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The flood [of cryptography tools] indeed is coming, and
the agency charged with safeguarding and mastering
encryption technologies is about to be thrust into a
cypher age in which messages that once were clear will
require tedious cracking - and may not be crackable at
all. - 1993
~~~
Breakthroughs in modern cryptography indicate that one
day it will be universal and simple ... Anonymity is
scary stuff ... What are the benefits and the risks? Even
if we don't want it, can we stop it? - 1993
~~~
Cryptographic protocols ... could catapult our currency
system into the 21st century. They may, in the process,
shatter the Orwellian predictions of a Big Brother
dystopia, replacing them with a world in which the ease
of electronic transactions is combined with the elegant
anonymity of paying in cash. - 1994
~~~
Digitizing the final mile of electronic money, where the
coin and the dollar bill go the way of the vinyl LP, will
make all the difference in the world. It will not only
change the physical way you spend your money, it will
alter the way you view your own economic being. And
depending on the manner in which it is implemented,
digital money might allow others to view your financial
status with a decidedly discomfiting intimacy. -
1994
~~~
Depending on how they work, the various systems of
electronic money will prove to be boons or disasters,
bastions of individual privacy or violators of individual
freedom. At the worst, a faulty or crackable system of
electronic money could lead to an economic Chernobyl.
Imagine the dark side: cryptocash hackers who figure out
how to spoof an e-money system. A desktop mint! The
resulting flood of bad digits would make the
hyperinflationary Weimar Republic - where people carted
wheelbarrows full of marks to pay for groceries - look
like a stable monetary system. - 1994
~~~
Consider a world where all money is electronic and
traceable, and you have the most potent crime-fighting
weapon in history. - 1994
~~~
Whole industries might go away, particularly those
involved in modes of distribution that will evaporate
when businesses can send the same materials direct to
customers over the Net. New sorts of ventures will
certainly emerge, but we can't be sure what
they'll be. - 1995
~~~
Continued development of ever-more-powerful hardware and
software, allowing easier and faster access to vast
resources of information and entertainment, will within
15 years make the Internet nearly as ubiquitous and
pervasive as the telephone is today. - 1995
~~~
We're groping for a way to use the Net in a way where
information will flow freely and people can still make
money. The hackers are going to help us find ways to have
a more humanized system of commerce. - 1995
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