CDR: Excerpt of Mark Summerfield's 'Letter from 2020'

[Jim Choate]

Pretty lame story all in all.

On Tue, 19 Sep 2000, Trei, Peter wrote:

> 
> http://www.osOpinion.com/Opinions/MarkSummerfield/MarkSummerfield3.html
> [...]
> 
> I try to remember what it was like when I was a kid but it's
> really difficult; the world has changed so much since
> then. I found a paper book the other day that described the
> rise and fall of something called the "Internet". It started
> out with people putting up links on computers so that they
> could follow the link and read things on other computers for
> free. After it got to be popular, companies started to
> create machines with lots of links that you could search to
> find things of interest. But someone put up a link to
> something illegal and got sued and had their machine shut
> down. This happened a few times and people started to take
> the links off their machines. The search engine companies
> were the first to go and without them, you couldn't find
> anything. Eventually no one put up links anymore because the
> legal risk was too great. The important thing is that it
> reduced terrorism. I'm not sure how it could have worked
> anyway. Anything I write on my computer or any music I
> create gets stored by Word.NET and Music.NET in encrypted
> formats to protect my privacy. No one but me, Microsoft.NET
> and the National Corporation can read or hear my stuff even
> if they could link to it.
> 
> I shouldn't admit it, but sometimes I go to certain places
> and speak to the subversives. I know its wrong but their
> warped views on things have some kind of morbid
> fascination. For example, I spoke to someone who claimed to
> be a historian the other day. She had courage all right,
> admitting to an illegal activity like that. I hadn't
> understood why it was illegal until she explained. History,
> she told me, gives you context. You can compare today with
> some time in the past; ask questions like, "are people
> better off", "look at the different forms of doing
> business", "compare corporate records or the rights of
> citizens" (I think she meant employees).
> [...]
> 

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                     He is able who thinks he is able.

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