The answer is no, according to Australia’s Major General Marcus Thompson

Thompson also says it’s important to remember that espionage isn’t new.

“We’ve got to be careful not to jump up and down — throw the toys out of the cot — when an internationally normal activity of espionage is being conducted, because others do it too.”

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“Despite the fact that my job title is head of information warfare, and I talk a lot about cyber warfare, there’s actually no such thing. There’s just warfare,” Thompson said.

Why not go one further than Thompson and say there is no such thing as cyber?

And while we’re at it that there’s no such thing as information technology, there’s just technology. So really there’s just warfare and technology.

Yet we know not all warfare is generically technology-centered. But seriously, warfare can be waged with different methods, tools and platforms, such that adding a modifier shouldn’t be a big talking point.

Chemical warfare, for example, is just warfare. Economic warfare is just warfare. Guerrilla warfare is just warfare. Psychological warfare is just warfare. Mountain warfare is just warfare. Naval warfare is just warfare…and the list goes on.

All that being said I agree with Thompson that espionage is nothing new and should be taken in historical context.

Much of what people call hacking these days is simply them observing things and reporting what they see, such as looking at a picture and noticing that it has clues to exact location. This is a far cry from what used to be called hacking, because once upon a time (since the 1400s) it meant a technical process being manipulated or modified.