" However, speaking at a March conference in San Francisco, Howard Schmidt, Obama's recently appointed cybersecurity czar, said that "there is no cyberwar, " adding that it is "a terrible metaphor" and a "terrible concept.

WSJ: Battling the Cyber Warmongers

Ultimately, a metaphor is going to be an imperfect picture for the actual workings of a scientific concept.

FORBES: How Metaphor Affects Thinking About Science