ABSTRACT
Until the late 1970s, a student attending a university could not even obtain a copy of his own transcript. A student could request that a copy of his official transcript be sent to another university, but that was all. Credit cards were hardly used. Instead, each retailer maintained separate accounts for each customer. Merchandise for which cash was not paid was taken out “on approval” or “put on lay away.” Medical records were typed on manual typewriters (or if the typist was fortunate, an electric typewriter) and manually filed. Medical records rarely left the building or office in which they were created. Ironically, social security numbers were used for collecting social security taxes, federal income taxes, and state income taxes. There was not anything equivalent to nationwide credit reporting services that anyone could access. Instead, local banks and businesses “knew” who paid their bills on time and who did not; local bill collectors were sent out to motivate the latter. Direct deposit meant a person took his paycheck directly to the bank on payday. Identity theft meant someone’s checkbook had been stolen. Computers were a monstrosity of spinning tape drives and card readers that took up the entire basement of a building — they were too heavy to put anywhere else. Networks connected dumb terminals in the same building or nearby to the computer in the basement. For special operations there were remote job entry (RJE) stations where punch cards could be read in from a distance at the lightning speed of 2400 or maybe 4800 baud if one was lucky. Telephone conversations were carried over analog lines; when the receiver was hung
up, that was the end of it. Voice mail did not exist, and telephone messages were recorded on paper. Desktop telephones did not keep lists of calls received, calls placed, and the duration of each. Conversations were not recorded by employers or other busybodies — unless a person was on the FBI’s ten most wanted list and then special permits had to be obtained beforehand. Friends did not anonymously tape record conversations with “friends” or surreptitiously snap photographs of “friends” or total strangers from their cell phones. Car phones did not appear until the 1980s. Data networks were separate from voice networks — it did not make any sense to combine them — and satellites were just beginning to become commercially viable. While large IBM clusters supported an interactive “talk” capability within an organization, e-mail as we know it was a long ways off. Information security and privacy issues were simple. All that was needed was good physical security controls and perhaps a little link layer bulk encryption here and there.
