A Brief History of Cyberspace

With the widespread growth of the Internet, a new space - cyberspace - has appeared and has rapidly been integrated into every facet of life and work. It has effectively become the fourth basic living space for human beings. Although cyberspace has become a topic of increasing widespread concern, it is still difficult to understand cyberspace well because of its many definitions, vast and varied content, and differences with other similar spaces.

A Brief History of Cyberspace attempts to establish a complete knowledge system about the evolution and history of cyberspace and cyber-enabled spaces (i.e., cyber-enabled physical space, cyber-enabled social space, and cyber-enabled thinking space). By providing a comprehensive overview, this book aims to help readers understand the history of cyberspace and lays a solid foundation for researchers and learners who are interested in cyberspace.

The book has three main objectives:

• To provide a comprehensive understanding of the development of cyberspace, ranging from its origin, evolutions, and research status to open issues and future challenges, as well as related hot topics in industry and academia.
• To examine cyber life, cyber syndrome, and health in addition to cyber-enabled spaces designed for better living.
• To describe cyberspace governance from the perspective of the individual, society, and national and international levels in order to promote a more profound and reasonable direction to the development of cyberspace.

Consisting of 16 chapters, the book is divided into three parts.

Chapter 1 introduces the origins and basic concept of cyberspace, cyber philosophy, and cyber logic to help readers have a general understanding of cyberspace.

Chapters 2 through 7 discuss a wide variety of topics related to human behavior, psychology, and health to help people better adapt to cyberspace.

Chapters 8 through 16 present the history of cyberspace governance and various social and culture aspects of cyberspace. Each chapter concludes with a discussion of future development.

Huansheng Ning received a Ph.D. degree from Beihang University in 2001. From 2002 to2003, he worked in Aisino Co. From 2004 to 2013, he worked as a post-PhD and then an associate professor in the School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Beihang University. From 2013, he was a professor and vice dean in the School of Computer & Communication Engineering, University of Science & Technology Beijing. He is IEEE Senior Member, founder and director of Cybermatics and Cyberspace International Science and Technology Cooperation Base, co-founder and director of DMU - USTB Smart Healthcare Co-Laboratory, co-founder and co-chair of IEEE SMC Society Technical Committee on Cybermatics. He was elected as IET Fellow in 2018 and appointed as a Visiting Chair Professor of Cyber Science in Ulster University from 2020 to 2023.