> Back in the 1950s, tech and policy didn’t really interact, unless it had to do with something like nuclear weapons or the space program. Today, tech and polic

> Back in the 1950s, tech and policy didn’t really interact, unless it had to do with something like nuclear weapons or the space program. Today, tech and policy are intertwined, Schneier said. > “Today, technology makes de facto policy that’s far more influential than any law,” he said. “Law is forever trying to catch up with technology. And it’s no longer sustainable for technology and policy to be in different worlds.” Isn't that something of a misreading of late 19th and 20th history? Just about every decade in the late 19th and the 20th century was part of an ongoing telecoms, media, and IT boom. There were the telegraph, telephony and the fax, satellite communications, the internet, usenet, mobile telephony and SMS, internet forums and chat; radio, TV, streaming and social networks; typewriters, mechanical counting machines, transistors, microchips, mainframes, PCs, smartphones; etc. It's just wave after wave after wave after wave, with every decade or two adding some major development in one form or another. Sometimes what was happening required lawmaker attention. Laws and regulation followed every single time -- if only eventually. It's not entirely clear to me, apart from scale, how the problems we face today are that much different than, say, those that were on a would-be legislator's mind when radio became mainstream or when TV news became a thing. Bruce's points are most welcome and valid, but I wouldn't be surprised if a historian were able to dig up people making similar points (at least) since radio has been around. (Edit: And possibly since Gutenberg's printing press became mainstream.)