People often think about internet spying as relatively new . But the cyberspace was used for spy before we even called it the net — and when we bet back at news clause from the era , we ca n’t say we were n’t warn .
As just one more in along leaning of examples , take a December 1975 article by Tad Szulc in The Washington Monthly . Szulc explicate that this new thing called the ARPANET ( the packet - switched precursor to our modern internet ) had the potential to be used by intelligence service agency for domesticated intelligence purposes .
From the perspective of 2015 , it almost understand like the warning of a time traveller who slipped back to 1975 :
The most significant thing about ARPANET is that it permits the instant connection of estimator of different type , ranging from the huge ILLIAC IV to the commercial-grade - class models produced by IBM and others . Complex switching techniques allow these computers to “ talk to each other ” are considered a major technological break - through . The question that goes on haunt civil libertarian is whether ARPANET can be used for domesticated intelligence by being plume into CIA , FBI , military intelligence , White House , or other computer systems .
The American intelligence community hasalways beenat the forefront of networked computing . And we now know that they help build the predecessor to our modern cyberspace .
In 1975 it was n’t a foregone conclusion that Americans would one day have access to networked computing . Email had only been forge in 1971 , and most civilians had no estimate what it was . A critical mass of people baffle online was still over two decade away . But people looking into tomorrow knew one thing for sure : Networked computing had the potential to be used to keep tabs on everybody in some capacity .
Later in the article , Szulc poses questions about “ the next Nixon ” and how ARPANET might be used against American citizen :
There is no evidence , however , that ARPANET has been devised with domesticated intelligence in mind . ARPA official say that the internet has never been employed for anything except the computerise exchange of military scientific data among the institution forming ARPANET .
Still , the question dawdle : Could the next Nixon Holy Order ARPANET to be twist into a police force instrument , instantly secernate every politics representation everything there is to be known about every American citizen whose name has been tape somewhere ?
Yes , yes they could . And they did . So that ’s that , I pretend . You taste to warn us , time traveling journalist . But nobody would listen . Welcome to the futurity .
double : A world replaces a magnetised magnetic tape data computer memory drive in an early model office information processing system , mid 1970s via Hulton Archive / Getty Images
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