The NY Times published an article yesterday about Stewart Brand’s embrace of nuclear energy and genetically engineered foods. Here is a quote:

He thinks the fears of genetically engineered bugs causing disaster are as overstated as the counterculture’s fears of computers turning into Big Brother. “Starting in the 1960s, hackers turned computers from organizational control machines into individual freedom machines,” he told Conservation magazine last year. “Where are the green biotech hackers?”

So what do you think. Were the fears of Big Brother overstated? Did hackers successfully turn computers into individual freedom machines?