Hackers, credit card hijackers, spies, and techno-nerds lurk in the shadows. They are now vastly outnumbered by a new breed of cyberspace Conquistadors: librarians, teachers, writers, tax accountants, rock musicians, actors, politicians, mommy bloggers, entrepreneurs, families, college students, teenagers, lawyers, diplomats, doctors, graphic artist, and suburban housewives – more or less what you’d expect to find in a crowded mall on a weekend afternoon.

In the ’70s the Internet was quite different. It was comprised almost exclusively of military personnel, scientists, and engineers, because they were the only ones that had access to the early computers that were being developed by the Department of the Defense.

In the ’80s a handful of universities and major corporations acquired computers and by the early ’90s desktop computers were being mass marketed and the colonization of cyberspace was underway.