Heavy Weather

[bart@netcom.com (Harry Bartholomew)]

    Just finished reading Bruce Sterling's newest novel.  
    I enjoyed it and suggest it will interest hard sci-fi fans.
    Its a very much post cypherpunk world he writes about, e.g.:

    "    ... It all had to do with unbreakable encryption, digital
    authentification, anonymous remailing, and network untraceability.
    These were all computer networking techniques that had once been
    considered very odd and naughty.  They were also so elementary to
    do, that once they were in place, they couldn't be stopped 
    without tearing the whole Net down.

    Of course once these techniques were in place, they conclusively
    destroyed the ability of governments to control the flow of
    electronic funds, anywhere, anytime, for any purpose.  As it
    happened, this process had pretty much destroyed any human control
    at all over the modern electronic economy. ..."