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From: gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Inhibit the terrorist
Message-ID: <483@qantel.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 16:26:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: qantel.483
Posted: Thu Jul 11 16:26:22 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 16:03:58 EDT
Reply-To: gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642)
Organization: MDS Qantel, Hayward, CA
Lines: 23

From the Colonel's Collected Koans <904@gloria.UUCP>: 

> In the computer age, fixity is the ultimate liability, and countries
> are obsolete.  As soon as we develop dynamic political alignments to
> replace countries, the international extortionists will have nothing to
> aim at.
> -- 
> Col. G. L. Sicherman

This is one of those great truths whose opposite is also a great truth. The
demise of the nation-state has been predicted with every technological       
breakthrough of the last 150 years. Most enlightened people in 1900 agreed
that WWI cannot possibly happen: humanity has surely transcended those 
kinds of tribal squabbles with world trade, instant communications, 
interdependence and what not.

As to extortion in the computer age, what we are most likely to see 
in our lifetime is new forms of 'network warfare': sabotaging
electronic funds transfer networks or mucking with economic models at
Chase or the Treasury. (Anyone got a path to gosplanvax?) 

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Gabor Fencsik               {dual,nsc,hplabs,intelca}!qantel!gabor