Things we have grown accustom to always working, are managed by computers. For instance, consider how different your life would be if you could not trust traffic lights or elevators. What if everytime you wanted to buy something of significance, you had to sit down with a banker, fill out a loan form, and withstand a credit check. Instant credit, building security, and public safety systems are now largely, if not exclusively, controlled by computers. These are three immediately obvious examples.
Computers are a relatively young phenomena.
While used in large businesses for almost 40 years, most automation is less than 20 years old. Even as recently as only 10 years ago, computers were unattainable by the majority of the population. There have been upwards of 100 million computers sold since 1980 in the United States alone. We must all recognize our reliance on the very enablers of our current standard of living. It is our combined responsiblity to bring together resources to ensure their continued reliability.