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More from Steven Levy
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
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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
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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
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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
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Consider a world where all money is electronic and traceable, and you
have the most potent crime-fighting weapon in history. - 1994
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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
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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
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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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