Pulse spacing is the time gap between successive signal changes in a digital or analog stream. In simple terms, it is the rhythm of the pulses, not just their presence or absence. Even when a signal carries only one bit, spacing can influence how a receiver interprets it, including tone, timing, and data rate.
In cyber security, pulse spacing matters because timing is often used to encode information. Attackers can modulate spacing to build covert channels, hide low-bandwidth communication in network traffic, or fingerprint systems by measuring response delays. Defenders also use timing analysis to spot anomalies, such as unusual beacon intervals in malware, jitter patterns in evasive traffic, or side-channel leakage in hardware. Careful control of pulse spacing is therefore important both for creating reliable signals and for detecting when timing is being abused.