SLIDE THREE

What are the social forces driving this "digitization?"

First, nearly all conventional documents that you think of as paper are originated on computers. Almost everything in front of you at the moment or in your packets was originally in digital form, word processing or PowerPoint slides or desktop publishing. The paper versions you have in front of you are simply relics. It would be cheaper and easier to have given you a CD ROM.

Nearly all business processes and records are computerized. From the design of the manufacturing process, to ordering and shipping, to the cash register at the point-of-purchase, to the annual report of the company, everything is done by computer. Every fall there is a Hindu festival during which businesspeople bring their books to the temple to be blessed for the new year. Now, they have to bring disks or laptops to the temple.

Email traffic has surpassed telephone and postal service use, with roughly 3.5 billion email messages transmitted by American business per day.

Millions of transactions with legal significance are conducted daily using email and other computer-mediated communications. Deals are made, contracts are formed, merchandise is ordered and shipped, people are hired and fired, customers complain about impersonal service, all by computer.

And just as legitimate activities are all conducted on computers, so are illegitimate activities. Most criminal activity that get into federal courts are businesses. Securities fraud, drug dealing, pornography distribution, illicit firearms sales, the whole panoply of bad acts, are conducted using computers and computer-mediated communications.