Past wars have been won or lost because the most powerful governments on earth didn’t have the cryptological power any interested junior high school students with a personal computer can harness today. Soon any child old enough to use a computer will be able to transmit encoded messages that no government on earth will find easy to decipher. This is one of the profound implications of the spread of fantastic computer power.
Predictor: Gates, Bill
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “The Road Ahead,” Microsoft CEO Bill Gates writes: ”Past wars have been won or lost because the most powerful governments on earth didn’t have the cryptological power any interested junior high school students with a personal computer can harness today. Soon any child old enough to use a computer will be able to transmit encoded messages that no government on earth will find easy to decipher. This is one of the profound implications of the spread of fantastic computer power.”
Biography:Bill Gates, the most influential technology entrepreneur of the late 20th century, was the primary author of the prediction-packed 1995 book “The Road Ahead” and is the founder and CEO of Microsoft Corporation. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: Security/Encryption
Name of publication: The Road Ahead (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 5: Paths to the Highway
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 106
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne