The modern computer's role as a serendipity machine--a catalyst for new and surprising discoveries--and its awesome social ramifications are identified and discussed along with the relationship between personal privacy and computer technology since the advent of the Internet. This examination of cutting-edge information technologies attempts to ward off the dangers inherent in the increasingly public nature of modern digitized life, enumerating such technologies as data mining, evolutionary computing, personal agent technologies, and the virtual community, and exploring ways to use these techniques to counter the menace of computer technology being exploited by individuals with bad intentions. In addition, the consequences and benefits of applied computing in fields such as biotechnology, environmental management, and electronic commerce are explored.