SOCIETY: crypto impact

[Eric Hughes <hughes@soda.berkeley.edu>]

>Like any new technology, selling crypto to the public will be
>difficult at first.  I'll bet the telephone, something so vital to
>today's society it is difficult to imagine functioning without it, was
>tough to get going.

For an interesting look at this, see _When Old Technologies Were New_;
I've forgotten the author.  It's about electrification and the
telephone.

And remember, just because there's opposition, it could still be a bad
idea!  :-)  Let's not get too self-congratulatory here.

>On a related note, it is amazing how much information about you
>exists.  [...] Some supermarkets were even testing a
>system in which your purchases (scanned by the bar code reader) are
>saved and indexed by your credit card or check!  

It really is unsettling.  There is, in fact, a speculative market in
personal information.  Some of these companies doing supermarket
systems had the collection systems developed, and then went looking
for customers.

Eric