People still really haven't appreciated how bad the car thing is. Or the phone thing. They think they do, but they don't. The full range of capabilities has yet to be used routinely — companies and states are both trying to keep it beneath the waterline. The public is intended to be unsure what it is that they're looking at, and why it matters. It is the news report playing in the background of a disaster movie. It is the half-glimpsed monster from a horror reel — implied, but never fully shown.

History is still going to look back at this period with enormous bewilderment that we did not do more to stop what is coming. The signs were there.