Computers Reshaping Society

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Computers Reshaping Society

The emergence of computers in our society as a means of the gathering and processing of information for the sorting of it has played a major role in reshaping the society it exists in. After the introduction of computers as a business, and later personal, tool, and the large-scale assimilation of such for both purposes, the computer proceeded to shape our society by its own “needs”. This reshaping took the form suiting all business and personal life of humans around the elementary component of the computer -- information. Information has become the one most important entity in our lives, far more important than most other needs, thanks to the efforts of gathering and organizing the vast amount of information that was brought about by the introduction of computers. The next obvious issue is privacy. Privacy is by definition the withholding of certain information which is of some importance to the group or individual exercising this right. It has now become however an active battle with the computers seeking to organize and index all aspects of our life, while we cling to the last bits of this information, to privacy, to the frontier of battle over information. It is not surprising that privacy has become the central issue in today’s “digital age”. The following is an excerpt from the US government report “Cryptography’s Role in Securing the Information Society” by the National Research Council.

Today's information age requires U.S. businesses to compete

on a worldwide basis, sharing sensitive information with

appropriate parties while protecting that information against

competitors, vandals, suppliers, customers, and foreign

governments. Private law-abiding citizens dislike

the ease with which personal telephone calls can be tapped,

especially those carried on cellular or cordless telephones.

Elements of the U.S. civilian infrastructure such as the

banking system, the electric power grid, the public switched

telecommunications network, and the air traffic control system

are central to so many dimensions of modern life that

protecting these elements must have a high priority. The

federal government has an important stake in assuring that its

important and sensitive political, economic, law enforcement,

and military information, both classified and unclassified, is

protected from foreign governments or other parties whose

interests are hostile to those of the United States.

As you can see, the federal government is showing great concern over the misuse of information which it hopes to try to protect by enforcing stricter guidelines on the respect of privacy (by methods of encryption). This is a clear reflection of the cultural mindset that was developed by the presence of computers.

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