Issues Which Should Be Addressed By Laws To Protect

Individuals and Organizations

Privacy

Electronic eavesdropping - The use of electronic devices to secretly listen to the

conversation of others.

Industrial Espionage - The theft of company secrets or data that can be useful to other
companies using electronic means or other wise to gain a competitive advantage.

Surveillance - Close observation of a person or group. May also involved the use of cameras and
other electronic items to keep track of the subject.

Storage of inaccurate information

Current Technological Trends

Expert systems - An expert system is a collection of hardware and software that functions as a
human expert in a particular field.

Applications for expert systems include:

 Medical systems
 Finance
 Investment
 Company law

An expert system have the following features:

 An organized knowledge base
 A user interface
 Facility to store details and keep track of current consultation
 Inference engine
 Knowledge acquisition system

Natural language processing (NLP) - Natural language is a language produced in written or

spoken by humans. Natural language processing is therefore the ability of a computer system to
interpret, edit or carry out commands spoken by a user.

Robots - An electronic and mechanical device that sometimes resembles other objects
performing a variety of complex human task on command or by being programmed in advance
and sometimes controlled by a remote.

Voice synthesis - The use of hardware and software working together to produce sounds that
resembles human speech.
Laser Technology

CAD Computer Aided Design

CADD Computer Aided Design and Drafting
CAE Computer Aided Engineering
CAI Computer Aided Instruction

Telemarketing - Advertising and selling products and services via the telephone. The act of
selling, soliciting or promoting a product or service over the telephone

Teleconferencing - A conference held among people in different locations by means of

telecommunications equipment, such as closed-circuit television

To hold a conference via a telephone or network connection. Computers have given new
meaning to the term because they allow groups to do much more than just talk. Once a
teleconference is established, the group can share applications and mark up a common
whiteboard. Many teleconferencing applications work over private networks. One of the first to
operate over the Internet is Microsoft's NetMeeting.

Videoconferencing - Conducting a conference between two or more participants at different

sites by using computer networks to transmit audio and video data. For example, a point-to-point
(two-person) video conferencing system works much like a video telephone. Each participant has
a video camera, microphone, and speakers mounted on his or her computer. As the two
participants speak to one another, their voices are carried over the network and delivered to the
other's speakers, and whatever images appear in front of the video camera appear in a window on
the other participant's monitor.

Desktop Publishing - Using a personal computer or workstation to produce high-quality printed

documents. A desktop publishing system allows you to use different typefaces, specify various
margins and justifications, and embed illustrations and graphs directly into the text. The most
powerful desktop publishing systems enable you to create illustrations, while less powerful
systems let you insert illustrations created by other programs.

A particularly important feature of desktop publishing systems is that they enable you to see on
the display screen exactly how the document will appear when printed. Systems that support this
feature are called WYSIWYGs (what you see is what you get).

Commerce on Internet - Conducting business on-line. This includes, for example, buying and
selling products with digital cash and via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).