Leo Hohmann – Leo’s Newsletter May 11, 2026
I have been writing similar things over the last seven or eight years, but it’s always nice to hear it from different voices, especially when it comes from someone with the background of Paul Craig Roberts, an American economist, author, and political commentator who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1981 to 1982 under President Ronald Reagan. Below is an excerpt, and the entire article can be found at his website, PaulCraigRoberts.com.
For some years I have been pointing out that the digital revolution, like nuclear weapons and laboratory manufacture of deadly pathogens that governments or terrorists can release, is a disastrous development for humanity.
It is true that the digital revolution has benefits such as instant messaging, video conferences, real time access to news of events in foreign lands, real time access to entertainment and to live performances decades ago. The digital revolution has provided greater mpg and performance from internal combustion engines. And the list goes on.
But the benefits have a cost. Perhaps the highest cost is the total control the digital revolution gives governments or whatever the ruling entity is over people. The threat goes beyond the Chinese social control system in which your rights or privileges are determined by your behavior. The digital revolution allows government to prevent the emergence of truth by substituting for truth official narratives. We witnessed the beginning of this with the orchestrated “Covid pandemic.” By controlling the data base of artificial intelligence, governments can produce the “truths” that serve their agendas.
The interconnectiveness of information is more advanced than people realize. For example, the U.S. State Department just announced that the passport of any parent behind in child payments of $2,500 has a cancelled passport. How does the Passport Office of the State Department know who in 50 states is behind in child support payments?
President Trump is trying to create with an executive order a U.S. passport with digital facial recognition without which a citizen cannot have a bank account, vote, or have a driving license, or, for that matter, do anything.
Digital currency is the greatest threat, perhaps, to human autonomy. Digital currency, unlike fiat paper currency or gold and silver coins, cannot be locked in a safe or buried on your grounds. It exists electronically only, and you can be denied access to it if you displease the ruling authority. This neutralizes all opposition from the people. A multi-billionaire suddenly finds that he cannot pay his electric bill.
The young, who have no awareness or assets, may regard these threats as meaningless compared to the pleasure of scrolling the Internet. But sooner or later they will encounter another high cost of the digital revolution: the total absence of security of private information.
During the analogue days no such threat existed. To steal someone’s information you had to invade the space where the information was and copy it, or you had to climb a telephone pole that served that building or residence and attach, with court authority, a wire to the telephone of the residence or business.
The Internet was developed as an open system. Thus, it is devoid of security. Currently encrypted passwords and secondary authentication serve to protect information. Nevertheless breeches are widespread and involve the largest companies and government data banks. The breech of AT&T’s security has left most American’s Social Security numbers available on the Internet.
According to a recent report, 100 million Mac users are at risk because hackers have succeeded in hijacking Apple’s “verified apps” to bypass Apple’s security. Hackers have succeeded in stealing “developer keys,” which provide a “digital passport” that allows hackers to disguise malware as Apple-approved apps. So you download the “approved” app, and the hackers have your computer.
Apple, of course, will develop a response, but those affected before the corporation can act are in for a lot of money and frustrating wasted time.
Such threats are innumerable. Perhaps the greatest is the advent of Quantum Computing. Quantum computers can break encrypted passwords. Quantum computers use quantum mechanics to process information at higher speed that can be used to quickly overcome encryption.
Once the Quantum Computers are available, the digital world belongs to hackers. So why give hackers this weapon? Where is the government doing government’s job? Where is the integrity of the corporations developing rule by hackers? No one seems to care.
Hackers anticipating the quantum computers are currently downloading all encrypted information now, storing it awaiting the arrival of quantum computers, at which time the hackers intend to take over your assets and your life.
An article in the Epoch Times suggests things you can do now, but doesn’t say hackers can’t overcome it.
Even the protective agencies are breached. Home security giant ADT revealed it was hit by a major data breach carried out by the notorious ShinyHunters extortion group earlier this month. Thanks to the data-breach notification service we now know that 5.5 million individuals are affected.
I don’t know about you, but I would love to see the digital revolution deep-sixed. In the analogue days there were no problems that would use up your morning or afternoon and force you to spend 36 minutes, as I spent yesterday afternoon, to reach a human capable of thought and resolution of the problem..
The digital age is a plague upon humanity.
The moronic fools who brought us the digital revolution are wallowing in profits, but they too will be devoured by their creation.
> Digital currency is the greatest threat, perhaps, to human autonomy
No. Other humans are.
> The Internet was developed as an open system
No it wasn’t. It wasn’t “developed” at all. It was a chaotic fight to see whose protocol or hardware or server got the most users and that became the de facto “standard”, retrofitted to make out someone “planned” it.
> Thus, it is devoid of security.
A loaded statement based upon a false premise.
> Currently encrypted passwords and secondary authentication serve to protect information
So now it does have security?
> Nevertheless breeches are widespread and involve the largest companies and government data banks. The breech of AT&T’s security has left most American’s Social Security numbers available on the Internet.
They aren’t “breeches”. They’re employees inside the company taking and selling the data. And what good do you think knowing someone’s social security number is? It’s worthless.
> Perhaps the greatest is the advent of Quantum Computing. Quantum computers can break encrypted passwords. Quantum computers use quantum mechanics to process information at higher speed that can be used to quickly overcome encryption.
I gave up at this point. Quantum computers do not exist. In essence, “quantum computing” says a qbit can hold a value of zero and one and the same time. Good luck with that. Quantum computers can’t “break encrypted passwords” any more than your flying saucer can break the bus companies.
The author is a baiter or an ignoramus. As quantum computers don’t exist, they can’t “use quantum mechanics to process information at higher speed that can be used to quickly overcome encryption”. If such a statement were based on reality in any way then (a) you’d have everyone bitcoin mining 24 hours a day and (b) you’d know the name of the first “quantum computer”. The whole point of the fantasy “quantum computer” isn’t that it “does things faster”, it’s that it does things instantaneously. You wouldn’t “quickly overcome encryption”, you’d click a button and know the decryption key immediately. Which is where the whole thing gives itself away. If you really understood what encryption is and how many possible passwords there are in each scheme, you’d know what BS that is, but that would mean you, and he, would need to take the time to learn something, which neither of you are ever going to do.
> Once the Quantum Computers are available…
LOFL.
Even if they get their digital everything they’ll not keep it. They put too much value into betting on the markets to try and earn a bit more, because they’re too greedy to keep things ticking over nice and gentle when leaving it to the whims of the markets might pull in an extra dollar.
They trade oil on the markets then want war to maintain supply. But we don’t go the shop every day to bid what we’ll pay for bread, and something as vital as oil shouldn’t be bid for either, not when long-term security can be achieved through regular prices, supplies and negotiations.
Neoliberalism isn’t the only economic model. It’s not even the best model, except for those who control it. Markets seek price discovery for better prices, but now that traders found ways to make money from a losing side (selling short for example), it’s not always in their interest to stop a loss. It’s no longer about sound economics but profit-taking trades and it isn’t a good exchange.
Scary Leo. You lost me , again, when you bring up the “quantum computer” bs, or the nukes. Quantum tech is make believe. It , like its sister Nuke industry, is there to loot the treasury. Why are you promoting this ?
It’s not the digital revolution per se which could bring doom upon mankind.
Digital technology can be used for great good as well for great evil.
The problem is a humankind that tends more towards evil than towards good.
2 Thessalonians 2:2-8 KJVS
That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. [3] Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; [4] Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. [5] Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? [6] And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. [7] For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. [8] And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
Revelation 13:6-8,15-18 KJVS
And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. [7] And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. [8] And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. [15] And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. [16] And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: [17] And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. [18] Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.