Digital Age/Digitization

Digitization (sometimes seen as digitalization) is the process of converting information to binary form by means of using 1s and 0s. The Digital Age is the era in which the uses and effects of digitization are manifest in all levels of society.

Computers (in the general sense) predate the Digital Age. Prior to the 1950s, computers were analog, using vacuum tubes. Later, vacuum tubes were used in conjunction with diodes. Like the digital computers that came later, analog computers [Page 255]used binary logic, but instead of being directly controlled by a program consisting of 1s and 0s, the state of the vacuum tube was changed by a change in voltage. The voltage change was analogous to a 1 (power on) versus a 0 (power off).

In 1956, MIT built TX0, the first general-purpose, programmable computer to use transistors. It was this transition from vacuum tubes that marked the beginning of the Digital Age. Since then, we have moved from simple transistors to integrated circuits, which have allowed us to make computers and computer systems faster, more capable, and more inexpensive.

The progress in hardware capability has allowed for equally exponential growth in software capability. Along with software becoming more powerful, feature laden, and (occasionally) easier to use, the cost has also gone down dramatically.

In 1946, computers stopped being a tool that resided exclusively in the hands of government and became commercially available. After several unsuccessful attempts, the personal computer finally took off in 1977.

It is the last 25 or so years that have come to define the Digital Age. The Digital Age has promoted a substantial transfer of power to the individual. A person with a few thousand dollars worth of equipment now can put together and present information that rivals the output of established news agencies, corporations, and governments.

Although digitization of information allows for easier information flow, it is the Digital Age that has accelerated that flow. People who embrace the Digital Age are being forced to answer a very difficult question: Are the benefits of increased information flow worth the disadvantages?

The increased information flow has allowed corporations and governments to achieve more output with fewer people. Increased information flow also has made it harder to restrict access to information. One example of an internal threat involves a large sensitive document. It would be difficult for someone to walk off with a printed copy of a 1,500-page report. However, the Digital Age has made it possible for someone to walk off with a data file copy of that same report in a memory storage unit that clips onto a key chain.

Organizations interested in maintaining an Internet presence, or who simply have decided to have their computer system hooked up to the Internet have to deal with external threats, usually in the form of hackers. If a hacker does not like a particular organization, the hacker may deface the Web site, which happened to the CIA and the White House a couple of times in the 1990s.

However, sometimes hackers engage in the total destruction of all files they can access on the Web server. Worse, they may gain access to the organization's computer system. Other hackers engage in espionage. They simply make copies of sensitive files. In the Digital Age, backup (redundant) copies of information are essential.

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