Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

As capitalists locked down public resources through privatization, tax evasion, and austerity, the high-growth technology industry hardened its defenses, erecting literal and metaphorical walls between the people and computer power. “Such elaborate precautions may have appeared unnecessary up to now to the managers of most computer installations,” a security consultant told Computerworld in 1970. “But with the growing unrest in the country, the increasing sophistication of saboteurs, and the potential that computers offer for easily inflicted and costly damage, major precautions are necessary for data processing managers to fully protect their computers.”102