1: Computers and the internet have Created a wall of anonymity for potential threats. Cyberbullying and cyber-terrorism is a big threat that has been brought on by the creation of computers and the world wide web. Essentially it allows for people to incite violence and spew hate from anywhere on the globe behind a wall of anonymity is a dangerous commodity for people to have and can cause more damage to the world then one might think. According to a study on local high school students done by the University of Clemson (Dr. Elizabeth Edgerton and Dr. Susan P. Limber, doctoral researchers at the university of Clemson): “…Forty percent of high school students report being bullied, online or in real life, at some point in their academic careers…, from that another twenty five percent said they had suicidal thoughts and fifteen percent of that group has seriously planned on taking suicidal action”. (Edgerton and Limber, 2013). Terror groups have long since used platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram to recruit members and incite violence from countries away all for their cause. Whether it be Jihadist groups bombing an oil pipeline in tel aviv and bragging about it on twitter, or right wing terrorists calling for a siege of government buildings in D.C it only takes a voice and a twitter account to cause major action to take place.

2: Computers have allowed for the creation of dangerous weapons. With the invention of 3-D printing technology you are now able to build virtually anything with enough time, materials, and a functioning computer. 3-D printing technology can fabricate almost anything from household furniture to weapons of destruction, if you can upload to a network as a blueprint then it can be created. With the ability to share these blueprints on the internet we are slowly seeing the rise of a new type of issue: unregulated weapons manufacturing. 3-D printed weapons do not have serial numbers nor are they registered usually in any capacity so using federal databases to track these weapons does not work. Couple that with the ease of access to the blue prints required to make these weapons and you have a disaster waiting to happen. A weapon Blueprint dubbed “The Liberator” was posted on February 13th 2013 and was downloaded over one hundred thousand times in a weeks time frame. This same blueprint was found to be the murder weapon of eight different suspects brought on by an individual named Cleophus Cooksey Jr.

3: Computers have provided us with access to an unfathomable amount of knowledge, information, an data. With just an internet connection and a laptop, a person is able to answer virtually any question they have, and see a picture of almost anything that exists. It is a neat culmination of humanity that on the surface is almost pure in its existence. It is not until we take a closer look at just what all one can see when surfing the web do we realize how dangerous computers are. Key-logging programs installed by hackers and even some corporations keep everything you have ever typed locked away in a digital file in some data base, in the cloud or a physical site, on some computer far away from unknown to the user most times. This means any all data you have could be floating out in the internet somewhere just a few keystrokes away from being accessed and manipulated against you online.

References: https://www.stopbullying.gov/blog/2013/02/27/research-brief-suicide-and-bullying, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/3d-printed-guns-plastic-ballistics-crime,