The Big Switch

For the modern information economy, the computing grid is the railway system, the highway network, the electric grid, and the telephone system rolled into one.

By the end of 2006, an estimated 94 percent of all emails sent over the Internet were spam, up from about 38 percent when Gates made his prediction.

If the Internet levels the battlefield to the benefit of America’s enemies, the only recourse, it seems, may be to destroy the battlefield.

As a general purpose technology, it puts into the hands of bad guys the same infinitely diverse array of applications it provides to good guys.

To hold inventors liable for the misuse of their inventions is to indict progress itself.

Technology is amoral, and inventions are routinely deployed in ways their creators neither intend nor sanction.

C H A P T E R 9 Fighting the Net

Each of us may make hundreds or even thousands of clicks a day, some deliberately, some impulsively, and with each one we are constructing our identity, shaping our influences, and creating our communities.

“balkanization and the loss of shared experiences and values may be harmful to the structure of democratic societies.”