The year 1997 will usher in a new generation of Internet “idiot-proof” software. Although the new software will not be any easier to configure than current network software, it will prevent certain unsavory practices such as transmitting passwords in clear-text over the Internet, sending subscribe messages to entire mailing lists, and spamming.
By 1997, Internet security will be a huge problem. However, the United States will still prevent U.S. companies from exporting products using cryptographic technologies, despite the fact that such technology will be readily available worldwide.
By 1997, e-mail will still not allow the transparent interchange of arbitrary types of nontext files. However, a large underground community and creative businesses will be taking advantage of the Internet as a vehicle for multicast multimedia.
By 1997, most people will still think that the Internet and the World Wide Web are synonymous.
Today, many people when they commute to work encounter people they wouldn’t otherwise, and so become aware that there is a homeless problem, a crime problem, a whole set of social ills. But if you work out of your home, shop out of your home, learn more out of your home – you might forget they exist. And who’s going to care for the disadvantaged when those who are online forget they exist?
In our time, under the prod of the new technology, entertainment and information services will ultimately follow the same historic pattern. Profound changes are seldom abrupt, and the broadcasting industry will probably do everything in its considerable power to delay or derail any shift to other delivery methods.
With so many channels available on the information highway, the producing companies will not be able to maintain any form of monopolistic control. When the pipe is wide enough to carry everything, they won’t be able to restrict their product to a few preferred outlets. The technology will force the market open.
Some experts predict that within five years the online delivery of a full CD will be an affordable possibility.
Encryption technology civilizes the grid-locking avalanche of knowledge and data that networked systems generate. Without this taming spirit, the Net becomes a web that snares its own life. It strangles itself by its own prolific connections. A cipher is the yin for the network’s yang, a tiny hidden force that is able to tame the explosive interconnections born of decentralized, distributed systems.
Encryption wins because it is the necessary counterforce to the Net’s runaway tendency to link. Left to itself, the Net will connect everyone to everyone, everything to everything. The Net says, “Just connect.” The cipher, in contrast, says, “Disconnect.” Without some force of disconnection, the world would freeze up in an overloaded tangle of unprivate connections and unfiltered information.