Dispatch Five: Privacy and Protection
Standardized spheres of encryption, organized geopolitically, within which government-approved encrypted communication is possible but between which the links are unclear.
Topic: Communication
Mail Bonding
The number of business e-mail messages [will] quintuple in the next decade.
Hypertext and Our Collective Destiny
I had (and still have) a dream that the Web could be less of a television channel and more of an interactive sea of shared knowledge. I imagine it immersing us as a warm, friendly environment made of the things we and our friends have seen, heard, believe or have figured out. I would like it to bring our friends and colleagues closer, in that by working on this knowledge together we can come to better understandings … The dream is that if everybody works from day to day using the Web as their notebook, mailer and calendar … then the scaling problems of teams and organizations could somehow be solved. This is a dream.
Interview: Marc Andreessen
ISDN isn’t inevitable because the phone companies haven’t been able to make it inevitable. I think 14.4 and 28.8 [modem speeds] are sufficient for some that things you want to do, and they are a practical constraint right now. I think all of us just can wait to be delivering 10 Mbit/s. You won’t have any multimedia problems then.
The Cipper Chip: Should the Government Control the Master Keys to Electronic Commerce?
As the Administration sticks to the principle of key escrow but is willing to adjust the details, and as businesses begin to think about what kind of encryption they want, we’re likely to see a certain amount of convergence on this issue and I suspect it will make a difference in the export control laws over the next year or two.
Will Netscape Eat its Hat Over Claims it Was Too Busy for Web Conference?
Web browsers [will] soon disappear.
The Clipper Chip: Should the Government Control the Master Keys to Electronic Commerce?
As people get more comfortable with the idea and as people realize that there are going to be a lot of corporations who are going to want to escrow their keys, without regard to the question of Clipper or law enforcement, just so that they can conduct their own kinds of security procedures and guarantee themselves against misuse by their employees in encryption, you’re going to see companies look very closely at the idea of escrowing keys privately.
The Pattern of the Mosaic
E-mail alone will keep driving the Internet’s growth. E-mail’s turned out to be the killer app. My definition of being on the Internet is having an Internet e-mail address.
Why the Web?
The Web is the prototype for how people will relate by computer in the next century, and beyond. There may not be Web pages in 2010, but there will be an Internet, in one form or another.
Suit Hits Sale of Names to Junk Mailers
Without some safeguards, the Internet could “collapse in a flurry of useless information.” As more and more business is conducted electronically, millions of transaction details are being stored in databases every day. “Everything could be recorded and collected and exchanged.”