network era. It was widely recognized by computer network enthusiasts and even the computer science community, and "cyber" even gained the same meaning as "computer" and "net," becoming a prefix that gives rise to many new computer and network terms.
In the knowledge economy era, we will all live in two "universes." One is the material world composed of atoms and molecules, and the other is the virtual world composed of digital data, i.e., the world of cyberspace. To be precise, cyberspace is a virtual world of thought and information, using the information superhighway as its basic platform. Through computers, it enables emotional and cultural exchanges between people without face-to-face contact, as long as one types on the keyboard. Cyberspace culture is a unique culture of the knowledge economy era. As Michael Sullivan pointed out: "The tools we currently use for communication are personal computers and networks. By using these tools, the information superhighway will drive and greatly expand our transformation into cyberspace culture, a new culture whose are everywhere. Its characteristic is not electronic communication—just an accessory—but rather the nature of interactivity that marks cyberspace."
Perhaps Gibson himself doesn’t think this way. The word derived from his "cyber," the most famous one in English, is actually "cyberpunk," which also refers to those people we despise as "hackers." Whether Gibson likes it or not, his name may forever be linked with "cyberpunk" and even "computer hackers." Any book that describes the history of hackers must give a prominent place to Gibson and his Neuromancer. Gibson himself is indeed an "outlier" among science fiction writers. Born in a small town in South Carolina in 1948, Gibson grew up in an environment deprived of cultural rights. After a fire destroyed the only library in the town, no one cared about rebuilding this "spiritual home." He recalled that this environment could only make him think wildly, and his rebellion was to search for and read science fiction books as much as possible. During high school, he was expelled from the U.S. draft board for strongly opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam and dropped out of school, moving to Toronto, Canada, and later settling in Vancouver. In the early 1970s, Canada was similar to the U.S., where many young people revered the "hippie" culture and were mostly fans of the rock band "The Rolling Stones." "Punk" was the term used in the rock music scene at the time, referring to young rock musicians who wore strange clothes, were aggressive, dissatisfied, and had a strong rebellious spirit. The young Gibson naturally immersed himself in this cultural atmosphere. He attended university there, choosing an easy science course to graduate as quickly as possible. However, faced with the dull graduation thesis, Gibson felt very distressed. His teacher told him, "If you can write a science story, you can also substitute it for a thesis to earn credit." Gibson accepted this challenge and, after three months of torment, completed his first science fiction novel, which became his lifelong passion.
With his rebellious spirit, Gibson’s characters were naturally not "upright gentlemen." Using complex, and incorporating a lot of modern high-tech content, he vividly portrayed a series of imaginary "rebels," combining microchips, computer networks, and the future of bioengineering with computer hackers and intelligent robots to create a utopia. From then on, the term "punk" came to refer to cultural rebels, also known as "urban computer cowboys," or "cyberpunks" and "computer hackers," and "cyberspace" became the information territory where the new generation of "punks" roamed freely.
History now accurately tells us that the "computer liberation" movement launched in the garages in the 1970s was the far-reaching second computer revolution. A group of American youth, some called "computer players," but most were early computer hackers, belonged to the "marginal people" of the social transition period. They inherited the fervor of anti-tradition and anti-mainstream culture in the 1960s, constantly searching for a spiritual home—whether through anti-war protests, drug use, joining cults, or rejecting rationality. In May 1975, the U.S. officially declared the end of the Vietnam War, and the third wave of hacker culture, freed from war, drew on the elements of deviant behavior to create new norms. Thus, some of them raised the banner of rebellion against the computer host model, breaking from tradition and daring to innovate, finding a spiritual home in personal computers and computer networks. Stuart Brand, who once worked at the famous Xerox PARC, wrote: "Forget anti-war protests, forget long hair—the true legacy of the 1960s generation is the computer revolution."
Others among them, supported and joined by younger "rebels," continued to fight for "free software" and freedom until the age of the internet. With media coverage, people now know that the "cyberspace" hero myth has been debunked, and the deviant behavior of "marginal people" has further developed into uncontrollable and criminal acts. A large number of modern "hackers" have turned their backs on their original ideals. These "hackers" use advanced technology to do as they please on the internet—creating and spreading computer viruses, illegally invading confidential sites, maliciously destroying or disrupting systems, or simply robbing homes and stealing accounts and money, even forming many notorious criminal organizations. According to U.S. newspapers, "hackers" cause an estimated $10 billion in losses to the world’s computer networks every year. Additionally, the internet is filled with filth, pornography is rampant, and reactionary, pornographic garbage is spreading like wildfire. People can’t help but ask: Is this the tragedy of the computer or the tragedy of humanity?
To combat this, countries are intensifying research on preventive measures, revising existing laws, and setting up "firewalls" to prevent pollution from spreading in "cyberspace." What we will describe to you are the vivid stories and lively characters that take place in "cyberspace"—they are all "outliers" of "cyberspace," the "cowboys" of the information society.