
Chapter 2
Modern communications and computing technologies have become so ubiquitous in our lives
that it is sometimes difficult to imagine how society managed without them. The “Y2K Bug”
hysteria of the late 1990s illustrated not only how completely these technologies have been
integrated with nearly every aspect of our social infrastructure but also how deeply the conve-
niences and securities that they provide impact the daily lives of the hundreds of millions of
people for whom the working of these mundane marvels remains an invisible mystery. Mobile
telephones, personal computers, and Internet commerce are only a few of the more obvious
examples, ...