computers are no exception. But digital computers have rendered society especially vulnerable to hard ware and software malfunctions. Sometimes industrial robots go berserk, while heart
pacemakers and automatic garage door openers are rendered useless by electromagnetic radiation or Automated teller machines (ATMs), pumps at gas stations, and fast-food outlet terminals are closed down because of unforeseen software snafus.
这所有停工期的费用是巨大的，例如，据报道，英国商业每年约遭受30起大灾难，损失达几百万英镑。这些是由机器或人为的失误引起的，还不包括以骗局和破坏形式进行的人为滥用引起的(1986年11月10日《卫报》)。单英国国内制作的软件，其故障引起的费用，保守估计大约每年9亿美元（1988年6月13日《电子工程时报》）。1989年，英国电脑协会委员会报道说，现在许多软件都太复杂，以致现有的安全估计技能还不充分，因此，人们的安全也得不
到保障（1989年2月21日《澳大利亚报》)。20. The cost of all this downtime is huge. For example, it has been reported that British businesses suffer around thirty major mishaps a year, involving losses running into millions of pounds. These are caused by machine or human error and do not include human misuse in the form of fraud and sabotage (The Guardian, 10 November 1986). The cost of failures in domestically produced software in the United Kingdom alone is conservatively estimated at $900 million per year (Electronics Engineering Times, 13 June 1988). In 1989, a British Computer Society committee reported that much software was now so complex that current skills in safety assessment were inadequate and that therefore the safety of people could not be guaranteed (The Australian, 21 February 1989).
电脑系统也易遭受火灾、水灾、地震、断电，以及外来黑客和内部雇员破坏的影响。例如，1986年在芝加哥，《大英百科全书》编辑部一位心怀不满的雇员因被辞退而恼怒万分。他敲键进入百科全书的资料库，对其内容进行了一些更改，而这些资料原是这部有名的著作的新版内容--例如，他在引言中把耶稣基督和安拉互换一下，又把公司高级职员的名字插到奇怪的地方。正如一位高级职员这样评价：在电脑时代，我们所拥有的恶梦就在于此。（1986年9月5日《圣何塞导信新闻周刊》）。21. Computer systems are also vulnerable to fires, floods, earthquakes, and power outages, as well as attacks from outside hackers and sabotage from inside employees. For example, in Chicago in 1986, a disgruntled employee at Encyclopedia Britannica, angry at having been laid off, merely tapped into the encyclopedia\'s data base and made a few alterations to the text being prepared for a new edition of the renowned work - like interchanging Jesus Christ and Allah in references and inserting the names of company executives in odd places. As one executive commented, about.一年后，另一个破坏者关闭了整个全国证券协会的自动报价系统。这位破坏者是个爱冒险的怪人，他在康涅迪格州的特朗布尔，即全国证券交易商协会自动报价表的主控电脑所在地，造成了短路(1987年11月10日《纽约时报》)。同时，1986年，丹麦600名电脑人员的罢工使该国政府处于瘫痪达4个月之久，造成了执政党宣布提前举行大选。1987年，一位澳大利亚破坏者小心翼翼地切断了悉尼隧道中24条电缆，使3.5万个电话、传真、销售线路处于瘫痪，让40个郊区的几百个商店停业了48个小时（1987年11月23日《澳大利亚报》）。22. A year later, another saboteur shut down the entire National Association of Securities\'
automated quotation system. The saboteur in question was an adventurous squirrel, which had caused a short circuit in Trumbull, Connecticut, where NASDAQ\'s main computer is situated (New York Times, 10 December 1987). Meanwhile, over in Denmark, a strike by 600 computer personnel paralyzed that country\'s government for four months in 1986, causing the ruling party to call an early general election. In 1987, an Australian saboteur carefully severed 24 cables in a Sydney tunnel and knocked out 35,000 telephone, fax, and point-of-sale lines, putting hundreds of businesses in 40 suburbs out of action for up to 48 hours (The Australian, 23 November 1987). 电脑影响了我们的日常行为，造成了一系列新的社会问题，给我们大家带来了道德困惑。同时，总的来说，社会变得越来越易受技术故障的影响，因为电脑常不可靠，不可预测，不安全和无法控制。想到我们的学校和学院正帮助学生更加意识到这一点，而不是不加批判地、一头冲进模糊的、欠考虑的高科技未来，还是令人感到欣慰的。
23. Computers have affected our everyday behavior and have created a new range of social issues that pose ethical dilemmas for all of us. At the same time, society as a whole has become more vulnerable to technological failure because computers are often unreliable, unpredictable, insecure, and unmanageable. It would be nice to think that our schools and colleges are helping make