CSC 466 :INFORMATIONAL

TECHNOLOGY LAW AND

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS ( 2 UNITS)

1
SOCIAL CONTEXT AND
ANALYTICAL TOOLS: DR. AHAIWE

MR. IKE CONTENT: PROFESSIONAL

ETHICS.
1. COMMUNITY VALUES AND LAWS
2. ACM/IEEE-CS, IFIP AND INTERNATIONAL
SOCIETIES PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION

2
 3. CODES OF ETHICS,CONDUCT AND
PRACTICE; ACCOUNTABILITY,
RESPONSIBILTY AND LIABILITY
4. ERGONOMICS AND HEALTHY COMPUTING
ENVIRONMENTS; TIME TO MARKET AND
COST CONSIDERATION VERSUS QAULITY
PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY:
IBEGBULAM(MRS)

LECTURE NOTES…………….
Computer and Information Ethics
Introduction

In most countries of the world, the “information revolution” has altered many
aspects of life significantly: commerce, employment, medicine, security,
transportation, entertainment, and on and on. Consequently, information and
communication technology (ICT) has affected – in both good ways and bad ways
– community life, family life, human relationships, education, careers, freedom,
and democracy (to name just a few examples). “Computer and information
ethics”, in the present essay, is understood as that branch of applied ethics which
studies and analyzes such social and ethical impacts of ICT.
The more specific term “computer ethics” has been used, in the past, in several
different ways. For example, it has been used to refer to applications of

3
traditional Western ethics theories like utilitarianism, Kantianism, or virtue ethics,
to ethical cases that significantly involve computers and computer networks.
“Computer ethics” also has been used to refer to a kind of professional ethics in
which computer professionals apply codes of ethics and standards of good
practice within their profession. In addition, names such as “cyberethics” and
“Internet ethics” have been used to refer to computer ethics issues associated
with the Internet.
During the past several decades, the robust and rapidly growing field of computer
and information ethics has generated university courses, research
professorships, research centers, conferences, workshops, professional
organizations, curriculum materials, books and journals.

What are Ethics?

Ethics are a structure of standards and practices that influence how people lead
their lives. It is not strictly implemented to follow these ethics, but it is basically
for the benefit of everyone that we do.
Ethics are unlike laws that legally mandate what is right or wrong. Ethics
illustrate society’s views about what is right and what is wrong.

Computer Ethics
Computer ethics are a set of moral standards that govern the use of
computers. It is society’s views about the use of computers, both hardware and
software. Privacy concerns, intellectual property rights and effects on the society
are some of the common issues of computer ethics.

When computers first began to be used in society at large, the absence of ethical
standards about their use and related issues caused some problems. However,
as their use became widespread in every facet of our lives, discussions
in computer ethics resulted in some kind of a consensus. Today, many of these
rules have been formulated as laws, either national or international. Computer
crimes and computer fraud are now common terms. There are laws against
them, and everyone is responsible for knowing what constitutes computer crime
and computer fraud.

The Ten Commandments of computer ethics have been defined by

the Computer Ethics Institute. Here is our interpretation of them:

4
1) Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people: If it is unethical to
harm people by making a bomb, for example, it is equally bad to write a
program that handles the timing of the bomb. Or, to put it more simply, if it is
bad to steal and destroy other people’s books and notebooks, it is equally
bad to access and destroy their files.

2) Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer

work: Computer viruses are small programs that disrupt other people’s
computer work by destroying their files, taking huge amounts of computer
time or memory, or by simply displaying annoying messages. Generating and
consciously spreading computer viruses is unethical.

3) Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's files: Reading other
people’s e-mail messages is as bad as opening and reading their letters: This
is invading their privacy. Obtaining other people’s non-public files should be
judged the same way as breaking into their rooms and stealing their
documents. Text documents on the Internet may be protected by encryption.

4) Thou shalt not use a computer to steal: Using a computer to break into the
accounts of a company or a bank and transferring money should be judged
the same way as robbery. It is illegal and there are strict laws against it.

5) Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness: The Internet can
spread untruth as fast as it can spread truth. Putting out false "information" to
the world is bad. For instance, spreading false rumors about a person or false
propaganda about historical events is wrong.

6) Thou shalt not use or copy software for which you have not
paid: Software is an intellectual product. In that way, it is like a book:
Obtaining illegal copies of copyrighted software is as bad as photocopying a
copyrighted book. There are laws against both. Information about the
copyright owner can be embedded by a process called watermarking into
pictures in the digital format.

7) Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without

authorization: Multiuser systems use user id’s and passwords to enforce
their memory and time allocations, and to safeguard information. You should

5
 not try to bypass this authorization system. Hacking a system to break and
bypass the authorization is unethical.

8) Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output: For

example, the programs you write for the projects assigned in this course are
your own intellectual output. Copying somebody else’s program without
proper authorization is software piracy and is unethical. Intellectual
property is a form of ownership, and may be protected by copyright laws.

9) Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you
write: You have to think about computer issues in a more general social
framework: Can the program you write be used in a way that is harmful to
society? For example, if you are working for an animation house, and are
producing animated films for children, you are responsible for their contents.
Do the animations include scenes that can be harmful to children? In the
United States, the Communications Decency Act was an attempt by
lawmakers to ban certain types of content from Internet websites to protect
young children from harmful material. That law was struck down because it
violated the free speech principles in that country's constitution. The
discussion, of course, is going on.

10) Thou shalt use a computer in ways that show consideration and
respect: Just like public buses or banks, people using computer communications
systems may find themselves in situations where there is some form of queuing
and you have to wait for your turn and generally be nice to other people in the
environment. The fact that you cannot see the people you are interacting with
does not mean that you can be rude to them.

Privacy Concerns

 Hacking – is unlawful intrusion into a computer or a network. A hacker can

intrude through the security levels of a computer system or network and
can acquire unauthorised access to other computers.
 Malware – means malicious software which is created to impair a
computer system. Common malware are viruses, spyware, worms and
trojan horses. A virus can delete files from a hard drive while a spyware
can collect data from a computer.
 Data Protection – also known as information privacy or data privacy is the
process of safeguarding data which intends to influence a balance
between individual privacy rights while still authorising data to be used for
business purposes.

6
  Anonymity – is a way of keeping a user’s identity masked through various
applications.

Intellectual Property Rights

 Copyright – is a form of intellectual property that gives proprietary

publication, distribution and usage rights for the author. This means that
whatever idea the author created cannot be employed or disseminated by
anyone else without the permission of the author.
 Plagiarism – is an act of copying and publishing another person’s work
without proper citation. It’s like stealing someone else’s work and releasing
it as your own work.
 Cracking – is a way of breaking into a system by getting past the security
features of the system. It’s a way of skipping the registration and
authentication steps when installing software.
 Software License – allows the use of digital material by following the
license agreement. Ownership remains with the original copyright owner,
users are just granted licenses to use the material based on the
agreement.

Effects on Society

 Jobs – Some jobs have been abolished while some jobs have become
simpler as computers have taken over companies and businesses. Things
can now be done in just one click whereas before it takes multiple steps to
perform a task. This change may be considered unethical as it limits the
skills of the employees.
 There are also ethical concerns on health and safety of employees
getting sick from constant sitting, staring at computer screens and
typing on the keyboard or clicking on the mouse.
 Environmental Impact – Environment has been affected by computers
and the internet since so much time spent using computers increases
energy usage which in turn increases the emission of greenhouse gases.
 There are ways where we can save energy like limiting computer time
and turning off the computer or putting on sleep mode when not in use.
Buying energy efficient computers with Energy Star label can also help
save the environment.
 Social Impact – Computers and the internet help people stay in touch with
family and friends. Social media has been very popular nowadays.
 Computer gaming influenced society both positively and negatively.
Positive effects are improved hand-eye coordination, stress relief and

7
 improved strategic thinking. Negative effects are addiction of gamers,
isolation from the real world and exposure to violence.
 Computer technology helps the government in improving services to its
citizens. Advanced database can hold huge data being collected and
analysed by the government.
 Computer technology aids businesses by automating processes,
reports and analysis

An influential computer ethics theory

The year 1985 was a “watershed year” in the history of computer ethics, not only
because of the appearance of Johnson’s agenda-setting textbook, but also
because James Moor’s classic paper, “What Is Computer Ethics?” was published
in a special computer-ethics issue of the journalMetaphilosophy. There Moor
provided an account of the nature of computer ethics that was broader and more
ambitious than the definitions of Maner or Johnson. He went beyond descriptions
and examples of computer ethics problems by offering an explanation
of why computing technology raises so many ethical questions compared to
other kinds of technology. Moor’s explanation of the revolutionary power of
computer technology was that computers are “logically malleable”:
Computers are logically malleable in that they can be shaped and molded to do
any activity that can be characterized in terms of inputs, outputs and connecting
logical operations … . Because logic applies everywhere, the potential
applications of computer technology appear limitless. The computer is the
nearest thing we have to a universal tool. Indeed, the limits of computers are
largely the limits of our own creativity.

The logical malleability of computer technology, said Moor, makes it possible for
people to do a vast number of things that they were not able to do before. Since
no one could do them before, the question may never have arisen as to whether
one ought to do them. In addition, because they could not be done before,
perhaps no laws or standards of good practice or specific ethical rules had ever
been established to govern them. Moor called such situations “policy vacuums”,
and some of those vacuums might generate “conceptual muddles”:
A typical problem in computer ethics arises because there is a policy vacuum
about how computer technology should be used. Computers provide us with new
capabilities and these in turn give us new choices for action. Often, either no
policies for conduct in these situations exist or existing policies seem inadequate.
A central task of computer ethics is to determine what we should do in such
8
cases, that is, formulate policies to guide our actions … . One difficulty is that
along with a policy vacuum there is often a conceptual vacuum. Although a
problem in computer ethics may seem clear initially, a little reflection reveals a
conceptual muddle. What is needed in such cases is an analysis that provides a
coherent conceptual framework within which to formulate a policy for action.

In the late 1980s, Moor’s “policy vacuum” explanation of the need for computer
ethics and his account of the revolutionary “logical malleability” of computer
technology quickly became very influential among a growing number of computer
ethics scholars. He added additional ideas in the 1990s, including the important
notion of core human values: According to Moor, some human values – such
as life, health, happiness, security, resources, opportunities, and knowledge –
are so important to the continued survival of any community that essentially all
communities do value them. Indeed, if a community did not value the “core
values”, it soon would cease to exist. Moor used “core values” to examine
computer ethics topics like privacy and security (Moor 1997), and to add an
account of justice, which he called “just consequentialism” (Moor, 1999), a theory
that combines “core values” and consequentialism with Bernard Gert’s
deontological notion of “moral impartiality” using “the blindfold of justice”
Moor’s approach to computer ethics is a practical theory that provides a broad
perspective on the nature of the “information revolution”. By using the notions of
“logical malleability”, “policy vacuums”, “conceptual muddles”, “core values” and
“just consequentialism”, he provides the following problem-solving method:

1. Identify a policy vacuum generated by computing technology.

2. Eliminate any conceptual muddles.
3. Use the core values and the ethical resources of just consequentialism to
revise existing – but inadequate – policies, or else to create new policies
that justly eliminate the vacuum and resolve the original ethical issue.
The third step is accomplished by combining deontology and consequentialism –
which traditionally have been considered incompatible rival ethics theories – to
achieve the following practical results:
If the blindfold of justice is applied to [suggested] computing policies, some
policies will be regarded as unjust by all rational, impartial people, some policies
will be regarded as just by all rational, impartial people, and some will be in
dispute. This approach is good enough to provide just constraints on
consequentialism. We first require that all computing policies pass the impartiality
test. Clearly, our computing policies should not be among those that every
rational, impartial person would regard as unjust. Then we can further select

9
policies by looking at their beneficial consequences. We are not ethically required
to select policies with the best possible outcomes, but we can assess the merits
of the various policies using consequentialist considerations and we may select
very good ones from those that are just. (Moor, 1999, 68)

2.4 Computing and human values

Beginning with the computer ethics works of Norbert Wiener (1948, 1950, and
1963), a common thread has run through much of the history of computer ethics;
namely, concern for protecting and advancing central human values, such a life,
health, security, happiness, freedom, knowledge, resources, power and
opportunity. Thus, most of the specific issues that Wiener dealt with are cases of
defending or advancing such values. For example, by working to prevent
massive unemployment caused by robotic factories, Wiener tried to preserve
security, resources and opportunities for factory workers. Similarly, by arguing
against the use of decision-making war-game machines, Wiener tried to diminish
threats to security and peace.
This “human-values approach” to computer ethics has been very fruitful. It has
served, for example, as an organizing theme for major computer-ethics
conferences, such as the 1991 National Conference on Computing and Values at
Southern Connecticut State University (see the section below on “exponential
growth”), which was devoted to the impacts of computing upon security, property,
privacy, knowledge, freedom and opportunities. In the late 1990s, a similar
approach to computer ethics, called “value-sensitive computer design”, emerged
based upon the insight that potential computer-ethics problems can be avoided,
while new technology is under development, by anticipating possible harm to
human values and designing new technology from the very beginning in ways
that prevent such harm. (See, for example, Brey, 2001, 2012; Friedman, 1997;
Friedman and Nissenbaum, 1996; Introna, 2005a; Introna and Nissenbaum,
2000; Flanagan, et al., 2008.)

Professional ethics and computer ethics

In the early 1990s, a different emphasis within computer ethics was advocated by
Donald Gotterbarn. He believed that computer ethics should be seen as
a professional ethics devoted to the development and advancement of standards
of good practice and codes of conduct for computing professionals. Thus, in
1991, in the article “Computer Ethics: Responsibility Regained”, Gotterbarn said:
There is little attention paid to the domain of professional ethics – the values that
guide the day-to-day activities of computing professionals in their role as
professionals. By computing professional I mean anyone involved in the design

10
and development of computer artifacts. … The ethical decisions made during the
development of these artifacts have a direct relationship to many of the issues
discussed under the broader concept of computer ethics. (Gotterbarn, 1991)

Throughout the 1990s, with this aspect of computer ethics in mind, Gotterbarn
worked with other professional-ethics advocates (for example, Keith Miller,
Dianne Martin, Chuck Huff and Simon Rogerson) in a variety of projects to
advance professional responsibility among computer practitioners. Even before
1991, Gotterbarn had been part of a committee of the ACM (Association for
Computing Machinery) to create the third version of that organization’s “Code of
Ethics and Professional Conduct” (adopted by the ACM in 1992, see Anderson,
et al., and 1993). Later, Gotterbarn and colleagues in the ACM and the Computer
Society of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) developed
licensing standards for software engineers. In addition, Gotterbarn headed a joint
taskforce of the IEEE and ACM to create the “Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice” (adopted by those organizations in 1999; see
Gotterbarn, Miller and Rogerson, 1997).
In the late 1990s, Gotterbarn created the Software Engineering Ethics Research
Institute (SEERI) at East Tennessee State University; and in the early 2000s,
together with Simon Rogerson, he developed a computer program called SoDIS
(Software Development Impact Statements) to assist individuals, companies and
organizations in the preparation of ethical “stakeholder analyses” for determining
likely ethical impacts of software development projects (Gotterbarn and
Rogerson, 2005). These and many other projects focused attention
upon professional responsibility and advanced the professionalization and ethical
maturation of computing practitioners. (See the bibliography below for works by
R. Anderson, D. Gotterbarn, C. Huff, C. D. Martin, K. Miller, and S. Rogerson.)
Globalization
In 1995, in her ETHICOMP95 presentation “The Computer Revolution and the
Problem of Global Ethics”, Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska, made a startling
prediction (see Górniak, 1996). She argued that computer ethics eventually will
evolve into a global ethic applicable in every culture on earth. According to this
“Górniak hypothesis”, regional ethical theories like Europe’s Benthamite and
Kantian systems, as well as the diverse ethical systems embedded in other
cultures of the world, all derive from “local” histories and customs and are
unlikely to be applicable world-wide. Computer and information ethics, on the
other hand, Górniak argued, has the potential to provide a global ethic suitable
for the Information Age:

 a new ethical theory is likely to emerge from computer ethics in response

to the computer revolution. The newly emerging field of information ethics,

11
 therefore, is much more important than even its founders and advocates
believe. (p. 177)
 The very nature of the Computer Revolution indicates that the ethic of the
future will have a global character. It will be global in a spatial sense, since
it will encompass the entire globe. It will also be global in the sense that it
will address the totality of human actions and relations. (p.179)
 Computers do not know borders. Computer networks … have a truly global
character. Hence, when we are talking about computer ethics, we are
talking about the emerging global ethic. (p. 186)
 the rules of computer ethics, no matter how well thought through, will be
ineffective unless respected by the vast majority of or maybe even all
computer users. … In other words, computer ethics will become universal,
it will be a global ethic. (p.187)
The provocative “Górniak hypothesis” was a significant contribution to the
ongoing “uniqueness debate”, and it reinforced Maner’s claim – which he made
at the same ETHICOMP95 conference in his keynote address – that information
technology “forces us to discover new moral values, formulate new moral
principles, develop new policies, and find new ways to think about the issues
presented to us.” (Maner 1996, p. 152) Górniak did not speculate about the
globally relevant concepts and principles that would evolve from information
ethics. She merely predicted that such a theory would emerge over time because
of the global nature of the Internet and the resulting ethics conversation among
all the cultures of the world.
Górniak may well be right. Computer ethics today appears to be evolving into a
broader and even more important field, which might reasonably be called “global
information ethics”. Global networks, especially the Internet, are connecting
people all over the earth. For the first time in history, efforts to develop mutually
agreed standards of conduct, and efforts to advance and defend human values,
are being made in a truly global context. So, for the first time in the history of the
earth, ethics and values will be debated and transformed in a context that is not
limited to a particular geographic region, or constrained by a specific religion or
culture. This could be one of the most important social developments in history
(Bynum 2006; Floridi 2014). Consider just a few of the global issues:
3.1 Global laws
If computer users in the United States, for example, wish to protect their freedom
of speech on the Internet, whose laws apply? Two hundred or more countries are
interconnected by the Internet, so the United States Constitution (with its First
Amendment protection of freedom of speech) is just a “local law” on the Internet
– it does not apply to the rest of the world. How can issues like freedom of
speech, control of “pornography”, protection of intellectual property, invasions of
12
privacy, and many others to be governed by law when so many countries are
involved? (Lessig 2004) If a citizen in a European country, for example, has
Internet dealings with someone in a far-away land, and the government of that
country considers those dealings to be illegal, can the European be tried by
courts in the far-away country?

13