ics 5 computer ethics reviewer

8/13/2019 ICS 5 Computer Ethics Reviewer

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ICS 5 Computer Ethics

Chapter 1

Ethics in a Computing Culture

No harm, no foul: principle that states it is wrong to punish someone for a simple mistake whenno actual harm has been done.

Ethics: a set of morally permissible standards for a group Morality: the set of standards everyone wants everyone else to follow Standards of morality are similar to standards of language: Rules regarding human

behavior are complex and have many exceptions.

Moral Theory

The basic equation for defining morality: How do I know that X is good? Why is X good?

An action might be unethical, yet remain morally permissible.

Religious ethics: doing the right thing usually is achieved by obeying the dictates of onesreligion

Divine Command Theory: God, and only God, decrees what is right and what is wrong Can a person who is not religious act morally?

Cultural Relativism: there is no valid, rational criterion for determining if the right thing to doexists

members of one culture should not judge or be judged by a different culture Virtue Theory: concerns the nature of virtue and what it means to have virtue Ideal Man: one who possesses the characteristics of a good person (virtues), including courage,

friendliness, and modesty

represent s the half-way point between risk and generosity Righteous Indignation:the anger we feel at someones undeserved good or bad fortune

Dolores deserves to get the ticket because she broke the law, and her behaviorendangered others

Virtue Ethics: agent-centered as opposed to action-centeredUtilitarianism & Consequentialism


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Consequentialism: the consequence of an action, not the motivation behind the action, makesan action good or bad

Utilitarianism:an action is good if it causes more happiness than a potential, alternativedecision

Utilitarianism

Act Utilitarianism: the concept of performing an action that maximizes happiness Rule Utilitarianism: the concept of adopting a set of rules, and only violating them in the case

where compelling evidence indicates that utility is increased by such a violation

Deontological Ethics

Deontological ethics theoriesdiffer from consequentialist theories the intention behind the action is considered more important than the end result focuses on rights, duties, obligations, and rules assumes that the result will end badly if these rules are not met

Contractarianism

State of Nature:supports the idea that people are rational beings who seek to promote thecommon interests of society in order to promote their own self-interests

Prisoners Dilemma: a scenario in which two people are offered a choicecooperate or defectEthics of Justice

Impartiality: the quality that every person is treated equally and no one is given preferentialtreatment in the theory

Rawlss Theory of Justice: explores the basic rules that are necessary to ensure fairness insociety as a whole

argues that the principles of justice as fairness underlie all just societies According to Rawls Theory of Justice, in order for a society to be just:

Everyone has as much freedom as possible. Everyone has an equal opportunity to reach desirable positions in society. All socio-economic differences are of the most benefit to the least advantaged.

Difference Principle: social and economic inequalities are justified only if such inequalitiesprovide the greatest benefit to the least advantaged

Explains why impartiality is not always desirable.Ethics of Caring


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Nel Noddings: morality boils down to a single virtue, which is caring for other individuals Ethics of Caring: defines goodness in terms of whether or not we take care of the people around

us

Noddings: the only inherent good is caring Kant: the only inherent good is good will Utilitarians: the only inherent good is happiness

Because it is possible to care for everyone, impartialityis rejected. It is only necessary to care for those with whom one shares a relationship. There is no universal way to externally judge whether an action is morally right or

wrong.

The judgment varies on the relationship between the one-caring individual andthe person being cared for.

Ethics of Reasoning

Pure Reason: deductive reasoning on which Euclidean geometry is based; its purpose is toestablish the truth

issues are straightforward Practical Reason: the reasoning used to make decisions issues are complex used to resolve ethical issues

Deliberative Critical Discussion: a conversation in which the participants consider the partnersin the discussion are well-intended and informed; with this understanding, participants bring

their knowledge to the discussion to share their own opinions and develop more refined

perspectives.

Avoid:

- charged language

- hyperbole

- Ad hominem

Chapter 2

Ethics in a Computing Culture

Technological Associations

Association for Computing Machinery: The worlds first scientific and educational computingsociety


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Founded in 1947 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers: a non-profit professional association dedicated

to advancing technological innovation and excellence

Why We Care about Professional Standards of Computing

The privacy, safety, and well-being of the general public often depends on computer software Therac-25 radiation machine for breast cancer treatment Braking software in the 2010 Toyota Prius

Defining Profession

According to Michael Bayles, a professional: requires extensive training involves significant intellectual effort provides an important service to society often requires certification or licensing often has an organization of members often is autonomous in ones work

No single definition of profession is accepted by everyone Does having a license turn you into a professional?

In the US, you need a license to practice medicine or law.

You also need a license to be an airline pilot, a plumber, or a liquor vendor. Unless you practice in Texas, you do not need a license to be a software engineer.

Good Works Project

Good Works Project: A research project conducted at Harvard Graduate School of Education toexamine how young people deal with ethical problems in their professions

defines a professionas any career in which the worker is awarded a degree ofautonomy in return for services to the public that are performed at a high level

Kultgens Attributes of Professions

John Kultgen: professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia, who presents twenty attributescompiled by sociologist Geoffrey Millerson from twenty-one scholars of sociology as necessary

for

a vocation to be considered a profession


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A profession: involves a skill based on a theoretical foundation requires extensive education requires passing an exam is organized and represented by one or more professional organizations adheres to a code of conduct provides altruistic service requires members to assume responsibility for the affairs of others

Core characteristics of a profession: is indispensable for the public good members are licensed so their work is sanctioned by the community Members are independent practitioners, serving individual clients Members do their best to serve their clients impartially without regard to any special

relationship

Members are compensated by fees of fixed charges Additional characteristics of a profession:

Members are highly loyal to their colleagues

Members regularly contribute to professional development

Members prestige is based on guaranteed service Members use individual judgment in applying their profession The work is not manual Profits do not depend on capital Professional status is widely recognized

A Moral Basis for Professions

According to Michael Davis, a profession: is a number of individuals in the same occupation voluntarily organized to earn a living

by openly serving a certain moral ideal in a morally permissible way beyond what law,

market, and morality would otherwise require.

According to Davis, a professional puts profession first


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Chapter 3

Privacy

Theories and Conceptions of Privacy

right to be let alone:a conception of privacy that focuses on the grievance felt by the harmedparty and on actions that directly make them feel harassed, embarrassed, or exposed

Soloves Taxonomy of Privacy Problems

top-down:starting with a single clear definition, and then discovering that not all privacyproblems are covered by the definition

bottom-up:starting with a list of the common kinds of privacy problems and building adefinition up

PleaseRobMe: a Web site that allowed users to find houses where the owners were away fromhome

Aggregated social networking status updates (such as Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, andFacebook) and home address information

The information PleaseRobMe gathered was already freely available on the InternetMulticultural Perspectives

Libel:publishing or broadcasting false statements about another person, usually with the intentof harming the other persons reputation

Interdisciplinary Topic: Panopticism

Michel Foucault:Essay Panopticism, (1979) explores the influence of persistent surveillanceon society, comparing modern society to the modern prison

Chapter 4

Intellectual and Intangible Property

Copyright

Copyright: the main mechanism for protecting creative works such as art, music, and writing inthe US

protects original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression inthe areas of literature, music, drama, pantomime, graphic art, sculpture, motion

pictures, sound recordings, and architecture

Does NOT protect ideas, facts, or common knowledge Does NOT protect creative works until they appear in a tangible fixed form

Author: term used for all creators (including artists, choreographers, architects, etc.) in the US


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Authors works are automatically protected by copyright as soon as they take on atangible form

Under U.S. law, the default length of a copyright is the lifetime of the author plus 70years after the authors death

US copyright gives authors the right to: reproduce the copyrighted work prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work distribute copies of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of

ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending

perform or display the copyrighted work publiclyFair Use

According to US Code, the fair use of a copyrighted workfor purposes such as criticism,comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, orresearch, is not an infringement of copyright.

Law specifies four factors that should be considered when a court or other arbitrator evaluatesif something is fair use:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercialnature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

the nature of the copyrighted work the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as

a whole

the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted workDoctrine of First Sale

Doctrine of first sale: states authors are not entitled to a second royaltyEroding Fair Use and First Sale

Digital rights management (DRM): a collection of technologies that work together to ensurethat copyrighted content can be only viewed by the person who purchased it

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): law passed by US Congress in 1998 to deal withmodern copyright issues

Anticircumvention clause: No person shall circumvent a technological measure thateffectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

Peer to Peer Sharing and Searching


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Contributory infringement: occurs when an infringement committed by another person wouldnot have happened without your help

Vicarious infringement: involves an infringement that occurs in an area under your supervision,and when you should have been policing and preventing such acts

Patent Law

Invention: any new and useful process, machine, [article of] manufacture, or composition ofmatter, or any new and useful improvement thereof

Distinct from an artistic or creative work Protected by patents

United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO): verify inventions are patentable and meettwo criteria:

Novelty: An invention is novel only if it has not previously been invented by someoneelse

Nonobviousness: A solution to a problem that is obvious to another specialist in theappropriate area cannot be patented

Trademark

Trademark: a legally registered word, phrase, symbol, or other item that identifies a particularproduct, service, or corporation

to register a trademark, you must already be using it to represent a product or service,and and your mark must not be easily confused with a competing products trademark

trademark lasts ten years but can be renewed indefinitely Trade dress: involves the look and feel of a product or its packaging The Nintendo Wii has a recognizable design and trade dress. Immediately after its release, a

variety of companies started releasing knock-off game systems that looked like the Wii and had

a similar price.

Virtual Goods

Virtual goods: items that rely on some online system for their existence

Must be rivalrous, nontangible, and not services

Terms of service (TOS): a set of terms and conditoins you must agree to in order to join a virtualworld

DeCSS: a program that removes the copy protection from DVDs Eric Corley: went to prison for trafficking in circumvention devices for sharing DeCSS

through his Web site


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Internet activists came up with innovative ways to spread the DeCSS programwithout directly placing it on the Web, including selling the code on T-shirts,

embedding it into paintings, or using it as the lyrics for a song

One argument against Corleys conviction was that the DRM that DeCSS was designed tocounteract is too simple to count as a true DRM system

Chapter 5

Trust, Safety, and Reliability

Causes of Computer Failure

A computer might fail to meet expectations by: Hardware errors (malfunction) Software errors (bugs) Being programmed to solve the wrong problem (programmers fail to deliver clientexpectations) Misuse (a computer is provided erroneous data) Communication failure (human misunderstands a computer prompt) Malice (hackers)

Bugs and Public Safety

Safety-critical software: software that may affect someones safety if it fails to work properly Decision point: a place in computer code where the next instruction executed depends on input

data

Control programs: programs that control some sort of machinery Real time: a program must do something within a specific amount of time Multiprocess: programs that execute at the same time as one or more other programs Brookss Law: Adding people to a late project makes it later.

Adding new people adds new lines of communication, which increase the chances ofmiscommunication or missed communication

Case: Therac-25

Therac-25: machine designed for cancer treatments radiation overdose occurred at the Kennestone Oncology Center in Marietta, Georgia in

1985

Less than 2 months later, a woman received a severe radiation burn to her hip from aTherac-25 machine


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Douglas Birsch: applied ethicist who argues that both the programmer who designedTheracs software and the companys quality assurance officer bear significant moral

responsibility for the accidents

Malware

Malware: short for malicious software Hackers: people who write and deploy malware Worm:program that makes copies of itself and propagates those copies through a network to

infect other computers

Virus:similar to a worm, but resides in another program program that must execute in order forthe virus to propagate

Spyware: program that is secretly installed for the purpose of collecting information about thecomputers user or users

Trojan horse: software that masquerades as an innocent or useful program, but that is actuallydesigned for a malicious purpose

Rootkit: program that embeds itself into a computers operating system and acquires specialprivileges that would normally be available to the operating system

Stuxnet Worm

Stuxnet: a computer worm that has significantly set back the Iranian nuclear developmentprogram

extremely sophisticated software, speculated to have been created by the CIA and theIsraeli government

Nuclear Shutdown System

Darlington Nuclear Generating Station: the first Canadian nuclear station to use computers torun the emergency shutdown systems for its reactors

written by nuclear engineers who knew how to program, that is, written by experts inthe domain of the application for which the program was intended

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